biomass magazine - november 2007

Powerful PelletsFlorida Plant Will Produce 550,000 Tonsof Wood Pellets Per Year

US $24.95 year : www.BiomassMagazine.com

INSIDE: WILL CONGRESS PASS A RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY MANDATE?

December 2007

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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

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The future of fuel

12|2007 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 5

INSIDE November 2007 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 6

FEATURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 RESEARCH From Concept to Commercialization

Several avenues are available, from analytical services agreements to

cooperative research and development agreements, to employ the National

Renewable Energy Laboratory’s biomass expertise. To keep up with the

growing industry, the federal lab is doubling the size of its pilot plant and

enlarging its thermochemical biomass conversion facility. By Jerry W. Kram

24 POWER Closing the Energy Circle

Florida will soon be home to the world’s largest wood pellet plant. Green Circle Bio

Energy Inc. will produce 550,000 tons of wood pellets a year from regionally sourced

pine trees. The pellets will be shipped to Europe for use in power plants.

By Ron Kotrba

30 INNOVATION The Fischer-Tropsch/Fat Connection

After successfully transforming natural gas into JP8 jet fuel for the U.S. Air

Force, Syntroleum Corp. is tweaking its technology to use a new feedstock:

low-grade animal fats, greases and vegetable oils. The company entered into a

joint venture with Tyson Foods Inc. to commercialize its process and build

multiple facilities. By Susanne Retka Schill

36 COPRODUCT Renewed Interest in Bovine Biomass

Researchers are reviving a form of chemistry called “chemurgy” to develop

industrial uses for animal-processed fiber (APF), a coproduct of the anaerobic

digestion process. APF has been used in a variety of wood-based products,

including fiberboard and particleboard. By Bryan Sims

42 POLICY High-Voltage Debate Over Renewable Electricity Mandate

Congress has yet to pass a renewable electricity mandate, despite the fact that 25

states and the District of Columbia have passed their own form of a renewable

portfolio standard (RPS). Supporters, however, believe an RPS may actually get to

the president’s desk this year. By Anduin Kirkbride McElroy

46 PROFILE Neutralizing Landfill Leachate

GEI Development and its subsidiary Liquid Solutions LLC have found a way to

dispose of the unsavory liquid that oozes from municipal waste sites. The E-VAP

system evaporates leachate and can be powered by landfill gas. By Nicholas Zeman

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

07 Advertiser Index

09 Industry Events

11 Business Briefs

12 Industry News

51 In the LabProgress to a Pathway:

PNNL Process Holds Promise for Biobased Chemicals

By Jerry W. Kram

53 EERC UpdateBiomass Power Options for Existing Ethanol Plants

By Bruce Folkedahl

RESEARCH | PAGE 18

t was a great to read your very comprehensive article titled “Not So

Run of the Mill” in the September issue of Biomass Magazine. It real-

ly brought forward how some in the forest products industry are

viewing pulp and paper mills as potential locations for biorefineries,

as well as a possible new business model that may actually revitalize the

industry.

As discussed in the article, there are so many advantages in having a

biorefinery collocated in a pulp and paper mill: It creates valuable new prod-

ucts for the mill, reduces energy costs, uses waste streams effectively for

power production, and enables the sharing of utilities and resources. While

your article focused largely on the potential production of cellulosic ethanol

in the pulp and paper mill setting, we believe that biomass gasification and

the production of Fischer-Tropsch liquids, or biocrudes, may offer a more

compelling business case for the industry than does cellulosic ethanol.

While cellulosic ethanol technologies are still at the experimental level,

biocrudes from biomass use proven technologies. The process doesn’t

depend on feedstock type and has the potential for utilizing a wide range of

biomass streams, including what we believe is an untapped resource—

namely byproduct or “waste” flows from forest and agricultural sources.

Thus, we would be tapping into the largest potential sources of renewable

biomass energy in the United States.

Another major advantage of biocrudes is that they are fungible and

can be shipped to the petrochemical refiners and processed as “standard”

crude, thus eliminating many of the logistical issues associated with

ethanol. Biocrudes also represent a cleaner and purer source of crude oil

because they contain no sulfur. As with other biofuels, biocrudes help to ful-

fill the federal government’s mandate of reducing our dependence on for-

eign oil and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

In light of these benefits, we at Flambeau River Papers have expand-

ed our focus since your article was published. Although we have considered

the production of cellulosic ethanol, upon much evaluation we believe that

the risk-reward of biocrude production is indeed favorable in some cases.

In fact, we are now looking at biomass gasification technologies to produce

biocrude, while becoming the first pulp and paper mill in North America to

be fossil-fuel-free.

Bill JohnsonFlambeau River Biofuels LLC

6 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 12|2007

letters to theEDITOR

enjoyed your article on agrichar (“Agrichar Rejuvenates Tired Soils”

in the October issue). I believe that we are going to find out that soil

regeneration will be the most significant key to sustainable consum-

able crop generation and healthy forest management. This will not

only apply to any bioenergy-related feedstock, but also for human con-

sumption crops.

