“President Obama has laid out a new era for American energy—an economy fueled by homegrown and alternative energy sources that will be designed and produced by American workers,” said Vilsack. “These programs support that vision by helping biorefineries use renewable biomass as a replacement fuel source for fossil fuels and supporting advanced biofuel producers as they expand production.”

The Repowering Assistance Program provides approximately $25 million in funding to biorefineries that have been in existence on or before June 18, 2008. The purpose of the program is to provide a financial incentive to biorefineries to use renewable biomass in place of fossil fuels used to produce heat or power. By providing this assistance, USDA is helping these facilities install new systems that use renewable biomass.

The amount of the payment will be based on (1) the cost effectiveness of the renewable biomass system; and (2) the percentage reduction in fossil fuels used by that biorefinery. The maximum amount an individual biorefinery can receive under the Notice is 50 percent of total eligible project costs up to a maximum of $10 million.

Eligible costs must be related to construction or repowering improvements, such as engineering design, equipment installation and professional fees. The application deadline for this program to receive funds for Fiscal Year 2012 is June 1, 2012. For additional details, please see pages 5232 through 5234 of the February 2, 2012, Federal Register, or go to http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-02-02/pdf/2012-2244.pdf.

USDA also announced the availability of up to $25 million to make payments to advanced biofuels producers who expect to produce eligible advanced biofuels at any time during Fiscal Year 2012. To be eligible for these funds, an advanced biofuels producers must have enrolled in the program by October 31, 2011, even if the producer has an existing contract with the Agency.

Payments will be made to producers of advanced biofuels derived from renewable biomass, other than corn kernel starch. These include cellulose, sugar and starch, crop residue, vegetative waste material, animal waste, food and yard waste, vegetable oil, animal fat, and biogas.

Contract payments will be made quarterly. For additional details, please see pages 5229 through 5232 of the February 2, 2012, Federal Register, or go to http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-02-02/pdf/2012-2240.pdf.

Both of the programs referenced in the Federal Register are important parts of achieving the Obama Administration goal to increase biofuels production and use.

The Obama Administration is working to promote domestic production of renewable energy to create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, reduce emissions, and build a stronger rural economy. Today, Americans import just over half of our transportation fuels – down from 60 percent when President Obama took office – but we can do more to meet the President’s goal of reducing our net fuel imports by one-third by 2025. At Secretary Vilsack’s direction, USDA is working to develop the national biofuels industry by producing energy from non-food sources in every region of the country. We are conducting and encouraging research into innovative new energy technologies and processes, helping companies build biorefineries – including the first ever commercial-scale cellulosic biofuel facilities – and supporting farmers, ranchers, and businesses taking risks to pursue new opportunities in biofuels. Along with Federal partners, we’re establishing an aviation biofuels economy, and have expedited rules and efforts to promote production and commercialization of biofuels.

USDA, through its Rural Development mission area, administers and manages housing, business and community infrastructure and facility programs through a national network of state and local offices. Rural Development has an active portfolio of more than $165 billion in affordable loans and loan guarantees. These programs are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America.  READ MORE

…Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., was the only committee member to devote a notable amount of her allotted speaking time to the role of biofuels in the domestic energy outlook for the coming years. She questioned witnesses specifically on drop-in fuels and their potential role in the U.S. energy supply. READ MORE

One of the points made in the six-page paper emerging from those efforts is that although those in support of the ILUC factor have argued higher demand for corn for ethanol production stimulates land conversion, it may be based on a faulty assumption. “Although the connection between price signals and reduced land conversion isn’t often part of the ILUC conversation, the implicit assumption is that low prices will help stem land conversion,” the paper states. “High prices stimulate agricultural expansion, but there is evidence that low commodity prices can do the same. Low prices can encourage producers to plant more to make up for lost volume, and have led many developing nations to decrease investments in agriculture that could lead to sustainability and food sovereignty improvements. Low prices have instead encouraged many countries to create food systems based on cheap imports.”  READ MORE and MORE (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy)  Download study

Excerpt from study:  Instead, the prioritization of maximized production of commodities for international trade (with no regard to agriculture’s other functions) has brought heightened pressures on finite land resources that do get transmitted from one part of the global economy to another. And with this recipe for market failure, Wall Street has convinced policymakers to further financialize agricultural commodities (creating massive index funds that treat commodity futures contracts like a Vegas casino), which divorces prices on global markets from any relevance to actual fundamentals of supply and demand. This system creates artificial scarcity in some places and waste in others, and pits different values, such as fuel and food production, against each other instead of seeking to optimize agriculture’s multiple functions.  READ MORE

On January 30, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry,announced the hearing schedule for the 2012 Farm Bill reauthorization. Energy and rural development will be the topics for the first hearing on February 15. Conservation programs will be discussed on February 29.  READ MORE

“This was a great starting point as a concrete forum to look at how we begin to move forward towards workable solutions that will require cooperation from many public and private interests to be able to move from the field to the filling station in the future,” he said.

