biomass magazine - february 2008

Rice Straw to Renewable Fuel Promising New Feedstock Enters Cellulosic Ethanol Race

US $24.95 year : www.BiomassMagazine.com

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2|2008 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 5

INSIDE FEBRUARY 2008 VOLUME 2 ISSUE 2

FEATURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 CELLULOSE All Roads Lead to Rome and Rice

BBI International and Colusa Biomass Energy Corp. have partnered to commercialize

a process that will turn rice straw and hulls into cellulosic ethanol.

By Ron Kotrba

26 POWER Cool, Hot and Green

For 25 years, District Energy St. Paul has used biomass power to heat and cool

much of the heart of Minnesota’s capital city.

By Susanne Retka Schill

32 ENVIRONMENT Lukewarm on Cofiring

Some believe the environment would benefit more if biomass was used instead of

coal, rather than cofired with coal, to produce power.

By Anduin Kirkbride McElroy

38 FEEDSTOCK Agricultural Versus Industrial Waste for Energy

The principal drivers behind choosing what type of biomass to use to generate

energy are the location of the plant and the conversion process.

By Jessica Ebert

44 ENERGY Straw Tiger

Chinese coal power plants could benefit environmentally and economically by

cofiring the nation’s vast supply of straw residues from agricultural production.

By Marianne Osterkorn

DEPARTMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

06 Editor’s NoteFor the Sake of Full Disclosure …

07 Advertiser Index

09 Industry Events

12 Business Briefs

14 Industry News

55 In the LabA Different Path to Biodiesel

By Jerry W. Kram

57 EERC UpdateDesigning for the Need: Effective Biomass Gasification

By Darren Schmidt

ENVIRONMENT | PAGE 32

NN wouldn’t report on a Time Warner business deal without telling its viewers that the

media giant is its parent company. Fox News wouldn’t run a story on billionaire Rupert

Murdoch without informing its audience that the cable news channel is owned by News

Corp., the media empire that Murdoch runs. Ownership disclosures are business as usual

in the media world. They allow journalists to report on news about their parent company, or busi-

nesses owned by their parent company, without violating ethical codes.

BBI International, the company that owns Biomass Magazine, is certainly no News Corp.—not

yet anyway—but it’s a fast-growing company with 120 employees and operations in three countries.

BBI is uniquely integrated in the biofuels and biomass industries, operating in three key areas:

media, events and project development, the last category being largely occupied with ethanol plant

development. With BBI engaged in a variety of projects globally, it would be difficult, perhaps impru-

dent, for our media group to avoid publishing stories about the company’s project development

activities. Indeed, this month’s page 20 cover story, “All Roads Lead to Rome and Rice,” by Senior

Staff Writer Ron Kotrba does just that, queuing our readers in on a process design and engineer-

ing contract that BBI landed with California-based cellulosic ethanol developer Colusa Biomass

Corp.

California rice farmers produce nearly 20 percent of all the rice grown in the United States, and

“they relish the thought of turning their troublesome crop waste into money,” Kotrba writes. That’s

sounds like a pipedream to U.S. rice farmers, who currently pay to have rice straw removed from

their fields. You see, no one wants the stuff too badly. Rice straw contains silica, which is as tough

on bovine molars as it is on farm equipment. Leaving the straw on the ground isn’t as simple as it

sounds, and torching it in the field is against the law in California.

Years ago, the people at Colusa recognized the opportunity hidden in this challenge, envision-

ing a full-scale biorefinery that could produce ethanol and sodium silicate from rice residues.

Ramping up its efforts in late 2007, Colusa signed on BBI. Now the team is evaluating sites in

California and Arkansas, the latter of which would require the processing of rice hulls rather than

rice straw. BBI will spend 2008 developing the process technology that will turn these ag residues

into ethanol, which should yield the data required to take the system commercial in 2009. The end

result will be a 12 MMgy, $50 million facility.

There’s a bunch of difficult steps between here and there, of course, and time will tell how BBI

will help Colusa to navigate around the technology gaps that currently exist. Figuring out a way to

“double-pretreat” the feedstock before fermentation is the first challenge. If they can do that—liber-

ating that hemicellulose—then the next step is to find a way to proficiently ferment five-carbon sug-

ars. Once those milestones are met, the hard work begins: raising 100 percent equity to get the

plant built. Watching it all develop should be fascinating. We’ll provide updates along the way, with

proper disclosures included, of course.

6 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 2|2008

editor ’sNOTE

For the Sake of Full Disclosure …

C

Tom Bryan Editorial Director

[email protected]


EDITORIAL

Tom Bryan EDITORIAL DIRECTOR [email protected]

Jessica Sobolik MANAGING EDITOR [email protected]

Dave Nilles CONTRIBUTIONS EDITOR [email protected]

Rona Johnson FEATURES EDITOR [email protected]

Ron Kotrba SENIOR STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Anduin Kirkbride McElroy STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Jerry W. Kram STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Susanne Retka Schill STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Bryan Sims STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Jessica Ebert STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Sarah Smith STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Jan Tellmann COPY EDITOR [email protected]

Craig A. Johnson PLANT LIST & CONSTRUCTION EDITOR [email protected]

Amber Armstrong ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT [email protected]

ART

Jaci Satterlund ART DIRECTOR [email protected]

Elizabeth Slavens GRAPHIC DESIGNER [email protected]

Sam Melquist GRAPHIC DESIGNER [email protected]

Jack Sitter GRAPHIC DESIGNER [email protected]

PUBLISHING & SALES

Mike Bryan PUBLISHER & CEO [email protected]

Kathy Bryan PUBLISHER & PRESIDENT [email protected]

Joe Bryan VICE PRESIDENT OF MEDIA [email protected]

Matthew Spoor SALES DIRECTOR [email protected]

Howard Brockhouse SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Clay Moore ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Jeremy Hanson ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Chad Ekanger ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Chip Shereck ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Tim Charles ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Marty Steen ACCOUNT MANAGER [email protected]

Marla DeFoe ADVERTISING COORDINATOR [email protected]

Jessica Beaudry SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER [email protected]

Tim Greer CIRCULATION COORDINATOR [email protected]

Erika Wishart ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT [email protected]

Christie Anderson ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT [email protected]

Amber Armstrong ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT [email protected]

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advertiserINDEX

2008 Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo 50

American Council on Renewable Energy 58

Agri-Energy Funding Solutions 31

BBI Project Development 43 & 56

Biofuels Canada 51

Canadian Renewable Energy Workshop 54

Christianson & Associates PLLP 25

Competitive Energy Insight Inc. 49

ConAgra Trade Group Inc. 8

Continental Biomass Industries Inc. 2

Distillers Grains Quarterly 24

Duratech Industries International Inc. 35

Energy & Environmental Research Center 19

Ethanol Producer Magazine 53

www.ethanol-jobs.com 42

FCStone 36

Cert no. SCS-COC-00648

Green Power Inc. 10

Hurst Boiler & Welding Co. Inc. 41

International Biomass ‘08 Conference & Trade Show 52

Keith Manufacturing Co. 37

Morbark Inc. 48

Novozymes 11

Percival Scientific Inc. 23

Price BIOstock Services 47

Rath, Young and Pignatelli P.C. 30

R.C. Costello & Associates Inc. 46

Robert-James Sales Inc. 60

Rotochopper Inc. 59

SunOpta BioProcess Inc. 4

The Teaford Co. Inc. 29

Vecoplan LLC 3

Yellow Springs Instruments 13

Biomass Supply Chain & Logistics Update

February 18-19, 2008Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention CenterNashville, TennesseeOne of the biggest challenges for the biofuel industry is developing an efficientand effective supply chain. The agenda of this event presents feedstock supplychain concepts and designs, urban biofuels solutions, biofuels logistics, and bio-fuels pipeline research, among other topics.(866) 906-9898 www.biomassupdate.org

Power-Gen: Renewable Energy & Fuels

February 19-21, 2008Rio Casino & ResortLas Vegas, NevadaThis fifth-annual event aims to address the most important trends and issuesimpacting the renewable energy and fuels industry. A sample of biomass-relat-ed topics includes the business, technology and financing of waste-to-energyfacilities; new biomass crops available for power, fuels and biobased products;and international biomass combustion case studies. Aspecific Biopower sessionwill address biomass cofiring, fluidized bed boilers and much more.(888) 299-8016 www.power-gengreen.com

Agricultural Outlook Forum

February 21-22, 2008Crystal Gateway Marriott HotelArlington, VirginiaThis 84th annual event, themed “Energizing Rural America in the GlobalMarketplace,” will address several issues facing today’s agriculture sector.Besides general ag and foreign trade outlooks, the agenda is broken down intofive concurrent session tracks. The Energy & Technology track will discuss bio-fuels (specifically ethanol) and biomass for energy.(877) 572-6043 www.usda.gov/oce/forum

13th Annual National Ethanol Conference

February 25-27, 2008JW Marriott Orlando, Grande LakesOrlando, FloridaThis Renewable Fuels Association event, themed “Changing the Climate,” willinclude RFA President Bob Dinneen’s annual State of the Industry Address,along with various panel discussions and concurrent breakout sessions.Breakout sessions topics include cellulosic ethanol feedstocks and technology.A panel discussion will also offer attendees an update on the status of commer-cial-scale cellulosic ethanol technology. (719) 539-0300 www.nationalethanolconference.com

World Biofuels Markets Congress

March 12-14, 2008Brussels ExpoBrussels, BelgiumThe sessions at this event will focus on ethanol and biodiesel on a local andglobal scale. More detailed topics of discussion include biofuels feedstocks;heat, power and cogeneration; quality and distribution; and biorefineries,byproducts and bioproducts. Pre-congress conferences will address biofuelsinvestment and finance, next-generation technology and science, certificationand sustainability, policy and regulation, and bioplastics and biochemicals. +44 20 7801 6333 www.worldbiofuelsmarkets.com

International Biomass Conference & Trade Show

April 15-17, 2008Minneapolis Convention CenterMinneapolis, MinnesotaThis inaugural event, which stemmed from the Energy & EnvironmentalResearch Center’s biomass conference last year in Grand Forks, N.D., aims tofacilitate the advancement of near-term and commercial-scale manufacturing ofbiomass-based power, fuels and chemicals. Topics include biopower, bioprod-ucts, biochemicals, biofuels, intermediate products and coproducts, which will bepresented through general sessions, technical workshops and an industry tradeshow.(719) 539-0300 www.biomassconference.com

World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing

April 27-30, 2008Hilton ChicagoChicago, IllinoisThis event’s program tracks will focus on biofuels and bioenergy, including cel-lulosic ethanol; feedstocks, including forestry residues and energy crops; andchemicals and biomaterials. A call for papers, panels and posters closes Feb.19. A more detailed agenda will be available as the event approaches.(202) 962-6630 www.bio.org/worldcongress2008

24th Annual International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo

June 16-19, 2008Opryland Hotel & Convention CenterNashville, TennesseeThis conference will follow the record-breaking 2007 event, in which more than500 exhibitors were on display and more than 5,300 people attended. The pre-liminary agenda includes general sessions, concurrent technical workshops andvarious networking opportunities. More information will be available as this eventapproaches.(719) 539-0300 www.fuelethanolworkshop.com

industryevents


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Novozymes North America, Inc.77 Perry Chapel Church RoadFranklinton, NC 27525 Tel. +1 919-494-3000Fax +1 919-494-3485

[email protected]

Transforming corn and other grains into biofuels is a major

industry today. But what about tomorrow? The future of bio-

fuels will also rely on the next generation of raw materials –

biomass. At Novozymes we’re taking a fresh look at all types

of biomass, and considering how we can turn it into something

useful. And you know what? Corn cobs and wheat straw are

just the beginning. Who knows what other types of waste we

can transform into fuel?