We have just developed a process for local communities to take veg-

etative material like forest slash and convert it into a 0.2 to 2 millimeter par-

ticle that has been tested to show it has great value in soil regeneration due

to its quick soil absorption qualities. Our processed end product not only

restores carbon back into the soil, but also recharges the soil with nitrogen,

ammonia, nitrates, phosphorus, potash, potassium, calcium, magnesium,

sodium, iron, manganese, copper, zinc and boron, depending on the

source. We are still studying the impact of this process on agricultural slash

and are optimistic that we can reduce reliance on petrochemical fertilizer.

I would hazard a guess to say that the study of soil regeneration will

have a higher impact on global rural economies for becoming self-sustain-

ing than any other area of study. Keep up the good work on keeping us all

informed on what's going on in our world.

Chris Casson Principle

FG Enterprises LLC

I

I


EDITORIAL

Tom Bryan EDITORIAL DIRECTOR [email protected]

Jaci Satterlund ART DIRECTOR [email protected]

Jessica Sobolik MANAGING EDITOR [email protected]

Dave Nilles CONTRIBUTIONS EDITOR [email protected]

Rona Johnson FEATURES EDITOR [email protected]

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

Michael Shirek ONLINE EDITOR [email protected]

Jan Tellmann COPY EDITOR [email protected]

Ron Kotrba SENIOR STAFF WRITER [email protected]

Nicholas Zeman 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]

Elizabeth Slavens GRAPHIC DESIGNER [email protected]

PUBLISHING & SALESMike Bryan PUBLISHER & CEO [email protected]

Kathy Bryan PUBLISHER & VICE 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]

Trista Lund 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]

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advertiserINDEX

ABENCS 21

Abengoa Bioenergy Corporation 39

Agri-Energy Funding Solutions 27

BBI Project Development 10 & 29

Biofuels Australasia 8

Biofuels Canada 2

Byrne & Co. Ltd. 33

Energy & Environmental Research Center 17

Ethanol Producer Magazine 6 & 54

Green Power, Inc. 3

International Biomass ‘08 Conference & Trade Show 50

Novozymes 4

Percival Scientific, Inc. 35

Price BIOstock Services 45

Primenergy,LLC 23

R.C. Costello & Assoc. Inc. 41

Robert-James Sales, Inc. 56

Rotochopper, Inc. 52

Supreme International Limited 49

The Teaford Co., Inc. 26

UOP 55

Cert no. SCS-COC-00648


Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy

November 14-16, 2007Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & SpaHonolulu, HawaiiThis event will detail the latest developments in industrial biotechnology, includ-ing all forms of bioenergy production, biobased products and chemicals. Oneparticular session will explain new approaches to bioethanol production, whileanother will look at advancing biorefineries for fuels and chemicals production.Several breakout sessions will focus on biofuels from biomass.(202) 962-9204 www.bio.org/pacrim

AgSTAR National Conference

November 27-28, 2007Sacramento Convention CenterSacramento, CaliforniaThis conference is geared toward livestock producers, project developers, ener-gy professionals, financiers, and others interested in manure digester and ener-gy projects. The agenda will feature technical, policy and financial presentations,poster sessions, networking opportunities, exhibits of the latest technologies andservices, and a tour of local farms to view operational digesters. The keynoteaddress by the commissioner of the California Energy Commission will discussthe role of biogas from livestock manure in the BioEnergy Action Plan forCalifornia.

www.epa.gov/agstar/conference07.html

Biofuels Workshop & Trade Show-Eastern Region

November 27-30, 2007Sheraton Philadelphia City Center HotelPhiladelphia, PennsylvaniaThis year’s event, themed “Building a Biofuels Industry,” will address the currentstatus and future challenges of the biofuels industry in the eastern United States.The agenda includes two technical breakout workshops that address ethanoland biodiesel, along with additional tracks for biomass utilization and celluloseto ethanol. There will also be a discussion on sustainability.(719) 539-0300 www.biofuelsworkshop.com

Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit

December 2-4, 2007Quebec City Convention CenterQuebec City, QuebecRegistration is open for the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association’s fourthannual event, themed “Building on the Promise.” Confirmed speakers includeElizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada; Phillip Schwab of BiotechCanada; Ray Foot of Canadian Pacific Railway; and Rick Tolman of the NationalCorn Growers Association, among many others.Canada: (519) 576-4500U.S.: (719) 539-0300 www.crfs2007.com

Power-Gen: Renewable Energy & Fuels

February 19-21, 2008Rio Casino & ResortLas Vegas, NevadaRegistration is open for this fifth annual event, which will cover the most impor-tant trends and issues impacting the renewable energy industry. Various speak-ers will discuss biomass and alternative fuels from technical, strategic, regulato-ry, structural and economic angles. More information will be available as theevent approaches.

www.power-gengreen.com

13th Annual National Ethanol Conference

February 25-27, 2008JW Marriott Orlando, Grande LakesOrlando, FloridaRegistration for this event, themed “Changing the Climate,” is open. TheRenewable Fuels Association, which hosts the conference, promises opportuni-ties for industry interaction, networking, and education on public policy and mar-keting issues affecting the U.S. ethanol industry. As the industry expands ethanolavailability throughout the country and pursues production from both grain andcellulosic feedstocks, attendees will gather to discuss how ethanol is changingthe climate. (719) 539-0300 www.nationalethanolconference.com