Senator Coons listed the advantages that investment in biofuels could have for the US, such as job creation, economic development in rural areas and employment in all different types of sectors from growing the biomass to distributing the fuel.  READ MORE

Mexicali Valley, Mexico and Los Angeles, CA February 3, 2012 – Algae producer Aquaviridis and OriginOil, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough technology to extract oil from algae and an emerging leader in the global algae oil services industry, today announced that Aquaviridis has signed a commercial agreement with OriginOil to help develop the multi-phase algae production rollout at its Mexicali, Mexico site, a potential model for algae sites throughout the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) region, with a focus on desert areas of the American Southwest and Mexico.

OriginOil will provide its expertise to help develop growth and harvesting solutions and implement appropriate OriginOil technologies. The facility will also serve as a test bed for OriginOil innovations.

In announcing the agreement, Aquaviridis president Thomas Byrne stated, “After evaluating OriginOil’s portfolio, our technical team felt that OriginOil had some novel, scalable, and potentially game-changing technologies for algae harvesting and growth enhancement. We are excited about the opportunity to work closely with them as a partner during our research and planning stage. Having the right partners and technologies is critical, as our expectation is to have this facility in revenue this year.”

Aquaviridis is backed by private sector funding, with plans to immediately scale up from research and development to ten acres of pilot algae production by the middle of this year. Commercial scale production capacity is expected by the second quarter of 2013.  Aquaviridis selected the Mexicali Valley as a strategic location due to favorable growing conditions, strong local and governmental support, and available sources of carbon dioxide.

OriginOil’s vice president of marketing, Ken Reynolds added, “The Mexicali Valley is a great place to develop an algae industry, given its climate and access to industry research and resources throughout North America. With the U.S. as a neighboring market for high value exports, Mexico is in an excellent position to take the lead in areas such as research and production of algae for nutritional products, animal feed, and oil for biofuels, which would create long-term regional economic growth and job production.”  READ MORE

The CLEAN DEFENSE SUMMIT will provide the latest details on multi-billion-dollar opportunities in clean defense from top Pentagon officials, local military base commanders, procurement and acquisitions officials, and other key decision-makers. The SUMMIT will feature a variety of settings to introduce you to key decision-makers. These include multiple General Sessions; a Clean Defense Exhibition; excellent networking opportunities; and a Clean Defense Leadership Roundtable.  READ MORE

The study provides an overview of Germany’s biofuel market and discusses current trends and developments in German biofuel support schemes. A number of issues linked to the use of blending mandates and other biofuel support measures are investigated and, where possible, an estimate of the potential costs provided. Areas examined in the study include:

• The cost-competitiveness of biofuels: production costs for biofuels are generally higher than the production costs of fossil fuels they are supposed to replace
• The monitoring costs incurred by government agencies and ministries for biofuel policies.
• The cost of subsidies to farmers growing biofuel feedstocks provided under the Single Payment Scheme (SPS)
• The costs of implementing sustainability criteria: expenses associated with producing sustainable biofuels and through the use of sustainable certification schemes
• Funding for research and development projects supporting the biofuel sector
• The additional costs to service station operators, fuel retailers and the mineral oil industry, of using blended fuels, drawing on the introduction of E10 in Germany as an illustrative example.  READ MORE    Download Study

This study examines the potential fiscal burden on the U.K. government and the additional costs imposed on consumers and other sections of the economy if the U.K.’s blending mandate of 4 or 5 per cent (in 2011/12) was increased to 10 per cent or 15 per cent in order to satisfy the EU’s renewable transport target. A number of important areas listed below were investigated and, where possible, an estimate of the potential costs provided.

• The evolution of the U.K.’s biofuels industry and its current and planned production capacity
• Support programs to develop advanced biofuels for the transport sector
• Agricultural subsidies provided to the producers of biofeedstocks under the CAPs Single Payment Scheme
• Government agency costs for administering the U.K.’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO)
• Changes in tax revenues if the U.K. government reintroduced tax exemptions in order to reduce the price of biofuels in relation to fossil fuels
• Handling expenses met by fuel retailers in order to deliver blended fuels to consumers
• Upward pressure on consumer prices from more expensive biofuel blended with cheaper fossil fuels sold onto consumers
• Engine damage resulting from the use of blended fuels   READ MORE   Download Study