Novozymes is the world leader in bioinnovation. Together

with customers across a broad array of industries we create

tomorrow’s industrial biosolutions, improving our customers’

business and the use of our planet’s resources. Read more at

www.novozymes.com.

The future of fuel


Nexterra Energy appoints Tertzakian to boardBest-selling author and energy economist

Peter Tertzakian has been appointed to theboard of directors at Nexterra Energy Corp. Heis managing director of ARC Financial Corp., anenergy-centered investment company based inCalgary, Alberta. He oversees the publication ofa weekly energy trends almanac. Nexterra devel-ops, designs, supplies and installs advanced woodwaste gasification systems. Based in Vancouver,British Columbia, it supplies clean, low-cost heat to the forest, institu-tional and power industries. For more information, visit www.nexterra.com. BIO

Bandit offers three tools that produce wood chipsBandit Industries Inc., a manufacturer and supplier of hand-

fed brush and wood grinders in Remus, Mich., offers three modelsthat can turn wood waste into easy-to-transport wood chips in min-utes. Model 1680, nicknamed “Sharptooth,” is a compact grinderthat rides on two 10,000-pound Torflex axles for easy transport.Model 3590 is a whole tree chipper that can handle logging slash,land clearing waste and brush up to 30 inches in diameter. Model1090XP is a compact, drum-style chipper. At press time, Banditplanned to release limited editions of models 250XP and 1590XPin January as part of its yearlong 25th anniversary celebration. Formore information, visit www.banditchippers.com. BIO

Lignol receives $6.8 millionLignol Innovations Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of

Lignol Energy Corp., recently received $6.8 million in addition-al grants for its cellulosic ethanol development. SustainableDevelopment Technology Canada awarded Lignol up to $2.7million on top of $1.7 million that it doled out earlier. Also, theAlberta government granted Lignol up to $4.1 million on top of$870,000 it previously announced in May. Lignol recentlymoved to Burnaby, British Columbia, where it is building a cel-lulosic ethanol pilot plant on the campus of the BritishColumbia Institute of Technology. BIO

businessBRIEFS

Stoel Rives appoints managing partnerU.S. law firm Stoel Rives recently

announced Robert Van Brocklin as the firm’snew managing partner. He will become chiefexecutive officer and oversee the manage-ment of the firm’s 11 offices. Van Brocklinhas been with the firm for more than 20years. Before accepting his new position, heled the company’s Resources, Developmentand Environment practice group. BIO

Gulf Ethanol acquires cellulosic technologyGulf Ethanol Corp. has acquired technology for converting

nonfood feedstocks into powdered cellulose that can be used forethanol production. The vortex implosion disintegrator technolo-gy was developed by Meridian Biorefining Corp. The process usesextreme compression and sudden polarity shifts to create an easi-ly processed cellulose powder in five to 10 seconds. Tests on thematerial have shown significant processing advantages for ethanolproduction. Gulf and Meridian will work together on the engi-neering, design and implementation of the technology. BIO

Dynamotive appoints Bouchard as COODynamotive Energy Systems, a leader in

biomass-to-liquid fuel technology headquar-tered in Vancouver, British Columbia, hasappointed Thomas Bouchard as its chief oper-ating officer. In this new role, Bouchard willhelp the company to ramp up global opera-tions, and focus on key projects and criticalbusiness processes. Prior to Dynamotive,Bouchard was vice president and general man-ager of the Americas for the consumer solutions group atMeadWestvaco. Prior to that, he was the chief executive officer atMetricVision Inc. BIO

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industryNEWS

Port Talbot, a deep-water port on thesouth coast of Wales, become home to thelargest biomass-fueled electrical plant inthe United Kingdom. In November, theplant received regulatory approval to beginconstruction. The project will be run byLondon-based Prenergy Power Ltd. The350-megawatt plant will produce enoughelectricity to power half the homes inWales and deliver 70 percent of the renew-able energy target for 2010 set by theWelsh Assembly Government.

Construction of the wood-chip-fueledplant will begin in early 2008 and is expect-ed to be completed in 2010. The capitalcost of the plant is estimated at £400 mil-lion ($793.2 million). It expects to hire 150full-time employees. Port Talbot’s deep-water harbor will allow feedstocks to bebrought in by ship, which the companysaid is the most benign and environmental-ly efficient form of bulk transport.Prenergy Director Matthew Carse said thefuel would come from independently certi-

fied, sustainable forestry projects, ensuringthat the project will be carbon-neutral.

A 101-megawatt combined-heat-and-power facility owned by Slough Heat andPower Ltd. in Slough, England, is current-ly the largest biomass-powered generatorin the U.K. It was acquired by Scottish andSouthern Energy PLC in January for£49.25 million ($97.7 million). SSE is theU.K.’s second-largest energy supplier.

-Jerry W. Kram

Largest U.K. biomass plant gains approval

A sustainable energy initiative in Africa’s agricultural regions willenable the sugar industry to become more energy independent. Theplan involves developing several biomass cogeneration plants as part ofa six-year plan that will fuel sugar plantations. In all, 11 African coun-tries will benefit from these projects, designed to reduce dependence onthe nation’s expensive electrical resources, which are currently poweredby foreign oil.

In the sugar recovery process, the fibrous bagasse is burned tomeet the heat and electricity requirements of the cane factories, whicheven return electricity to various power grids. The enterprise is financedby the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership andProInvest. The REEEP is an international enabler of global marketsfor sustainable energy, focusing on developing countries and transition-al economies. Its share of the funding for the rural electrification proj-ects was provided by the government of Ireland, which targets sub-Saharan African countries to implement sustainable energy initiatives.

Eamon Ramon, Irish minister for communications, energy andnatural resources, said Ireland is committed to “the interlinking chal-lenges of [social and economic] development and climate change.” Hecalled those challenges “global justice issues.”

ProInvest is a partnership between the European Union andAfrican, Caribbean and Pacific Rim countries that promotes investmentand technology in those regions.

Both the REEEP and ProInvest work with governments, busi-nesses, industries and financiers to promulgate a global market forrenewable energies, energy-efficient technologies and energy legislation.

Kenyan President H.E. Mwai Kibaki, who spearheaded theAfrican initiative, noted the rising cost of oil and his nation’s substan-dard efforts in rural electrification as the main reasons for seeking out-side assistance.

-Sarah Smith

Irish help to finance African cogeneration project

Sugarcane is transported before it becomes bagasse.

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The U.S. DOE, the USDA and China’sNational Development and ReformCommission recently signed a memoran-dum of understanding (MOU) that wouldstrengthen and expand cooperation on bio-fuels production and use. More specifically,the MOU encourages cooperation in bio-mass and feedstock production and sus-tainability, conversion technology and engi-neering, biobased product developmentand utilization standards, and rural andagricultural development strategies.

“This biofuels agreement with Chinabuilds on our work with Brazil, theInternational Biofuels Forum and the G8Global Biofuels Energy Partnership toaccelerate and intensify our global coopera-tion around the development and deploy-ment of biofuels,” said Reuben Jeffrey, U.S.Department of State Undersecretary forEconomic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs.

This is the third MOU between theUnited States and China in recent months.The first aims to promote the large-scaleuse of electric, hybrid-electric, fuel cell andalternative fuel vehicle technologies. Thesecond aims to significantly increase coop-

eration and energy efficiency in China’sindustrial sector. “As the two largest energyconsumers and automobile markets in theworld, we are eager to strengthen coopera-tion with China to increase the use ofrenewable and alternative fuels to powerour nation’s vehicles,” said Clay Sell, U.S.deputy secretary of energy and the U.S. rep-resentative at the MOU signing ceremony inBeijing.

In other news, the DOE recentlyannounced it will invest up to $7.7 millionin multi-year funding in four biofuels proj-ects that will demonstrate the thermochem-ical conversion of grasses, stover, nonedibleportions of crops and other materials intobiofuel. In one of the projects, Emery

Energy Co. in Salt Lake City has partneredwith Ceramatec Inc. and the WesternResearch Institute to demonstrate a newapproach to mitigating tars and oils in theproduction of synthesis gas from biomass.Another project involves a partnershipbetween Iowa State University andConocoPhillips Co., which will test an inte-grated biomass-to-liquids technology usingswitchgrass as a feedstock. ResearchTriangle Institute in North Carolina, alongwith North Carolina State University andthe University of Utah, will produce syngasfrom woody biomass using a dual fluidized-bed reactor that allows for the continuousregeneration of a catalyst that can reform,crack and remove tar and other impurities.Lastly, Southern Research Institute inAlabama will collaborate with Pall Corp.,ThermoChem Recovery International andRentech to use a one-megawatt thermalgasifier and a unique cleanup technology togenerate syngas.

-Jessica Ebert

DOE signs MOU with USDA and China, awards biofuels grants

industryNEWS

Delegations from six member states ofthe European Union have jointly called for anew biomass action plan to supplement theone drawn up in 2005 to answer concernsbeing raised in the chemical, construction andpackaging industries.

In a Dec. 14 memorandum to the Councilof the European Union, Germany, Austria,Belgium, Finland, France and Luxembourgsaid a new plan should “enable a coherentstrategy to be drawn up at a European level topromote all uses of renewable resources pro-duced by agriculture and forestry.” The 2005strategic plan for biomass and a 2006 strategyfor biofuels don’t mention industrial uses ofbiomass. Specific measures proposed in the

memorandum include eco-labeling, a changein state aid rules and tax breaks to encourageand reward the use of raw materials that havea positive link with climate policy, research, andincentives for biomass crops while balancingfood needs and environmental sustainability.