International Biomass Conference & Trade Show

April 15-17, 2008Minneapolis, MinnesotaThis inaugural event, which stemmed from the Energy and 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 biorefining technolo-gies for the production and advancement of biopower, bioproducts, biochemi-cals, biofuels, intermediate products and coproducts, which will be presentedthrough general sessions, technical workshops and an industry trade show.(719) 539-0300 www.biomassconference.com

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 morethan 500 exhibitors participated and more than 5,300 people attended.More information will be available as this event approaches.(719) 539-0300 www.fuelethanolworkshop.com

industryevents


Laidig Systems expands headquartersLaidig Systems Inc.

is adding a second storyto the company’s officebuilding in Mishawaka,Wis. The addition wasspurred by the expan-sion of Laidig’s engi-neering department,and it will house thecompany’s growingproject management,customer service andconstruction teams. The expansion will allow Laidig to incorporatethe engineering of larger silo reclaimers, European PotentiallyExplosive Atmosphere standards and electrical control systems.Laidig Systems designs, markets, builds, and services bulk storageand reclaim systems. BIO

Diversified Energy,XL Renewables partner in algae production

Gilbert, Ariz.-based alternative energy company DiversifiedEnergy and XL Renewables Inc. have partnered to develop analgae production system that will be incorporated into XLRenewables’ integrated biorefinery operation in Vicksburg, Ariz.Developed by XL Renewables, the new technology, coined“Simgae” (for simple algae), will be commercialized by DiversifiedEnergy. In addition, Diversified Energy will demonstrate the tech-nology at Withrow Dairy in Casa Grande, Ariz. According toDiversified Energy President Phillip Brown, the technology isexpected to provide 100 to 200 dry tons of algae per acre startingin December. BIO

Codon, Agrivida collaborate to develop enzyme-engineered corn

Codon Devices Inc. and Agrivida Inc. have signed anagreement to utilize Codon’s trademarked BioLogic engineeringplatform to develop enzymes optimized for use in Agrivida’scorn varieties engineered for ethanol production. Central toAgrivida’s ethanol-optimized corn technology are engineeredenzymes that are incorporated into the corn plants themselvesfor cellulosic ethanol production. Codon’s engineering platformspeeds up the process of developing enzymes in a typically one-to two-year project to a six- to nine-month time frame. BIO

businessBRIEFS

Jamerson leaves VeraSun boardThrough a Form 8-K filing with the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC), VeraSun Energy Corp. announcedthat Bruce Jamerson resigned his duties as aboard member to devote his full attentionto Cambridge, Mass.-based Mascoma Corp.Initially, Jamerson vacated his position aspresident of VeraSun to join Mascoma inMarch, but continued to hold a board spot with the Aurora,S.D.-based company. Publicly traded companies are required tonotify the SEC upon the “departure of directors or certain offi-cers” with the submission of a form 8-K. BIO

Woodland Biofuels receives cellulosic ethanol funding The government of Canada, through its nonprofit corporation

Sustainable Development Technology Canada, awarded Ontario-based Woodland Biofuels Inc. with $9.8 million for the constructionof a cellulosic ethanol plant in one of the country’s Atlantic coastprovinces. The small-scale, modular plant will showcase the compa-ny’s patented technology for the conversion of wood and agricul-tural waste to ethanol and energy through three major steps: gasifi-cation, catalysis and distillation. A more specific location hadn’tbeen disclosed by press time. BIO

Tembec acquires cogeneration assetsTembec, a forest products company based in Quebec, recently

acquired the assets of Chapleau Cogeneration Ltd., a cogenerationplant and sawmill in Ontario. The assets, valued at approximately $1million, include a biomass-fired boiler and steam turbine with aninstalled capacity of 7.2 megawatts. With this addition, Tembec’stotal captive generating capacity at its facilities in Canada and Francenow exceeds 150 megawatts. Twenty-six of those megawatts arelocated in Ontario, and are based on either hydropower or biomass-fired generation. BIO

Laidig is adding a second story to itsoffice building in Mishawaka, Wis.

Jamerson


industryNEWS

In an effort to jump-start Florida’s dormant ethanol sector,the University of Florida (UF) and Florida Crystals Corp. havepartnered to build and operate a 1 MMgy cellulosic ethanolresearch and development demonstration plant to be collocatedat Florida Crystals’ sugar facility in Okeelanta, Fla.

According to Joe Joyce, associate vice president of agricul-tural and natural resources for the Institute of Food andAgricultural Sciences (IFAS) department at UF, the Florida statelegislature appropriated $20 million to UF last year to build andoperate the cellulosic ethanol demonstration facility. The univer-sity received six site proposals in response to its invitation tonegotiate, with the Florida Crystals sugar milling site being con-sidered as one of the prime sites. “It’s an ideal site,” Joyce said.“There are very few places in the state that could meet therequirements that we have.”

The technology developed by UF professors will be used toconvert sugarcane bagasse and urban wood waste into cellulosicethanol. UF is currently negotiating with design/builders for theproject. A construction time frame wasn’t disclosed at press time,but both parties anticipated full production beginning byFebruary 2009.

“Our mindset has always been finding a way to become fuelindependent without becoming food dependent on foreign coun-tries,” said Gaston Cantens, vice president of cooperative rela-tions for Florida Crystals.