The six-state memorandum followedindustry criticisms of the EU renewable ener-gy plans. For example, the European BiomassAssociation and the Confederation ofEuropean Paper Industries issued a joint state-ment a few days before the six-state memoran-dum was released, recommending existingindustries should be taken into account. “Theincreasing demand for solid biomass for ener-gy purposes cannot be met only by European

forestry,” the joint statement said, while callingfor new incentives for perennial energy crops.It also requested that the efficiency of bio-mass-based energy production become a pri-ority, “knowing that sometimes the same bio-mass will be used for all sectors of heat, elec-tricity and transportation biofuels.”

A discussion of the European Union bio-mass policies, and links to governmental andorganizational policy statements can be foundat www.EurActiv.com.

-Susanne Retka Schill

EU states ask for expanded biomass action plan


industryNEWS

Revolutionary companies think outsidethe box. Frito-Lay has begun to think outsidethe bag.

Its desert-based chip factory in CasaGrande, Ariz., has embarked on an ambitiousthree-phase plan to ultimately operate solely onrenewable energy and recycled water. Calledthe “net-zero initiative,” the plan will incorpo-rate waste heat collection, methane digestersand parabolic solar concentrators in hopes ofcutting the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions byup to 75 percent by 2010 and reducing itsdependence on water, electricity and gas sup-pliers.

The initial phase will conserve the massivequantities of water used to wash 500,000pounds of potatoes daily. A filter system willstrain and clean the wash water for reuse.Engineering feasibility studies have alreadybegun on this phase, said corporate spokesper-son Aurora Gonzalez.

Solar concentrators capturing the region’sintense solar power will heat the water in thesecond phase to power a steam generator.Then plans call for a biomass generator thatwould use landfill gas, methane, wood or resid-ual debris to eventually power the boiler sys-tem.

The Casa Grande initiatives cap twodecades of Frito-Lay’s energy-efficient meas-ures that strived for significant reductions ingreenhouse gas emissions by 2010 at its 32 U.S.plants. Frito-Lay’s Energy Department pushedprojects such as an air compressor manage-ment system for packaging lines; heat recoveryprojects that will recover heat from boilers,ovens and fryers; cogeneration; and the recy-cling of potato and corn solids to livestock anddairy farms. “We’re well-suited to do this kindof project, given the number of years we’vebeen at this,” Gonzalez said. “That’s posi-tioned us well to take what’s clearly a significant

next step.”Frito-Lay’s plant in Bakersfield, Calif., has

been using cogeneration for 20 years, and itsfacility outside of Houston has been usinglandfill gas as a power source for several years,Gonzalez said. This was a logical next step.“Every facility has a sustainability resourcesconservation program,” she said. “Differentgeographies give us different options.”

Frito-Lay’s parent company PepsiCo is noslouch in the environmental arena. In April2007, Pepsi made a three-year commitment topurchase renewable energy certificates—1 bil-lion kilowatt hours of electricity annually—tospur growth of the renewable fuels industry.Gonzalez said Frito-Lay’s environmentalvision is supported and driven by its parentcompany’s philosophy.

-Sarah Smith

Eco-flavored chips: Zero trans fat, zero carbon footprint

The American Society of Agriculturaland Biological Engineers recently announced aproject to standardize methods for determin-ing the properties of plant-derived solid fuelsused for direct combustion in stationary heatand power systems. The project was initiatedby Klein Ileleji, a professor in the departmentof agricultural and biological engineering atPurdue University, and a member of ASABE.

Ileleji will lead the development of thenew standard, which will cover properties rele-vant to fuel classification, terminology, sam-pling and handling, and functional characteris-tics including energy content. It will alsoaddress the design and development of directcombustion systems, fuel and combustion sys-tems performance, and practices for reportingfuel properties. Quality thresholds, emissionlimits and recommendations are excludedfrom this standard.

The need for a standard comes from the

rise in interest in using biofuels for transporta-tion, as well as energy systems ranging fromsimple home-heating stoves and furnaces tomedium and large industrial boilers for heatonly or for combined heat and power. “Thenew standard is going to provide a technicalresource about which fuel sources work thebest for which systems,” explained TravisTsunemori, an engineer with ASABE. “It’sgoing to help designers, facility/utility man-

agers and engineers make more informed deci-sions.”

The standard is currently being drafted.Individuals, companies and trade groups inter-ested in participating in the developmentprocess should contact ASABE StandardsDirector Scott Cedarquist at [email protected] or (269) 439-0300. Once the standardhas been drafted, it will go through a processof balloting, technical vetting and approvalbefore being published. Tsunemori expects theentire process to take about a year. ASABErecently celebrated its 100th year as a nonprof-it professional society for engineers. Theorganization is an accredited standards devel-oper with more than 200 published standardsfor engineering in agricultural, food and bio-logical systems.

-Jessica Ebert

ASABE to develop standard for biomass-derived solid fuel


industryNEWS

Switchgrass, mixed grass research projects advanceSwitchgrass and other mixed prairie grasses are being given a

closer look in two northern plains projects that received addition-al support this winter.

South Dakota State University’s work on switchgrass got aboost from a new agreement with California-based Ceres Inc.The cooperative, multi-year program will focus on developinghigher-yielding switchgrass cultivars adapted to northern lati-tudes. SDSU plant breeder Arvid Boe will lead field and green-house research, which will involve crossbreeding and selectionssupported by Ceres technology that makes the selection processmore efficient and predictable. University researchers will alsostudy genetic diversity in the perennial grass species, among otherobjectives.

Boe believes switchgrass can be competitive with conven-tional crops, especially on semiarid land in South Dakota andNebraska. “Switchgrass is tolerant of a wide range of environ-mental conditions, and compared with many other perennialgrasses and conventional crop plants, it produces relatively largeamounts of biomass under both good and poor growing condi-tions,” he said.

Separately, the Central Grassland Research and ExtensionCenter in Streeter, N.D., received $40,000 in funding from theNorth Dakota Agricultural Products Utilization Commission forthe center’s 10-year study on biomass grasses. The funding willexpand the project from grass trials to economic analyses of what

a farmer would need to receive for a cellulosic crop to competewith other, more traditional crops. The project started with fund-ing from the North Dakota Natural Resource Trust, according toPaul Nygren, director of the CGREC. “There’s a lot of concernabout what happens to our perennial grasslands as the pressurecomes from biofuels,” he explained.

The first grasses for the 10-year study were seeded in thespring of 2006 at five locations in central and western NorthDakota that would correspond with mixed-grass prairie andshort-grass prairie regions. The plots include various pure standsand combinations of switchgrass, tall and intermediate wheat-grass, big bluestem, and wild rye. There are also two mixes usedon Conservation Reserve Program acres, one with tall and inter-mediate wheatgrasses alone, and one with the two wheatgrasses,alfalfa and sweet clover. Nygren hopes to raise additional grantfunds to pay for sample analysis in a cellulosic digester to com-plement the analyses to be done in the forage laboratory.

Acknowledging that biomass yields in semiarid regions maybe too low for large cellulosic ethanol plants, Nygren wants tostudy the feasibility of smaller-scale pyrolysis units. He’s workingwith a potential cooperator now to add a pyrolysis study thatwould test the potential yield from the various grass mixes.

-Susanne Retka Schill

Masada Resource Group donates biomass facilities, equipment to university

Masada Resource Group LLC, a Birmingham,Ala.-based company that specializes in municipal-solid-waste-to-ethanol technology, has donated itsbiomass pilot plant facilities and equipment that thecompany recently purchased from the Tennessee Valley Authority, thenation’s largest public power company, to Auburn University inAlabama.

In March 2007, Masada was chosen as the successful bidder topurchase the TVA’s biomass pilot plant facilities and equipment inMuscle Shoals, Ala. Masada submitted its bid to the TVA as the leaderof a collaborative effort with Auburn University and PureVisionTechnology Inc. in Ft. Lupton, Colo.

The TVA biomass facilities and equipment were used by Masadato conduct tests on the company’s proprietary municipal-solid-waste-to-ethanol conversion process, trademarked CES OxyNol, and keyvendor equipment that the company is using in its Orange Recyclingand Ethanol Production Facility to be built in Middletown, N.Y.

The donation to Auburn University has enabled the school toserve as Masada’s exclusive research and development platform, where

it will concurrently utilize and refine PureVision’sunique fractionation process, according to MasadaPresident and Chief Executive Officer DonaldWatkins. “Right now, in working with Auburn,

we’ve increased our yields from 55 gallons of ethanol per ton ofgarbage all the way up to about 85 gallons per ton of garbage,” Watkinssaid. “We think we can increase those yields even further, particularly ifwe find a way to use PureVision’s fractionation process as part of ouroverall process.”

Having mastered the process of converting municipal solid wasteinto ethanol, Masada’s focus has shifted to explore other biomass feed-stocks such as waste from the pulp and paper industries, working withthe Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering andAuburn's Department of Chemical Engineering, where it will contin-ue to refine its patented CES OxyNol process for biobased jet fuel,Watkins said.

-Bryan Sims


industryNEWS

Abengoa Bioenergy Corp. has namedMontgomery, N.Y.-based municipal-solid-waste (MSW) recovery and recycling firm

Taylor BiomassEnergy LLC as theprovider of a bio-mass biogasifica-tion unit that willbe used to powerAbengoa’s future

cellulosic ethanol facility in Hugoton, Kan.According to TBE President Jim

Taylor, Taylor Engineering is listed on thenow-public Abengoa contract submittal tothe U.S. DOE, which it signed in December.Abengoa will start “to negotiate all the sub-contractor contracts, which would includeTaylor Biomass Energy” sometime in thecoming months, he said. TBE will designand build the biogasification unit.

Taylor said TBE’s novel proprietarybiomass gasification unit is unique becauseit produces a gas that has a heating value of450 British thermal units (Btu), approxi-mately half that of natural gas, and it can go

directly into a gas turbine as opposed to anair turbine. Thus, unlike the low-heating-value gas produced in air-blown gasifiers, itprovides the ability to substitute natural gas,and it can be used as a fuel for combined-cycle power generation equipment or as asynthesis gas (syngas) for the production ofchemicals, liquid biofuels and/or hydrogen.

“The emissions from [the gasifier] areless than 100 tons per year of [nitrogen

oxides, sulfur oxides, volatile organic com-pounds] and other greenhouse gases(GHGs),” Taylor said, citing that the unit’sunique gas cleanup process is much moreefficient than other conventional air gasi-fiers. “The hydrogen content of our gaswent up to 45 percent from typical biogas at25 percent, so it’s a real good constant fuelfor power generation.”

The Abengoa project will aid TBE’swaste recycling and power generation proj-ect in Montgomery, where it will utilizeAbengoa’s catalytic conversion process toproduce syngas for power generation. TBEintends to integrate its unique sorting, sepa-rating and recycling process of raw MSWwith its biogasification technology, where itwould produce 23 megawatts of electricityfrom 300 dry tons of MSW per year. Theproject is currently in the permitting andfinancing stages, and is expected to be oper-ational in the fourth quarter of 2009, Taylorsaid.

-Bryan Sims

Taylor Biomass Energy to install Abengoa’s biogasification unit

New York houses largest wood-pellet plantNew England Wood Pellet LLC opened

the largest wood pellet manufacturing plant inthe United States in Schuyler, N.Y., inDecember. The $10 million plant will produce100,000 tons of pellets per year, enough toheat 33,000 homes and businesses, accordingto Charlie Niebling, NEWP general manager.

“It’s going well,” Niebling said of theplant’s first month of operation. “We had afew little technical glitches, which isn’t unusualfor a facility of this size, but we got them allironed out and are running on all cylinders.”

The plant manufactures wood pellets outof wood waste that comes from 30 lumbermills in central New York. Niebling said thecompany worked on negotiating its supplyagreements for 16 months, four months

longer than it took to build the plant. NEWPhas enough wood waste suppliers to operate at80 percent of capacity. Once it reaches thatthreshold—probably sometime this fall—Niebling said the company will buy roundwood and chip it, or contract to have itchipped.

There is high demand for wood-pelletfuel in the Northeast, Niebling said. The com-pany has agreements with 75 retailers in NewYork alone. “We definitely see pellet fuel takingoff,” he said. “While the history of pellet heat-ing in the United States has primarily been oneof residential heating with pellet stoves, youneed only look at Europe to see what thepotential is. In Europe, pellets are being usedfor commercial and industrial heating, com-

bined heat and power (CHP), cogeneration,district heating, and power generation on avery large scale. We think it is only a matter oftime before the economics of heating or CHPwith fossil energy drives people to consideralternatives.”

The Schuyler facility is NEWP’s second.The company operates a 75,000-ton-per-yearwood pellet plant in Jaffrey, N.H., and a pack-aging plant in Palmer, Mass. The company alsomaintains a research and development facilityin Jaffrey, where much of the equipment forthe New York plant was designed. “Our inten-tion is to get into the business of turnkey plantproduction,” Niebling said.

-Jerry W. Kram

TBE’s proposed waste recycling, biogasification andpower generation project in Montgomery, N.Y., willgasify 300 dry tons of MSW per year into syngas.

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University ofNorth Dakota

Grand Forks

Backed by more than 60 years of experience in gasification technologies and more than a decade in biomass energy, the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) is leading North Dakota and the nation in renewable energy technologies.

With more than 300 employees, the EERC is a worldwide leader in developing cleaner, more efficient energy technologies as well as environmental technologies to protect and clean our air, water, and soil. At the EERC, sound science evolves into true innovation. Find out more about how EERC innovatation can work for you.

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cellulose


cellulose

Executives with Colusa Biomass Energy Corp., a company securing its niche in rice waste,were searching diligently for an engineering company to take their project to the next level:commercial production. No matter the paths they traversed, CBEC execs say all roads led toBBI International.

By Ron Kotrba

All Roads Lead to Rome and Rice


cellullose

eedstock choices by compa-nies establishing themselvesin the race to commercializeethanol from cellulose arelargely determined by geo-graphical availability. Corn

stover, wheat straw, woody biomass, anddedicated energy crops are frequently dis-cussed, but a company based inCalifornia’s Sacramento Valley, ColusaBiomass Energy Corp., doesn’t have tolook far to discover its niche feedstock.“North of Sacramento it’s pretty much allrice fields,” says Mark Yancey, vice presi-dent of BBI International’s project devel-opment division. BBI, which publishesBiomass Magazine, recently agreed to pro-vide process design and engineering serv-ices for CBEC’s project: Building a full-

scale biorefinery producingethanol and sodium silicate fromrice residues. It’s somethingCBEC execs have been workingtoward for years.

Disappointing pilot workdone with rice straw in the 1990susing the general patentedprocess on which CBEC’s morerefined conversion design isbased, coupled with low oil prices and adiscouraging economic environment,slowed the company down but didn’tstop it. Despite past obstacles, CBECgained a preliminary engineering thumbs-up from Harris Group last year andbegan the hunt for experts in cellulose toscale up their process in a full-size plant.

“It was a case of mutual interest and

respect,” says CBEC Presidentand Chief Executive OfficerTom Bowers, referring to whatled to the two companies’ newworking relationship. “We’vebeen looking hard since lastMarch for the right group totake us to the next level domes-tically and internationally, and Iguess it was one of those cases

where all roads lead to Rome—everytime we followed a solid lead on some-body who had talent or someone werespected, well, they ended up being withBBI most of the time.” Originally intend-ing to focus its initial commercial plant inCalifornia where a rice-collection infra-structure exists, the company is nowequally interested in an Arkansas site

FYancey

Rice straw is high in silica and undesirable as forage for livestock.

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where rice hulls lie awaiting—pending adeal-closer. Straw, hulls or both projectsconcurrently, Yancey says BBI has a time-line in place to move either site forwardby completing specified tasks in 2008.

Be Practical and Forward“We have all of 2008 to demonstrate

the technology and generate the data weneed to do the process design,” Yanceysays. “Then we have all of 2009 to dodetailed design work and build the plant.”The plan isn’t linear so several differenttasks will be going on at once, but Yanceysays BBI’s practical approach and projectdevelopment experience will make thisproject go. “When we first talked, we satdown with them and said we still feelthere are some technology gaps [for con-verting most biomass feedstocks toethanol],” Yancey explains. “We toldthem our approach would circumventthose gaps and eliminate the missingtechnology.” The technology gapsYancey refers to stem from CBEC’sdesire to double-pretreat its feedstockbefore fermentation. The “pre-pretreat-ment” would liberate hemicellulose so itsfive-carbon sugars could carry on to fer-mentation. But, Yancey says, “pretreat-ment is still very expensive and an issuefor any tech provider trying to use thefermentation route. Dilute acid requiresexpensive alloys or glass-lined or acidbrick-lined equipment, and these primarypretreatments are generally done at ahigher temperature, running up opera-tional costs.” Furthermore, there are nocommercially demonstrated organismscapable of proficiently fermenting five-carbon sugars, so even if the uncertaintyand expense of pretreatment wereendured Yancey says exactly how thosesugars would be fermented is still ques-tionable. If it becomes feasible to isolateand ferment the five-carbon sugars fromrice waste in the future, then a move inthat direction could be made. Until then,BBI suggested moving forward with abase pretreatment that dissolves the silica.

A Series of Concurrent EventsBBI’s forward approach hooked

Bowers from the start. “What you getfrom BBI is a sense of well-roundedness,and that their feet are on the ground,”Bowers says. “After our first meeting withBBI, I told my guys as we walked ontothe airplane, ‘This is it. As far as I’m con-cerned let’s not look anyplace else so let’smake the best deal we can with them.’”

The responsibilities BBI will under-take first include conducting a detailedstudy to define acceptable ranges of thekey process variables. At press time in lateDecember, the study had already begun.The financials of the first plant will bedriven by established targets for these keyprocess variables. For instance, the initialstudy may not reveal that the C6 yield willbe 85 percent and, from that, “X”

amount of ethanol will be refined. “Whatit will tell us is that we will need at least 70percent, for example, and if we can’treach that established target then weknow we can’t do this,” Yancey says.Essentially, the purpose of BBI’s initialstudy is to determine what is needed tomake the project competitive, and isexpected to be complete by the end ofFebruary. By then, BBI plans to havealready begun developing what Yanceycalls a technology demonstration plan.“That’s where we’ll generate the dataneeded to design the plant,” he says.Bench- and pilot-scale work managed byBBI will continue throughout most of2008. As data streams in, BBI will takethe aggressive initiative to concurrentlydevelop the “Schedule A” basic engineer-ing package to transfer knowledge from


the pilot work to commercial processdesign. “By the end of the year we shouldbe ready to negotiate an EPC contract forthe design and construction of theplant,” Yancey says, cautioning he could-n’t reveal which contractors are alreadyunder consideration. The Colorado-based company estimates its new clientwill need a $2.5 million budget for thework described.

Finally, BBI will do what Yancey’sdivision was named after: project devel-opment. “Just like we develop projectsfor dry-mill plants, we’ll do for Colusa,”Yancey says. “I doubt we’ll hold smallmeetings in communities asking peopleto invest”—how conventional equitydrives go typically for private projectsintegrating proven designs—“but insteadwe’ll be looking for $5 million to $20 mil-lion investments. At this point, we rec-ommend raising 100 percent equity to

build this first plant, which would greatlysimplify things and lower the cost.” BBIestimates the first 12.5 MMgy facility willcost approximately $50 million. BBIbegan designing its first cellulose ethanolplant in early 2007, and the Colusa proj-ect is its second major project in thegrowing field. “Cellulose process designwill be a big part of BBI’s future,” Yanceysays. CBEC is a publicly-traded companyand its OTC stock symbol is CLME.PK.

Two States, One MissionCalifornia rice farmers produce near-

ly 20 percent of all the rice grown in theUnited States, and they relish the thoughtof turning their troublesome crop wasteinto money. They currently pay between$25 and $45 an acre to have the residuesbaled and removed from their fields, mar-kets for which are not easy to find.Livestock producers don’t want it

because rice straw is high in silica, reach-ing 13 percent on a dry-matter basis.“Silica is one of nature’s great abrasives,”Bowers says. As forage, rice straw maycause excessive wear on bovine molars,but chances are the cows won’t eat it any-way because it isn’t palatable. Bowers saysrice waste is even destructive to farmequipment, wearing out implements 40percent faster than wheat. And simplyleaving the straw on the ground for soilnutrition still requires chopping it up andre-flooding the fields with water. “All thatcosts money,” says Rick Nannen, CBECvice president. Since state environmentalregulations disallow producers fromburning their rice residues openly in thefield anymore, California rice farmerswelcome new and cheaper ways to dis-pose of the straw. CBEC would requirerice straw from 35,000 acres for the annu-al production of 12.5 million gallons ofethanol, and 33 million pounds of sodi-um silicate—a high-value specialtycoproduct.