The Florida Crystals site was appealing to UF because inaddition to its sugar refinery, the company also uses an electricalsteam generation plant that takes in bagasse and urban wood

waste collected from local recycling companies to power the facil-ity. When the steam generation plant isn’t powering the sugar mill,it is the nation’s largest supplier of supplemental bioenergy, put-ting 142 megawatts of electricity back on the public grid, enoughto power 60,000 homes.

-Bryan Sims

Florida Crystals, UF to build cellulosic ethanol pilot plant

A proposed 1 MMgy cellulosic ethanol facility, jointly owned and operated by Florida Crystals and UF, would obtain its steam and electricity from Florida Crystals’ on-site electrical steam generationplant shown above.

Forest thinnings could provide resources for power, fuelsFirefighting costs, combined with

habitat losses, are some of the dangerousconsequences associated with forest densi-ty, and many U.S. woodlands are unhealthyfrom being overstocked. If the clearing ofproblematic stands occurred more fre-quently, however, major volumes of bio-mass would be available for various appli-cations.

The U.S. Forest Service is toutingethanol as the best solution for the utiliza-tion of cleared biomass like small-diame-ter trees and underbrush, and U.S. ForestService Chief Abigail Kimbell recentlyproposed replacing 15 percent of thenation’s gasoline with ethanol derivedfrom such feedstocks. Kimbell, who

assumed the lead position in February, for-merly worked as associate deputy chief forthe National Forest System in Washington,a state with 9.2 million acres of publicforestland and one of the leading lumberproducers in the United States.

Bruce Lippke, a University ofWashington professor in the College ofForest Resources, told Biomass Magazinethat Kimbell’s goal will be difficult tomeet, however. “It’s certainly not going tohappen in the short term, and consideringthe history of federal management, it’spretty doubtful,” he said. “The infrastruc-ture has imploded as the harvest hasdecreased, so paying to remove this mate-rial once it’s cleared is not economical.”

In addition, the best methods of col-lecting and converting forest thinnings tofuel or power is still being developed. “Isethanol the best route?” Lippke rhetorical-ly asked. “This issue is still in the researchrealm. … Some cruder form of gasifica-tion might be the most efficient.”

Lippke said wooded areas inWashington are currently twice as dense asbefore Europeans first inhabited NorthAmerica, and efforts to clear these areasare considerably lacking at the presenttime. “We aren’t even close to doingenough,” he said.

-Nicholas Zeman


industryNEWS

Displaced Michigan autoworkers, college students or evenunion laborers will have a place to learn new biobased skills at aWebberville brewery, where the Michigan State University (MSU)Biorefinery Training Facility was slated to open in late September.The new training facility will also give MSU researchers the oppor-tunity to study advanced biofuels production techniques for variousprojects, such as one concurrently looking at biofuels and engineadvancements to optimize combustion.

A three-year, $15 million U.S. Department of Labor grantunder the Workforce Innovation and Regional EconomicDevelopment program is funding the brewery partnership, includ-ing equipment, on-site spatial modifications and training. The proj-ect originated with MSU chemical engineering professor KrisBerglund, who sought to put underutilized capabilities at MichiganBrewing Co., only 15 miles from MSU’s East Lansing campus, togood use by teaching fermentation and early-phase biofuels pro-duction technologies to, among others, unemployed auto workers.The end result: a training program for those who were interested inentering Michigan’s growing renewable fuels industry.

When Marysville Ethanol LLC joins the state's four ethanolproducers, Michigan will have a total capacity of 250 MMgy. DavidHollister, CEO and president of the Prima Civitas Foundation, anonprofit organization founded in part by MSU to act as a brokerin the technology transfer of university research and development,said the state has to “import” skilled workers to build and operatethese plants. “This effort coincides with [university PresidentLouAnna] Simon’s vision of MSU leading the post-petroleumeconomy,” he said.

Hollister told Biomass Magazine that cohorts of up to 25attended trained at the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Centerin Edwardsville, Ill., on several occasions while the Webbervillebrewery was installing new equipment from Europe.

In addition to housing the MSU biofuels training and researchfacility, the brewery also uses renewables. It makes its own biodieseland fires its boiler with methyl esters to power its beer-makingprocess, cutting the natural gas bill in half.

-Ron Kotrba

MSU Biorefinery Training Facility opens

Mobile pyrolysis plant converts poultry litter to energyA mobile pyrolysis unit that would pro-

vide an economical disposal system for poul-try litter and produce alternative sources ofenergy is under development at Virginia Techin Blacksburg, Va., led by Foster Agblevor,associate professor of biological systemsengineering. A test unit is expected to beginoperation in November on a poultry farmnear Dayton, Va., processing five tons ofpoultry litter per day into bio-oil, biogas andchar.

Poultry litter is a mixture of bedding,manure, feathers and spilled feed. Accordingto Agblevor, current poultry litter uses, suchas land fertilizer, are under pressure becauseof concerns about water pollution fromleaching and runoff, and diseases such asavian influenza and mad cow disease.Virginia Tech’s self-contained, transportablepyrolysis unit will allow poultry producers toprocess the litter on-site, rather than haulingit to other locations, Agblevor said. Plus, thethermochemical process destroys microor-ganisms.

The biogas generated by the portable

pyrolysis unit will be used to power the sys-tem, Agblevor said, and the bio-oil will beused to heat poultry houses. The char will beused as a low-release fertilizer. The pilotplant will evaluate the reactor design andaddress other issues that may affect the com-mercial operation of the mobile unit. Howthe portable units will be used by poultrygrowers is being discussed. “There are sever-al proposals from the growers about installa-tion of the units, but that will wait until wehave the pilot plant results,” he said.