While CBEC was initially focused onthe California rice-straw “market,” theyhave since expanded their options for afirst commercial project site. But true toform, all roads for this unique companylead to rice. “The other option is

cellulose

Colusa ExtraTo read more about Colusa Biomass Energy Corp.’s process andplans see “The Rumpelstiltskin of Rice Straw” in the August 2007edition of Ethanol Producer Magazine, Biomass Magazine’s sisterpublication.


cellulose

Arkansas, where rice mills have a prob-lem disposing of hulls. There is no banagainst burning straw in Arkansas, sothere is no real incentive to collect it andtherefore the infrastructure is less devel-oped there than in California. ButArkansas is home to several large ricemills where hulls accumulate rapidly, socollocating near a mill is a wise choice

and virtually eliminates the grueling taskof honing an efficient method of aggre-gation, storage and delivery. According toNannen, ongoing discussions withRiceland Foods and Producers Co-op forfeedstock arrangements are encouraging.Riceland Foods gasifies a portion of itshulls for some of the energy required inmilling operations, and has for many

years. “I don’t know how efficient thattechnology is anymore,” Nannen says.Bowers adds, “They use the hulls to gen-erate the heat for their parboiling opera-tions. That worked really well 15 to 18years ago but not necessarily so well nowbecause of the advances in combustiontechniques with other materials that havecome along, so it was a leading situationyears ago but it’s not the same today—and there might be a better use for thosehulls from an income point of view forthe rice mills, and it could certainly be thebasis for transportation fuels.” Rice hullscontain 20 percent silica whereas thestraw contains 12 percent. “If the eco-nomics allow us on the front end, I couldsee us building both these plants withcompletion dates within six months ofeach other,” Bowers tells BiomassMagazine.

Two states, two companies and onemission: Being the first project develop-ment team to build the first commercialethanol and specialty-chemicals plantusing difficult but globally abundant ricewaste. BIO

Ron Kotrba is a Biomass Magazine seniorwriter. Reach him at [email protected] or (701) 738-4962.

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Using a modified forage harvester, right, CBEC successfully completed a large-scale rice straw harvest lastfall. The harvester collects and chops the straw, then blows it into walking floor trailers that hold 9 to 14 tons.


power

District Energy’s combined-heat-and-power plant is in full view below thedowntown St. Paul bluff when viewed from across the Mississippi River.

PHOTO: DISTRICT ENERGY ST. PAUL


power

Cool, Hot andGreenDistrict Energy St. Paul Inc. relies predominantlyon biomass power to heat and cool the majority of downtown St. Paul, Minn. The goal isto replace all fossil fuels in the future.

By Susanne Retka Schill


power

asing off the freeway, the carslows to pick up KelloggBoulevard as it curves on topof the bluff that anchorsdowntown St. Paul, Minn., tothe Mississippi River below.

Most drivers barely notice the stately brickbuilding that houses District Energy St. PaulInc. as they drive past the sports arena andscience museum on the way to a downtownhotel or office building. The 1906 brickbuilding served as a power plant for years,receiving coal from the rail lines below thebluff and delivering steam heat for thedowntown district. Even though the mod-ern-day District Energy facilities use everysquare inch of the old building and the lot’savailable footprint, it still serves as an ideallocation. The 14,000 truckloads of woodchips delivered each year to the biomass-fired combined-heat-and-power (CHP)plant travel along Shepherd Road, whichparallels the river and the railroads below thebluff. Comprising less than 1 percent of thetraffic on the transportation corridor, the

trucks can deliver 40 loads of wood chipsper day to the CHP plant without evenbeing noticed by the traffic on KelloggBoulevard above.

While district energy systems have beenwidely used in densely populated urbanareas for more than a century, St. Paul’s sys-tem is unique as it’s the largest biomass-powered system in North America. In 1978,St. Paul was selected by the U.S. DOE andthe Minnesota Energy Agency to be thesubject of a study to determine the feasibil-ity of a modern hot-water district-heatingsystem in a major northern U.S. city. Thefavorable results from the study led to thebuilding of a hot-water system that wascompleted in 1983. The system primarilyused coal-fired traveling grate boilers to heatwater, although fuel oil and natural gascould also be used. The system cost $45.8million in 1982 dollars. It was completedone year ahead of schedule and was $1.3million under budget. It replaced an oldsteam-heat system that was highly ineffi-cient with more than 50 percent distribution

losses, compared with the hot-water systemwhich has distribution losses of only 5 per-cent. Both heating and cooling systems runyear-round to supply hot water for heating,domestic hot water, industrial process heatand chilled water for air conditioning.

Anders Rydaker, who served as a con-sultant in developing the original districtheating project, returned to the city in 1993from his native Sweden to become the pres-ident of the independent nonprofit organi-zation. “When I got to St. Paul the secondtime, it was my vision to move to renewableenergy,” he says. “It’s been my priority for along time, way before it was the thing to talkabout in the United States.” It took another10 years before the CHP plant began turn-ing clean urban wood waste into electricalenergy delivered to the city’s power grid aswell as heat for the hot-water heating systemand evaporative coolers. Biomass now pro-vides nearly 70 percent of the system’s ener-gy demand, he says, approaching the goal of75 percent. The boilers from the 1983 sys-tem are still used for peak-load conditionswhen the city experiences its famous wintercold snaps and temperatures drop as low asminus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Rydaker saysthat a CHP system large enough to meet theremaining peak load would not be econom-ical, although his next goal is to replace theremaining portion of fossil-fuel energyused. The 1983 system had been cofiringcoal with wood chips in the 1990s, but thefeedstock system was dismantled to makeroom for the biomass CHP plant. Studiesbegin this year to examine the best way tomodify the 1983 boiler system. The primarychallenge in meeting peak demand with bio-mass will be developing new feedstocksources.

Daunting LogisticsAs vice president of operations and

engineering, it is Michael Burns’ job to man-age the biomass acquisition program whichat times scrambles to find enough cleanwood. When the system started, theMinneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area hada fragmented infrastructure of businesses

E

District Energy St. Paul is housed in a 1906 power plant building that presents a stately presence onKellogg Boulevard. The CHP plant, built on the riverbank below the bluff, is barely visible behind thebrick building.

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handling tree waste. “We had to build theinfrastructure to handle 250,000 tons peryear,” he says. That meant adding chippingand screening equipment, and finding col-lection and processing points. Many of the

original businesses stillsupply District Energywith already processedwood, which is runthrough screens to makesure the 4-inch maximumdiameter required for theCHP plant’s vibratinggrate boiler system isn’texceeded. The mainwood collection site is

located in an industrial area along theMississippi River just a few miles down-stream from downtown St. Paul. The bio-mass project took over management of atree waste site developed by the city when

Dutch elm disease devas-tated its urban forest.

Developing the infra-structure has been onlyone part of the challenge,however. At times, thereisn’t enough clean woodwaste in the entire 13county metropolitan areato fuel the plant, Burns

says. That forces him to turn to the north-ern Minnesota forestry industry for sup-plies. “We try to avoid it whenever possiblebecause of the transportation costs, andbecause they have higher harvesting costs,”he says.

In order to fuel the remaining energyload, District Energy will begin testing vari-ous feedstocks such as corn stover andother agricultural wastes. Among theoptions to be studied will be pelletized bio-mass, which could be handled in the 1983boiler system much like stoker coal. “Nowthat we have the CHP optimized and themarket has developed, we are looking at theopportunities to incorporate biomass inthose boilers without major modifications,”he explains. Rydaker adds that retrofittingcosts will determine how quickly the con-version to 100 percent biomass will pro-ceed.

Multiple EntitiesSeveral related businesses actually make

up District Energy, which was called DistrictHeating Development Co. when it waslaunched in 1983. When cooling capacitywas added in 1993, District Cooling St. PaulInc. was organized as a separate entity. Bothare independent, nonprofit organizationswith individual boards, although most board

members serve both organizations. Theseven-member boards of directors includethree elected by customers, three appointedby the city of St. Paul and one elected by thesix. Ever-Green Energy LLC is a for-profitaffiliate of District Energy which developsrenewable energy projects for others. Onebiomass project being developed in St. Paulis evaluating whether a paper recycling plantcould utilize agricultural waste biomass forits thermal process energy. Ever-Greenowns and operates the CHP plant alongwith Duke Generating Services LLC, a sub-sidiary of Duke Energy Corp. Biomass pro-curement is handled by an affiliate of Ever-Green called Environmental Wood Supply.

District Energy BenefitsDistrict energy systems like St. Paul’s

are not uncommon. The InternationalDistrict Energy Association reports that in2005 about 6 percent of commercial build-ings in the United States were heated withdistrict heating. District energy systems aretypically located in the central business dis-tricts of larger cities, on university or collegecampuses, on hospital or research campus-es, military bases and airports. The numberof customer buildings served ranges fromas few as three or four in the early stages ofdeveloping a new system to as many as

Rydaker

Burns


power

1,800 customer buildings as in the systemserved by Con Edison Steam Business Unitin Manhattan, N.Y., the largest district steamsystem in the world.

IDEA lists several benefits found indistrict energy systems:

�The systems tap into economies ofscale and the operational benefits of havinga large, diverse portfolio of customers

�The systems can utilize industrial-

grade equipment not economically feasiblefor individual buildings

�The diversity of energy options andfuel flexibility creates a market advantageand establishes the district energy system asan asset for community energy planning

�The availability of district energyservice reduces the capital cost of developingan office building by cutting the boiler andchiller plant capital cost from the project

�District energy systems can utilizelocal fuel resources to keep energy dollarsrecirculating in the local economy, and as arenewable energy source may qualify for aproduction tax credit under a renewableenergy portfolio standard

District Energy St. Paul receives callsweekly from operators of some of the oldersteam heat systems in the country askingabout retrofitting a hot water system as wasdone in St. Paul. “Hot water is not verycommon in the United States,” Rydakersays. “It’s so much better. With hot wateryou can recover waste heat in whateverform.” In buildings still using older steam-heat systems, the retrofit to hot water can bequite costly. However, buildings constructedafter 1975 that utilize hot water in heatexchanger systems have an easy conversion.Some building complexes have both, suchas the Minnesota State Capitol on the northend of downtown St. Paul which tappedinto District Energy when it was developed.

A major benefit for district energy cus-tomers is the system’s reliability—after 25years District Energy St. Paul reports 99.99percent reliability for heat and DistrictCooling St. Paul reports 100 percent reliabil-ity. Stable energy costs for customers havebeen another benefit, although Rydaker saysthat in the 1990s when natural gas was at $2per million British thermal units the District

Contact Attorney Charles G. Willing, Jr. [email protected]

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National Impact. Uniquely New Hampshire.

Rath, Young and Pignatelli, P.C.www.rathlaw.com Concord (603) 226-2600

Looking down from Kellogg Boulevard as the trucks deliver wood chips to the CHP plant.

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Energy rates were higher. Today that isreversed with District Energy rates belownatural gas. Rising energy costs for fossilfuels have boosted the cost for wood chipshowever and after a decade of flat rates,District Energy’s customers now are seeinghigher rates on their monthly bills.Regardless, customer acceptance of the sys-tem is high—St. Paul’s district heating systemserves 85 percent of the downtown area’ssquare footage, while the district cooling sys-tem serves 65 percent. More than 180 build-ings in the downtown district and 300 single-family homes in adjacent areas are served byDistrict Energy. Offices and homes acrossthe Mississippi River from the plant are alsosupplied via a pipeline encased in a bridge,which is another example of the problemsolving and innovations that have madeDistrict Energy St. Paul an industry leader.BIO

Susanne Retka Schill is a Biomass Magazinestaff writer. Reach her at [email protected] or (701) 738-4962.

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The buildings in green are served by District Energy St. Paul.

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environment

Lukewarm onCofiring

Cofiring biomass in coal-poweredplants is a way to include renewableenergy within the existing grid. Canrenewable mandates regulationsencourage utilities to utilize biomass,and is it a good idea?

By Anduin Kirkbride McElroy


environment

tatewide renewable portfo-lio standards (RPS), whichrequire that a minimum per-centage of electricity berenewable, have been effec-tive in boosting renewable

electricity production across the UnitedStates. According to the EnergyEfficiency and Renewable Energy officeof the U.S. DOE, there are currently 24states plus the District of Columbia thathave RPS policies in place, which accountfor more than half of the nation’s elec-tricity sales. Four additional states havenonbinding goals for adoption of renew-able energy instead of an RPS.

In most of these states, renewableelectricity can be sourced from a combi-nation of solar, wind, hydropower andvarious forms of biomass. In manystates, power companies are allowed tomeet renewable standards by cofiringbiomass with coal at existing powerplants, but it is unclear how many areactually doing so. Cofiring doesn’t seemto be a technology that utilities are rely-ing on to meet their RPS, says CarolStemrich, assistant administrator in thegas and energy division of theWisconsin Public Service Commission.“[Cofiring biomass is] just one in a mixof options that utilities have in order to

meet their RPS,” she says. “I think utili-ties have been concentrating on othertechnologies more recently and are look-ing hard at biomass as a stand-aloneinstead of cofiring.” Wisconsin has setan RPS of 10 percent by 2015, and likemany other states, allows the renewableportion of the electricity to counttoward the producer’s RPS.

There are several facilities within theUnited States that are already cofiring,and some power companies are evaluat-ing the logistics and economics, but it isby no means a widespread practice. AsBiomass Magazine has reported, cofiringbiomass at coal plants isn’t a simple

S

The existing 200 megawatt coal power plant in Cassville, Wis., owned by Alliant Energy, is shown with a simulation of a new 300 megawatt plant, left. The com-bined 500 megawatt plant will produce fewer emissions than the existing plant, thanks to advanced emissions system controls and biomass cofiring.

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endeavor; boilers must be tailored tohandle the physical and chemical char-acteristics of the biomass fuel, whichdiffer significantly from that of coal.Infrastructure costs and permitting pro-cedures can mean millions of dollarsand years of investment before a facili-ty could begin cofiring. In theory, stateand federal carbon regulations andrenewable mandates may encouragecoal plants to begin this process, but sofar, it’s not clear if a statewide RPS isenough to generate new projects.

North Carolina is one of the mostrecent states to adopt an RPS, requiring12.5 percent by 2021. “The expectationis that we will create more demand forbiomass materials like urban woodwaste, forest thinnings and poultry lit-ter,” says John Bonitz, who does farmoutreach and policy advocacy for theSouthern Alliance for Clean Energy.“Our hope is that we will be buildingnew biopower facilities rather thanmerely cofiring in coal plants. The ther-mochemical processes are so much bet-ter for the environment.”

Concerns about the effects ofburning coal have some environmentaladvocates suggesting that current poli-cies, which allow cofired biomass toqualify as renewable energy, may bemisguided. Cofiring is the least desirableoption for earning renewable energycredits, says Josh Dickinson, executivedirector of the Florida ForestManagement Trust. He says cofiring

should be tied to a net reduction in coaland should be linked to demand-sidemanagement, energy efficiency and con-servation commitments. Additionally,renewable energy credits should only bepermitted for cofiring at coal plantsusing the best available technology.Though Florida doesn’t have an RPS yet,Dickinson confirms that new energyprojects in the state are being evaluat-ed—and sometimes denied—because oftheir environmental impacts.

As it turns out, renewable mandatesmay mean less to utilities than carbonregulations. As carbon has become anincreasing concern, coal plants across thecountry are feeling the squeeze. Withinthe past few months, some coal plants indevelopment have been denied variouspermits, prompting them to abandontheir plans.

Despite increasing consumerdemand for electricity, some project thatconcern over carbon will be so great that

‘Our hope is that we will bebuilding new biopower facilities rather than merelycofiring in coal plants. Thethermochemical processesare so much better for theenvironment.’


environment

new coal combustion projects will strug-gle for approval. David Harlos, principalscientist for Advantek Consulting Inc. inFlorida, suggests that the additionalcosts of biomass cofiring will not helpalready beleaguered coal combustionprojects. “Perhaps most important is theurgent need to not permit any new coalcombustion without complete carbondioxide sequestration,” he says. “Newcoal combustion either locks in the con-tinued emission of fossil carbon dioxidefor the life of the facility, or leads to astranded asset if these new facilities areabandoned before their life cycle end-points because of later carbon dioxideemissions restrictions. It is this threat,

which we suspect has stalled new coalprojects in Florida, but it seems unlikelythat the addition of biomass cofiring canreverse the economic direction of thisnew equation. New coal boilers couldnot economically be fired with replace-ment biomass, and in most cases bio-mass cofiring adds capital and operatingcosts to already endangered projects.”

Part of the struggle in permittingcomes from convincing skeptics of theenvironmental friendliness of cofiring.It’s not a given that cofiring improves acoal plant’s environmental profile, andsome critics say the practice is a form ofgreenwashing—especially if large utili-ties are allowed to claim it as renewable.Critics suggest that giving coal plantsbiomass credits subsidizes the plants,incentivizing them to stay open andremain dependent on coal. Other criticssay that cofiring isn’t the best utilizationof biomass. “The problem with cofiringbiomass is that if you were burning bio-mass alone, you could theoretically usethe residue or ash as a fertilizer becauseit has no toxic pollutants in it,”Dickinson says. “If you combine bio-mass with other fuels, such as [municipalsolid waste] or coal, the whole residuebecomes a pollutant.”

Cofire to Clean CoalOne company intends to show that

clean coal is possible through emissionscontrol and cofiring biomass. AlliantEnergy, a power company that servesIowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, has atotal generation capacity of 5,894megawatts. Coal makes up approximate-ly half of that, while biobased sources(anaerobic digesters, biogas and switch-grass) produce just 37.45 megawatts.Alliant performed a 1,700 hour test burnof switchgrass in 2006 at its OttumwaGenerating Station in Marshalltown,Iowa, and generated 17 megawatts fromthe cofired biomass.

The company is working to permittwo cofired plants, according toManager of Biofuels Development BillJohnson. In Cassville, Wis., Alliant hasproposed a 300 megawatt unit addition,where 10 percent of the fuel will be bio-mass. The other project is inMarshalltown, where Alliant hopes tobuild a 640 megawatt facility using 5 per-cent biomass. Both Iowa and Wisconsinhave an RPS.

Johnson tells Biomass Magazine thatthe state RPS regulations had an impacton the company’s business plans, butsays “we’re ahead of the curve in gov-

‘I hope people recognizethat we are trying to do theright thing. This will allow usto transition to cleanerplants. A vote for “don’t doit” is a vote for the statusquo, and that’s what we’retrying to get away from.’


environment

ernment expectations.” Two drivers arecarbon concerns and portfolio diversifi-cation. “In order to reduce our impacton the environment and provide a sus-tainable supply of electricity, we have tolook at a wide array of renewables in ourportfolio,” he says. “Adding to the fleetthe capability to burn biofuels in base-load coal plants is an excellent additionand an excellent way to impact the envi-ronment. Currently, about 465megawatts of our portfolio is renew-ables, and we see the potential to bemuch higher through the addition ofwind and the use of biofuels in our coalplants.”

Of course, meeting the energydemand of its customers was one of the

greatest incentives forAlliant to developthese projects. “Weneed new baseloadcapacity in Wisconsinand Iowa,” Johnsonsays. Alliant sees 3 per-cent annual growth inenergy demand, andthat’s with aggressive

conservation programs. “As much as youcan deploy on renewables, there’s still ademand on the system,” he says. For

example, ethanol plants in production orunder construction within Alliant’s serv-ice area demand 350 megawatts, which ismore than the Cassville project will pro-duce once upgraded.

Finally, Johnson explains that theold plants needed to be replaced withnew emissions technology. “The oldplant will be upgraded with new com-bustion and emission system controls,”he says of the project in Cassville. “Theold stack will no longer be used, and allemissions will be treated in the newplant and go out the [other] stack. Theemission reductions we project from[this project] after we upgrade the oldplant (200 megawatts), add an additional300 megawatts, and burn biofuel at the10 percent level in the new plant are a 55percent reduction in nitrogen oxides, 90percent reduction in sulfur dioxide and25 percent reduction in mercury fromcurrent levels. Therefore, we will achievethese reductions when we are generating500 megawatts compared with the exist-ing plant at 200 megawatts.”

These emissions reductions are whyJohnson says the projects have had sup-port from many environmental groups.“You’ll find most environmental groupswe worked with recognize this is a good

direction to go and a good start,” hesays. “We need to be able to providetechnologies to replace older, inefficientand less clean technologies.”

Alliant will spend 2008 in permittinghearings and providing testimony. If thecompany is successful, both plants willbe built and ready to produce power in2013. Johnson says the plants wouldstart burning biomass within months ofcommissioning, with the goal of reach-ing the 5 percent and 10 percent levels,respectively, within the first year ofoperation. To get to that point, Alliantmust convince commissions that this isindeed good economics and good forthe environment. “I hope people recog-nize that we are trying to do the rightthing,” he says. “This will allow us totransition to cleaner plants. A vote for‘don’t do it’ is a vote for the status quo,and that’s what we’re trying to get awayfrom.” BIO

Anduin Kirkbride McElroy is a BiomassMagazine staff writer. Reach her at [email protected] or (701) 738-4962.

Johnson


feedstock

Feedstock availability, consistency and the hype surroundingalternative fuels are all challenges to the development ofwaste-to-energy projects.

By Jessica Ebert


feedstock


feedstock

ny conversation about thechallenges of convertingwaste into energy regardlessof the source of the feed-stock whether agricultural orindustrial, and regardless of

the end products—solid or liquid fuel orelectricity—comes down to an issue offeedstock availability. “I don’t care whattechnology you have. If you don’t have thefeedstocks you don’t have anything,” saysSteve Flick, a Missouri farmer and chairmanof the Show Me Energy Cooperative boardof directors. “We say it’s like having the pret-tiest girl ask you to the dance. If you can’t

dance then you might as well not embarrassyourself.” The cooperative, which is madeup of more than 400 farmers, is just nowstepping out on the renewable energy dancefloor with a flexible business model bettingit will garner admiration rather than embar-rassment.