The fast-pyrolysis, fluidized-bed reactoryielded bio-oil at a rate of 30 percent to 50percent by weight, depending on the littercontent. Bedding material consisting mostlyof hardwood shavings yielded bio-oil as highas 62 percent by weight. The bio-oil had a rel-atively high nitrogen content ranging from 4percent to 7 percent by weight, very low sul-fur content (below 1 percent) and was veryviscous. The char yield ranged from 30 per-cent to 50 percent by weight, depending onthe source, age and composition of the poul-try litter. The char also had a high ash con-tent, ranging from 30 percent to 60 percentby weight, depending on the age and source.

The research is part of an effort to sup-port the agricultural community while man-aging excess nutrients in the ShenandoahValley. It is being funded by a $1 million grantfrom the National Fish and WildlifeFoundation’s Chesapeake Bay TargetWatershed program.

- Susanne Retka Schill

Poultry litter is a mixture of bedding, manure,features and spilled feed.


industryNEWS

UK uses biomass to meet EU, Kyoto targetsEarlier this year, the British govern-

ment published its plan for increasing theuse of biomass for energy production toreduce the country’s emission of green-house gases.

The United Kingdom is seeking toreduce its carbon footprint to meet its obli-gations under both the European Union(EU) and the Kyoto Protocol. The EU hasset a goal of reducing energy consumptionin its member states by 20 percent. It alsointends to have biofuels make up 10 per-cent of all transportation fuels by 2020.Under the Kyoto Protocol, the country hasagreed to reduce its 1990 carbon emissionsby 12.5 percent by 2012, and it is on trackto meet that goal.

To help the UK meet these obliga-

tions, its Department of Environment,Food and Rural Affairs is implementing apolicy to increase the amount of biomassavailable for energy production. Steps toimplement this policy include recovering anadditional 1 million metric tons of woodfrom currently unmanaged woodlands,expanding the cultivation of energy cropsto 1 million hectares (about 17 percent ofthe UK’s arable land), and increasing theuse of organic waste such as manure andmunicipal solid waste for energy produc-tion.

Imports will continue to be an impor-tant part of the strategy, especially fortransport fuels and biomass cofired withcoal for electricity production. Currently,the UK imports the equivalent of 54 ter-

awatt-hours of biomass for energy produc-tion. This is more than half of the coun-try’s potential biomass production underthe biomass strategy. Imports of biomassand biofuels are expected to increase.

Another part of the strategy focuseson innovation. A new joint venturebetween the government and energy indus-try, the Energy Technologies Institute, willhave a budget of up to £1 billion ($2 bil-lion) over the next 10 years for the researchand development of low-carbon energytechnology and demand management. AnEnvironmental Transformation Fund isalso being established to invest in thedemonstration and deployment of low-car-bon energy projects.

- Jerry W. Kram

A team of scientists at the University ofCalifornia, Irvine (UCI) has joined withCODA Genomics, an Orange County-based company that provides genetic engi-neering solutions, to improve the efficiencyof a commonly used strain of yeast for theproduction of ethanol. CODA stands forcomputationally optimized DNA assembly.

The $1.6 million collaboration, spon-sored by CODA with a matching grant fromUCI, aims to engineer a strain of the yeastSaccharomyces cerevisiae that can quickly andefficiently ferment glucose, as well as five-carbon sugars like xylose and arabinose,which the yeast doesn’t utilize naturally.Although there are commercially availablestrains that have been engineered to fer-ment pentose sugars, the process isn’t veryefficient, said G. Wesley Hatfield, a UCImolecular biologist and cofounder ofCODA. “One of the problems with the cur-rent production strains that are being used

commercially is that the enzymes that havebeen engineered into the yeast are not cat-alytically effective,” he said. “They don’twork as fast and are not expressed as well asthey could.”

To improve on this, Hatfield’s teamapplies its patented CODA technology tothe problem. Its computationally optimizedDNA assembly technology employs asupercomputer that uses thermodynamic

principles and sophisticated algorithms topredict DNA sequences that self-assembleinto genes that produce enzymes withgreater activities that are expressed at high-er levels. Those genes can be synthesized inthe laboratory and inserted into the yeast.The activities of the enzymes are moni-tored, and the structure of the proteins ismodeled. Using these models, Hatfield’steam can predict changes that need to bemade to improve the activities of theseenzymes. “We believe that we can use thistechnology to overcome the past obstaclesto metabolically engineering yeast, so theywill be able to process the hexose sugarsbetter and for the first time efficientlyprocess pentose sugars,” Hatfield said. “Weexpect to increase the production ofethanol by four- to fivefold.”

-Jessica Ebert

Collaboration to re-engineer common fermentative yeast

Saccharomyces cerevisiae


industryNEWS

Sweden-based Chemrec AB and Ohio-based NewPage Corp. have formed a part-nership to explore the feasibility of develop-ing a facility that would produce renewablebiomass-based fuels at NewPage’s paper millin Escanaba, Mich.