Show Me Energy has its origins inwest-central Missouri where a group offarmers and producers with a vision ofusing cellulose for energy production beganmeeting monthly until 2004 when they offi-cially organized under the state’s NewGeneration Cooperative law. At that time,the group sanctioned a feasibility study,

which in turn determined that the model thegroup envisioned would be a good fit forproducers in western Missouri and easternKansas. “Missouri was a prime state becausewe have all these dichotomies of scale,” saysFlick, a seed-company owner and farmerwho will be planting six acres of miscanthusthis spring. “We have corn farmers in thenorth, grass-seed farmers in the south,wheat farmers in the west and soybeanfarmers in the central part of the state. It’s areally good fit.”

At the center of the cooperative’smodel is technology developed in-housethat converts agricultural residues into bio-

A

Show Me Energy Cooperative’s Centerview, Mo., plant

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mass fuel pellets. The farmers who invest inthe cooperative sign a market agreementcommitting them to produce a certainamount of biomass each year. In addition,co-op members must adhere to high stan-dards of environmental stewardship, Flicksays. For corn stover, producers must leaveabout 30 percent of the residue on theirfields. For native grasses, farmers must har-vest in the late fall after a killing frost andleave rows around waterways and tributaries.“We are adamant about making this busi-ness model not only profitable but realisti-cally environmentally friendly,” he says.

The farmers that abide by these rulescollect and store the residue on their farmsin round bales, which are eventually truckedto the cooperative’s new pellet-productionfacility in Centerview, Mo. This is the maindrawback to using agricultural residues as anenergy feedstock: they are bulky and trans-porting them becomes economically disad-vantageous after a certain distance.

Show Me Energy pays each farmer acertain amount per ton for residue and alsopays for the hauling costs within a 100-mileradius of the plant. Farmers outside thisarea aren’t discouraged from participatingbut they must pay the transportation fee forany additional distance (anything over 100miles). The pellet-production facility willproduce 100,000 tons of biomass pelletseach year. This fuel source will be cofired ata local utility; five pounds of pellets will becofired with every 100 pounds of coalburned.

But that’s just phase one of the cooper-ative’s vision. In phase two, Show Me Energyhas teamed with Clean Energy TechnologiesLLC, a Black and Veatch Corp. company, tobuild a biomass-to-liquid fuel facility nextdoor to the Centerview plant. This secondplant would demonstrate the gasification ofbiomass pellets for the production of liquidfuels such as ethanol, methanol, syntheticdiesel, aviation or other fuels. The team iscurrently waiting to hear how they fared on aU.S. DOE grant application before movingforward with the project.

Flick hopes other producer groups willembrace the basic tenets of the co-op: sus-tainability, flexibility and availability. “We’vealways felt that our model is a very econom-ically adaptable model because it’s the farm-ers who work really hard to make it work,”he says. “It’s better than the ‘contract-pro-duction’ model that some people have beendeciding to do, where they go out and havea technology and contract the feedstock. Wefeed the cow [the cooperative] with home-grown energy produced on local farms.”

Feedstocks that FitAnother way to think about this is: use

a feedstock that makes sense for your localeand process. For rural producers like thoseof Show Me Energy, that’s agriculturalresidues. For those in urban settings, a morefitting feedstock is industrial waste, whichcould take the form of plastic, rubber,process heat, municipal solid waste or foodprocessing debris.

These are the feedstocks targeted byChanging World Technologies Inc., a New-


feedstock

York based technology developer that aimsto identify and commercialize energy-effi-cient and eco-friendly emerging technolo-gies. The company’s thermal conversionprocess technology converts wastes rangingfrom mixed plastics to post-consumer tires,

food processing waste and municipal solidwaste, to solids, renewable diesel and spe-cialty chemicals.

In terms of agricultural residues, thecompany has done some work with manureand corn stover and a combination of those

types of wastes. The company hasn’t fin-ished any kind of demonstration plantdesign for that material because it’s beenfocusing on food processing wastes.However, it has generated lots of good dataand it will be something they will build on in

Changing World Technologies’ TCP process

SOURCE: CHANGING WORLD TECHNOLOGIES INC.


feedstock

the future, says Brian Appel, chairman andchief executive officer of CWT. The keywill be finding a “champion” to shepherdthe projects forward. Appel points to thecompany’s success in processing foodwastes to define what he means by a cham-pion. “When we developed the food pro-cessing technology, ConAgra Foods wasone of the larger food slaughter houses inthe world and they aggressively were tryingto find an alternative to feeding animalsback to animals,” Appel explains. “ConAgrawas the champion. Instead of taking thisnasty material and turning it back into ani-mal feed it was diverted away from the foodchain so we would minimize any transmit-table diseases like BSE (bovine spongiformencephalopathy). BSE is more commonlyknown as mad cow disease.

When it comes to the agricultural sideof things, those champions are a little hard-er to find, Appel says. “A lot of these are stillindividual family farmers and it’s muchharder to get someone who wants to be thechampion of just that area. It has to be

someone who understands the big picturein agriculture and has the resources to gofrom pilot-plant to a commercial-demon-stration facility.”

In terms of industrial waste, whichAppel classifies as a subset of municipalsolid waste, the biggest challenge is not somuch finding a champion as finding consis-tent feedstocks. “With municipal solid wasteyou never know what you’re going to get,”he says. “It’s always changing as consumerand manufacturing habits change and asefforts to recycle intensify.”

To circumvent this inconsistency, CWTis working with large industrial shreddercompanies, also referred to as metal recy-clers, to design a demonstration plant forthe conversion of shredder residue to fuel.“Shredder residue is a more consistent feed-stock,” Appel explains. “If you take a refrig-erator or a car and send it through a giantshredder, those companies collect the metaland the glass.” The stuff leftover—plasticand rubber from the tires or the hosesunder the hood, or the vinyl seats and the

stuffing in the cushions—that’s the materialthat CWT is focusing on because it’s moreidentifiable, he says.

In addition to identifying a consistentsource of feedstock, another challenge toovercome is the hype, Appel says.“Alternative fuels have been hyped world-wide. One of the biggest challenges thatwe’ve had is coming behind other additivesand other alternative fuels,” he says.Therefore, fixed-energy markets are the firsttarget for CWT. “We’ve been a proponentof making fixed energy as the place to learnhow to use these fuels because it’s a logicalprogression to then go into transportation.”BIO

Jessica Ebert is a Biomass Magazine staffwriter. Reach her at [email protected] (701) 738-4962.


energy


handong, a province ofEastern China, is richlyendowed. Three newnuclear power plants areplanned for the province,while China Light and

Power, a major Hong Kong-basedenergy company, owns a wind farmand numerous coal-fired power sta-tions in the area and is planning more.In 2004, 1,500 of the province’s farms

accounted for 25 percent of the entirenation’s exports of grain, fruit, vegeta-bles and other agricultural producegrown over 4.9 million acres. Some ofthose farms could find themselves sell-ing their waste product to power sta-tions if the country’s first dedicatedbiomass plant starts operating soon, ashoped. Like most of the rest of thecountry, Shandong is a beehive thatwants to buzz more.

energy

S

Straw TigerChinese farmers could earn more money by cutting their country’s coal consumption. Straw residues from agricultural production are becoming anappealing feedstock for cofiring in power plants.

By Marianne Osterkorn

The claims and statements made in this article belong exclusively to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the viewsof Biomass Magazine or its advertisers. All questions pertaining to this article should be directed to the author(s).


energy

Some government officials andenvironmentalists, alarmed by this rapidgrowth, are seeking to add anotheringredient to this hyper-activity: straw.Straw is already used locally for papermaking but it could instead be blowninto the furnaces at coal-fired powerstations, putting a brake on the nation’sfossil fuel use and creating addedincome for farmers. It is an idea that hasalready been tried and tested in Europe,the United States and other parts of theworld, but which has yet to be pio-neered in China. “Cofiring simply hasn’t

really happened yet,” says Rachel Child,an executive at energy consultancy ESD,which is funded by the RenewableEnergy and Energy EfficiencyPartnership to determine a path for bio-mass cofiring to become a reality inChina.

Ironically, investment costs arelower than for many other alternatives.However, biomass cofiring has stillbeen neglected. Dedicated biomasspower has happened, and a number ofthese plants have sprouted across thecountry thanks to a preferential tarifffor the power they produce. “There isan enormous amount of interest in bio-mass in China,” Child says.

Examples of cofiring, which can bea cheaper solution than straight fossilfuels, exist in just a few provinces andonly in Shandong province has a cofiredplant been supported financially by theprovincial government.

This lack of interest is not due to ashortage of resources; straw is plentifulacross the country. According to ESD’sstudy, carried out in conjunction withChina’s Center for Renewable EnergyDevelopment, at least 77 million tons of

Examples of cofiring, whichcan be a cheaper solutionthan straight fossil fuels,exist in just a few provinces,and only in Shandongprovince has a cofired plantbeen supported financiallyby the provincial government.

China’s agricultural industry produces a massive amount of residue, which could be used to cofirepower plants.

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energy Biomass togo...

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Shandong 101

Like much of China, Shandong has a variety of geographic, eco-nomic and cultural variations throughout its approximately 61,000-square mile region. Unlike much of interior China, it has the benefit ofhaving its eastern edge touch the Pacific Ocean.

Shandong is located in the lower reaches of the Yellow River onChina’s east coast. The province’s most notable geographic feature isthe Shandong Peninsula, which protrudes into the area separating theBohai and Yellow Seas.The province’s inland areas are adjoined by theprovinces of Hebei, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu.

The capital and most populous city is Jinan, which is located in thewest-central region of the province. Shandong is the second mostpopulous province in China, behind Henan. The population in 2004was 91.8 million.

Shandong ranks among the top of China’s agricultural provinces.It leads in cotton and wheat production. Other important cropsinclude sorghum and maize.

The province also has large mineral deposits including gold anddiamonds. Areas of the province also feature extensive petroleumdeposits, making it one of China’s most economically developedprovinces.

More information is available at www.shandong.gov.cn.

Shandong province produced more than 4.9 million acres of farmland in the past growing season,providing ample cofiring feedstocks.

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energy

unused surplus straw is burned each year.In addition, large amounts currently usedfor fertilizer, making paper or other pur-poses are potentially available as feed-stock for power stations.

Horizontal IntegrationDespite the potential feedstock

source, in China the relationship betweenfarmers and power station managers ispolarized—perhaps even more extremelyso than in other countries. They are not

accustomed to working together. As inother countries, it has been hard tomake a new horizontal incision into thevertically integrated industrial infra-structure essential for a well-function-ing biomass-to-energy industry.