According to NewPage spokesman KelSmyth, both parties are currently in the “pre-feasibility” stage of the project that wouldemploy Chemrec’s black liquor gasification(BLG) technology, which converts the blackliquor waste stream from the paper pulpingprocess into synthesis gas, or syngas. The syn-gas could then be processed into a variety offuels such as dimethyl ether and methanol.Fuels such as Fischer-Tropsch diesel, synthet-ic natural gas and hydrogen are also beingconsidered. Once the feasibility stage identi-fies standards set by both companies, theproject would begin an approximately two-year construction phase at NewPage’s millsite.

Smyth noted that both parties wouldknow whether the project would officially bemoving forward by late next year. “Part ofwhat we’re doing is figuring out both what we

can make and what we can market [usingChemrec’s BLG technology],” he said.

The basic Chemrec approach is toreplace (or supplement in small installations)a pulp mill recovery boiler with a high-tem-perature gasifier. The syngas can be used forpower generation or, with additional process-ing units, be converted to biofuels. The newproject is expected to produce about 13MMgy of liquid biofuels, according to Smyth.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholmannounced the Chemrec/NewPage partner-ship in Sweden in August, following a recep-tion with company and government leaderscelebrating the signing of a memorandum ofunderstanding between the two companies.

Earlier this year, the Michigan EconomicDevelopment Corp. and NextEnergy,Michigan’s alternative energy accelerator inDetroit, established a cellulosic biofuelsworking group dedicated to crafting a strate-gy for the development of the industry in thestate.

-Bryan Sims

Chemrec, NewPage form biomass-to-biofuels venture

The U.S. DOE announced in lateAugust that another round of funding total-ing $33.8 million will be made available forcellulosic ethanol research and development.

These grants are intended to support thedevelopment and commercialization ofenzyme systems for the hydrolysis and sac-charification of lignocellulose. This step incellulosic ethanol production is essential forreleasing the sugars trapped in agriculturalwaste such as corn stover, other grain straws,bagasse, soybean matter and wood residue—sugars that are subsequently fermented toethanol. However, the enzymatic treatmentof cellulosic biomass is costly and time con-suming, preventing the cost-competitive pro-duction of this biofuel.

The latest DOE funding opportunity isdesigned to finance the development ofeffective enzyme systems that are stable andaffordable. “These enzyme projects will serveas catalysts to the commercial-scale viabilityof cellulosic ethanol,” said DOE AssistantSecretary Andy Karsner. “Ethanol from newfeedstocks will not only give America moreefficient fuel options to help transform ourtransportation sector, but increasing its usewill help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

The awards will provide funding forprojects expected to begin in fiscal year 2008,and continue through fiscal year 2011.Applications were due Oct. 30, and recipientsof the awards are expected to be announcedin the late spring of 2008.

-Jessica Ebert

DOE offers fourth cellulosic ethanolresearch funding opportunity

The NewPage Corp. pulp and paper mill in Escanaba, Mich., will integrate Chemrec'sunique BLG technology into its paper pulping process to create syngas that can be converted into various types of biofuels.


industryNEWS

“Grassoline” has been trademarked asthe name for the fuel to be produced by theUniversity of Tennessee’s (UT) BiofuelsInitiative. The name was chosen as a way topublicize the project and link it to switch-grass, one of the proposed feedstocks,according to Kelly Tiller, director of externaloperations for the UT Office of BioenergyPrograms. “It resonates with the public,” shesaid.

A public hearing was held in Septemberto discuss Niles Ferry Industrial Park inVonore, Tenn., as the site of the 5 MMgy cel-lulosic ethanol plant. The permitting processhas begun, and Tiller said if all goes well, theproject should break ground in early 2008with the first gallon of Grassoline targetedfor production by mid-2009. Full productionwould be slated for a year later. The time lineprojects that a commercial-scale facility willbe on line by early 2012. UT will invest $40.7million toward the capital costs of the facility,which Tiller said is intended to be research-oriented with built-in flexibility to study next-generation technologies as they emerge.Other partners include the state ofTennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

and private companies. At press time, detailsfor the involvement of cellulosic ethanoldeveloper Mascoma Corp. were being final-ized. Tiller said other private companies mayparticipate as other pieces of the projectprogress.

Tiller described the UT initiative as acomprehensive project that will not only opti-mize the conversion process, but develop thewhole system from the farm up. “This is abrand-new crop, and energy markets are notsomething farmers are familiar with,” shesaid. The state of Tennessee is contributing$8 million as an incentive for farmers to plantswitchgrass, aiming for 8,000 acres in the pro-gram by mid-2008. UT is working on educa-tional materials for farmers on establishingswitchgrass, and recommendations for trans-port and storage. The project’s next stepincludes the development of switchgrassvarieties that would produce high yields andhigh sugars, the introduction of new pretreat-ment technology tailored to regional feed-stocks, and the development of value-addedmarkets for integrated coproducts.

-Susanne Retka Schill

UT Bioenergy Initiative selects refinery site

The Tallgrass Prairie Center at theUniversity of Northern Iowa wants to produceelectricity from an unusual source: prairiegrasses. The center, along with Cedar FallsUtilities (CFU), obtained $300,000 in fundingfrom Iowa’s Power Fund to study the use ofmixed prairie grasses as a fuel for the utility’spower plants.