Power station managers operatelarge assets dependent on enormousbulks of coal (660 million tons) burnedin 2004 supplied via a large, establishednetwork. In China, farming is a familybusiness. In 2004, the nation producedalmost as much in food crops as itburned coal—520 million tons—butmost of its farms are smallholdings lessthan 1.2 acres in size and producing 4.4tons of straw each. The total output ofagricultural straw amounted to 750 mil-lion tons—the energy equivalent of 370million tons of coal—and 414 milliontons were available for use as energy.The number of farms dwarfs the num-ber of coal-fired power stations, andthere are just five major companies inthe Chinese power sector compared tomillions of farmers.

Since logistical resources have beenmarshalled to meet the food productionand export business, it follows that thesame could be done for the energy busi-ness. “What it needs is a dedicated sup-ply company handling this issue,” saysChild, following ESD and CRED’s year-long investigation. However, the supplyissue is a delicate one. A poor harvestcould mean a sudden fall in feedstock,and competition for straw from a newindustry could raise prices.

Lower Capital CostsNot surprisingly, Shandong is the

home to one of China’s first cofiringplants. It is an enterprising state and oneof the country’s main producers ofstraw. Some aspects of adapting anexisting power station to a cofiring facil-ity are cost-effective when compared tocosts of a dedicated biomass powerplant. “Investment costs are pretty lowfor these plants,” Child says. “They

China’s recently launchedNational Climate ChangeProgram sets a target of supplying 10 percent of thecountry’s primary energy fromrenewable sources by 2010.


energy

need storage for the biomass, but theoverall capital expenditure is muchlower than building a new dedicated bio-mass plant of an equivalent capacity.”

Smaller power stations of less than50 megawatts capacity are easier toadapt because often they do not use pul-verized fuel, and there is less of a feed-stock infrastructure problem due totheir size. As some of these are sup-posed to be closed soon by the govern-ment, ESD and CRED reckons cofiringcould help extend their life, thus possi-bly ushering in a new cofiring or bio-mass culture.

The future holds promise neverthe-less, if only because of the breadth ofthe government’s vision. “China has setvery ambitious targets, and there’s agrowing recognition of renewable ener-gy in the whole mix,” says CRED’s HuRunqing.

China’s recently launched NationalClimate Change Program sets a target ofsupplying 10 percent of the country’sprimary energy from renewable sourcesby 2010. In setting this goal, the countryplans to move faster than many devel-oped economies. According to ESD andCRED, cofiring is suitable for 10 of its30 provinces, including Shandong,because of the combination of goodbiomass availability and network ofcoal-fired power stations.

As yet, cofiring plants do not enjoythe essential preferential feed-in tariffenjoyed by dedicated biomass plants,although there are plans to change thisand make the preferential tariff availableto cofiring plants too. A key issue is todevelop a system that would monitorproduction and other activities in tan-dem with a new financial incentive.

A further snag is that there are cur-rently no cofiring projects registered bythe Clean Development MechanismExecutive Board, whereas a number ofprojects for dedicated biomass powerplants have been registered. Hence,coal-fired power stations are still unable

to claim funding through the carbonmarkets for any cofiring innovations atpresent.

History has shown that when theChinese turn their minds to something,they make enormous steps very fast andwith clear plans. The odds against cofir-ing are stacked quite high at themoment, but a top-down decision couldalter the situation very quickly. Perhaps itis only a matter of time before theyacknowledge the wasted energy—andearnings opportunities—visible when

they pass farmers burning unwantedstraw in the fields.BIO

Dr. Marianne Osterkorn is the internation-al director of the Renewable Energy &Energy Efficiency Partnership. Reach herat [email protected] or +43126026 3425.

www.fuelethanolworkshop.com

June 16-19, 2008

Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention CenterNashville, Tennessee, USA

BBI International’s

15-17 April 2008 . Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Presented by In partnership with

The full program agenda is posted on the website.

REGISTER TODAY!www.biomassconference.com

Conferences & Events . 719-539-0300 . [email protected]

BBI INTERNATIONAL

green event

Explore the Opportunities, Experience the Technology

The program will focus on technological advancements, commercial scale manufacturing, and near

term research and development.

Technical sessions will include:

. Biopower Gasification

. Feedstock Processing

. Pretreatment for Cellulosic Ethanol

. Policy and Project Implementation

. Biopower: CHP Technologies

. International Perspectives on Biomass Utilization

. Permitting and Lifecycle Assessment

. Alternative Bio-syngas Production

. Water Issues for Biomass Utilization

. Feedstock Alternatives

. Alternative Biofuels: Biobutanol, Green Diesel, and Jet Fuel

. Feedstock Supply

. Commercial Applications

. Anaerobic Digestion

. Project Finance

. Bioproducts

. Biorefining

The objective of the

International Biomass ‘08 Conference & Trade Show is to act as a catalyst for the

sustainable advancement of biomass utilization on a global scale.

IN THE

LAB

n 2005, a graduate student of R.E. “Buddy” Babcock, profes-

sor of chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas,

looked at the possibility of making biodiesel from low-cost,

low-quality feedstocks. That research showed that high levels

of free fatty acids (FFAs) were one of the primary components

that made low-quality fats unsuitable for biodiesel production

by the traditional transesterification reaction.

Another grad student, Brent Schulte, picked up the research and

found that Japanese researchers had discovered a different way of

making biodiesel using supercritical methanol. Above a certain temper-

ature and pressure, many substances pass what is called the critical

point where they can exist either as a liquid or a gas. Above this point,

they become supercritical fluids that have properties of both a gas and

a liquid. In particular, a supercritical fluid can dissolve another substance

like a liquid and penetrate a solid like a gas. “Basically the methanol

molecules are just in better contact [with the fatty acids] because they

are in a single phase,” Babcock explains. “It is a homogeneous—rather

than a heterogeneous—reaction, so there is no need for a catalyst. If

you go into a single phase, it is just easier for the reactants to convert

into biodiesel.”

Fats aren’t very soluble in methanol, which is one of the reasons

that caustic catalysts like sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide are

needed to speed up the transesterification reaction. One of the advan-

tages of supercritical fluids is that carefully making small adjustments to

the temperature and pressure conditions of the reactor has large effects

on the properties of the supercritical fluid. Babcock and Schulte found

that of the conditions they tested, a pressure of 1,650 pounds per

square inch and a temperature of 325 degrees Celsius (617 degrees

Fahrenheit) produced a reaction that transformed the fats into biodiesel

quickly and completely.

Another reason supercritical methanol may be a good choice for

future biodiesel production is that it does a good job converting FFAs to

biodiesel. In fact, Babcock says, the reaction works even better with

FFAs than with triglycerides. “This method prefers the free fatty acids,

so that’s not a problem,” he says. In one set of experiments, Schulte

reacted tall oil fatty acids (TOFA) with supercritical methanol. Tall oil is a

byproduct of the pulp and paper industry that can be distilled to make

TOFA, a mixture of nearly pure FFAs.

Compared with the low-quality chicken fat, which had an FFA level

of up to 12 percent, the TOFA needed just half as much methanol by

weight to achieve similar yields of biodiesel. The downside to using

TOFA is that it isn’t much cheaper than soybean oil at this time. “Right

now, a gallon of TOFA is about the same price as a gallon of diesel,”

Babcock says. “However, it is price-competitive with some of the other

feedstocks. If we get enough of these feedstocks, maybe it will give

some relief to the price pressure on the industry.”

Crude tall oil is cheaper. However, crude tall oil contains 30 percent

to 45 percent resin acids, which don’t react with methanol in this method

and can’t be made into acceptable biodiesel. However, Babcock says

this method shows a lot of promise for economically converting many

low-quality feedstocks, including brown and trap grease, into biodiesel.

Another possible avenue for future research will be looking for ways to

use crude tall oil for biodiesel production. BIO

—Jerry W. Kram

A Different Path to Biodiesel

I

Tall oil fatty acid, a byproduct of the pulp industry, is a potential feedstock forbiodiesel that can't be converted using traditional transesterification because ofhigh levels of free fatty acids. However, work at the University of Arkansas couldmake this—and other low-value feedstocks such as brown grease—idealbiodiesel feedstocks.

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EERCUPDATE

s more and more industries, manufacturers and municipalities look for ways to utilize bio-mass residues for energy, the Energy & Environmental Research Center is developing dis-tributed gasification technologies as a means for conversion of biomass to fuels, chemicalsand electricity. Several small gasifier systems have been tested with good success on a vari-ety of biomass feedstocks, including wood, grass seed residue, switchgrass and sewagematerials.

The concept involves first converting the biomass to a synthetic gas, which is cooledand then cleaned. The gas can then be fired in a generator to produce electric power or used as a feedstockgas for liquid fuels or chemicals. Most of the systems developed to date are distributedenergy systems of 50 to 300 kilowatts of electricity in size. In many instances where anindustry or municipality has ample biomass residue, the process residues produced canoffset 100 percent of the power used in local industrial or manufacturing operations.

The residues produced at the plant are typically disposed of at a cost. The technolo-gy provides a means to use the material and benefit from the renewable energy product.Such projects can be thought of as a way to provide a fuel other than natural gas to anengine generator. The gasifier is a means to produce a usable fuel from biomass. Advancesin gasification system design, operation and automation, although somewhat complex,have simplified things so that an operator primarily performs gas filter changes, ash collection and filling of afuel bin.

What is significant about the technology with regard to biomass energy is the synergistic fit with typicalbiomass resources. Biomass, in general, is widely available as a resource. The most economical quantities ofthe material are located at specific sites in relatively low volume. The challenge has been to provide a distrib-uted energy technology that can produce electricity at near-grid electricity prices. The EERC is developing gasi-fication technologies that package power economically in a distributed power production scenario, as opposedto a large centralized power station scenario.

The EERC is working with commercial partners to provide not simply a hardware solution, but also abusiness solution. Because new products in the marketplace can face challenges, the business strategy of theEERC is to integrate for the customer the financial and operational benefits of small-scale biopower genera-tion, which will allow development and confidence to sustain future business. The pathway forward providesa sustainable integration of new renewable energy to the marketplace.

Additional projects are planned over the next year, and all projects will support segments of the EERC’sbiomass gasification technology platform, which has a goal of moving technologies forward to stand-alonecommercial operations within three years. Gasification technologies will, we hope, bring the economics ofsmall-scale power generation within reach of commercial businesses attempting to find more attractiveoptions for managing process residues. BIO

Darren Schmidt is a research manager at the EERC in Grand Forks, N.D. Reach him at [email protected] or (701) 777-5120.

Schmidt

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