The center will study production methodson sandy, marginal soil on 100 acres at theCedar River Wildlife Area, said Dave Williams,special project coordinator for the center.Building on research that showed mixed prairiegrasses are more productive than stands of sin-gle species, the center will plant several differ-ent mixes of plants and compare the produc-tivity of the different blends. Using a monocul-ture of switchgrass as a control plot, the studywill compare blends of five, 16 and 32 differ-ent native prairie species. “All of these specieswill be native to Iowa,” he said.

The amount of land included in this studywill be much larger than previous studies.Williams said the project will more closelyreflect conditions that farmers growing thesegrasses as energy crops will face.

The study is funded for one year, Williamssaid, but it is scheduled to be a five-year study,so researchers will be returning to the PowerFund for additional money. Besides measuringthe productivity of the plots, Williams said theproject would measure the amount of carbonthat the plants sequester in the soil, and howharvesting timing and techniques affectwildlife.

CFU has two coal-fired power plants, oneof which has been converted to run on 100percent biomass fuel. The utility will experi-ment with converting mixed prairie plants intopellets and cubes that can be burned in thepower plants. Based on the utility’s previouswork with switchgrass, it is estimated that the100-acre plot will produce enough biomass foran eight-hour test burn in the power plant.

-Jerry W. Kram

Center looks at prairie grass for fuel

Switchgrass production (measured in dry tons, assuming yields of six dry tons per acre)in each region of Tennessee will increase greatly between 2012 and 2025, assuming thebalance of crops in the agricultural sector is not disrupted.

Tennesse Switchgrass Potential

.

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.

www.undeerc.org EERC Technology … Putting Research into Practice

Renewable C e n t e r s f o r

E n e r g y& Biomass utilization

Where Sound Science Evolvesinto True Innovation


research


research

Figuring out how to make fuel and chemicals from biomass is only the first step, making those processeseconomically viable is the ultimate goal. Researchersat the National Renewable Energy Laboratory inColorado work with large and small businesses to turntheir discoveries into commercial successes.

By Jerry W. Kram

he National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) issituated near the base of a rise on the west side ofGolden, Colo., with a view of the Denver skyline. In itslabs, scientists and engineers grapple with the challengeof turning promising concepts into commercial energysources to increase America’s energy independence

while easing our impact on the environment.NREL is operated by the U.S. DOE. The lab has been working on

biomass for nearly 30 years along with wind, solar, geothermal and otheralternative energy resources. The DOE reorganized its alternative energyprograms in 2001 to coordinate research on the different alternative ener-gy sources. NREL became the lead lab in the National Biomass Initiative,which coordinates the biomass work of five national energy labs.

A tremendous amount of research is conducted at NREL and theother national labs. That research wouldn’t be worth much if the labs did-n’t have a strong relationship with the private sector. John Ashworth isacting director of the National Biomass Initiative and head of partner-ship and business development for the biomass program at NREL. Heis responsible for bringing businesses and entrepreneurs together withresearchers and engineers with the expertise to make their ideas a reality.

PartneringThere are many ways to form a business partnership with NREL.

“We get associated with companies three different ways,” Ashworth says.“A company comes to us with an idea for a process or an idea for a pieceof equipment and asks if we can help them by testing the equipment orreplicating the process or giving them technical advice.”

Sometimes NREL is the customer, looking for some obscure bit ofexpertise for a project or client. “No. 2, which isn’t as common, is that wehave a research need,” Ashworth says. “We need to find a way to dosomething better than anyone can do it today. We may go out and lookfor someone who can help us with that either by buying their equipmentor by having them build something that nobody has ever built before. Alot of the pieces in the pilot plant are custom, nobody had ever built thembefore.”

T


Finally, some companies approach NREL to do joint projects.This has been a growing source of work for the lab as the DOE hasput more emphasis on funding corporate researchprojects. “The last one, which has been the big driverover the past six years, is that the DOE has decidedthat one way to get private companies involved in com-mercializing technology is to put out matching money.So starting in about 1999, NREL has had big solicita-tions, where they put $20 million to $30 million orrecently $200 million on the table and tell companies toput together a team that can do the work. In a lot ofcases, people come to us and ask, ‘Would you partnerwith us if we win [the bid]?’”

As this Biomass Magazine staff writer was visitingthe lab, one of these partnered projects was coming to fruition.Although Ashworth couldn’t share details because of confidentiali-ty agreements, he did say that the lab’s pilot plant, the AlternativeFuels User Facility (AFUF), was being fitted for some equipmentdeveloped by NREL and DuPont. “We’ve been working withDuPont for 3½ years,” he says. “We’re doing the proof-of-conceptpilot plant run for their process using our facilities and our people.It’s an $8.5 million cooperative research program and this is the pay-

off. This is the proof that all the stuff we have done over the past3½ years actually works at scale.”

There are not many places in the United Stateswhere companies can do pilot-scale research, short ofbuilding their own facilities. That’s what makes theAFUF so attractive to corporations looking to create anew process without wiping out their own bottomlines. Ashworth says the lab has successfully workedwith most of the major companies in the ethanol busi-ness including Poet LLC, Archer Daniels Midland Co.and Abengoa Bioenergy.

Contract TalksThe lab has designed several different levels of

contractual agreements to work with companies and meet therequirements of different kinds of projects. “I will give the DOEsome credit, they have tried to streamline the process,” Ashworthsays. Years ago, people told the DOE that the process was cumber-some. “It was particularly cumbersome if you wanted to do some-thing that was very simple,” he says. “What we have tried to do iscreate an instrument that allows people to make use of our peopleand facilities very quickly.”

research

Ashworth

The Alternative Fuels User Facility is devoted to researching new fuels made by biological fermentation. Another lab is focused on thermochemical biomass conversion.


The simplest agreements are with companies that want a par-ticular analysis or research question answered. This is handled underan analytical services agreement. “It just says you have somethingyou want us to analyze or just look at,” Ashworth says. “In the bio-mass case, it could be a feedstock that you want us to tell you what’sinside. It’s a one-page piece of paper that says ‘We’ll do this, you payus X, and we’ll give you the data and everyone goes home.’ There isno intellectual property, no discovery, just the information.” Anagreement of this type can be negotiated in a week or less.

More in-depth analysis is handled through a technical servicesagreement. These analytical projects can last up to a year. For exam-ple, the lab tested a feedstock for fermentation every three monthsto see how the feedstock changed with the seasons, or in storage,Ashworth says.

The more typical relationship between a company and NRELis negotiated in a cooperative research and development agreementor CRADA. “[In a CRADA] that’s where we are actually doingresearch—there is intellectual property being created,” Ashworthsays. “There is a lot of concern about who will wind up owning thatat the end of the day. So there are terms and conditions totally open

to negotiation on who owns what. At the end of the day you workthat all out and it will say something like, ‘If your scientists discov-er it, you own it. If our scientists discover it, we own it and willlicense it to you for commercial purposes.’”

These contracts are important because as a government agencythe lab is required to make its discoveries available to the public. “Weare bound by government rules, and one of those rules is that if thelab’s equipment is used, the government retains a research license towhatever it has invented,” Ashworth says. “It doesn’t mean the gov-ernment will commercialize it, but if it is something important thatpushes the technology forward the government wants to be able towork on it.”

The complexity of CRADAs requires a longer time period fornegotiations. Ashworth says it can take from one to eight months,depending on the intricacy of the agreement. “It depends on howmuch intellectual property is being brought to the table,” he says.“For example, in our work with DuPont, we had a lot of back-ground intellectual property they wanted to use. So that means youhad to figure out who licenses what and what are they going to pay.They also brought their own intellectual property because they havea tremendous research program. You have the terms and conditionsand then you have to have the lawyers look at the terms and condi-tions.” Once those terms are set, a CRADA can be approved local-ly so work can begin quickly, Ashworth says. “In general, if we canagree on all the background stuff, it can get going pretty quickly,” hesays. “Basically we just need to know what the work is going to be,who’s going to pay what, and what are the milestones and deliver-ables. The local field office approves it and we move ahead.”

At one time, the lab was involved in a number of what it callswork for others agreements where the company paid 100 percent ofall the costs involved in the research project and retained all theintellectual property rights. These are generally limited to replicating

research

‘One of our strengths is that we have thiswhole spectrum of scales so some companydoesn’t have to over-invest because theyhave only one certain scale of equipmentfor a limited amount of time.‘ NREL’s otherstrength is that few other institutions canmatch the level of experience it has workingwith biomass.


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or scaling up research that has already been completed by the busi-ness involved. “We don’t do a lot of those any more,” Ashworthsays. “We found that when we got into these agreements, by andlarge there were always discoveries. People were always coming upwith better processes and it just causes big issues down the line. Wewill still do them, but we are pretty insistent that you know what youare doing. You can’t just have an idea, but you have to have a dialedin process and you just want us to prove it on a larger scale.”

Technology developed by NREL is licensed to the industry.However, research done under a CRADA generally isn’t publishedfor five years to allow NREL’s partners the chance to commercial-ize it first. Ashworth’s favorite example of a widespread NREL-developed technology doesn’t come from biomass research, butfrom the lab’s work in wind power. Most of the windmills soldtoday use an advanced blade design developed at NREL. The labalso licenses microorganisms that it has discovered and developedsuch as Zymomonas. The income produced from those licensesgoes back to the lab. However, Ashworth says the main purpose ofthe license is to make sure the technology is being used. If the tech-nology isn’t being used, the license is revoked. “We’ve had that hap-pen,” he says. “A company licensed something to prevent a com-petitor from getting it. After about 18 months we took it back.”

The number of agreements in place at any one time varies,Ashworth says. With more money going into cellulosic technologiesNREL’s biomass program has been busy. At any one time, the com-pany can be working on three or four CRADAs, and a half-a-dozenanalytical service agreements. Then there are a number of technicalservice agreements which take only a week or two to complete.

As the biomass industry expands, NREL is looking to expandits facilities. “We will double the size of our pilot facility, AFUF, inthe next two years,” Ashworth says. “Part of the reason we’re doingthat is so we can run more industrial collaborations in parallel. Rightnow we have many pieces of equipment that are used quite heavily,and you can only use something 24 hours a day.” NREL is alsoenlarging its thermochemical biomass conversion facility.

Working TogetherThe nuts and bolts of molding a

working relationship depend on the typeand scale of the project. Once an agree-ment is in place between NREL and abusiness, it is up to process engineers likeAndy Aden to implement them. “Most ofthe research I do is on process design andeconomic analysis,” he says. “I take theresearch in the laboratories and see whateconomics and designs are on the com-mercial scale—see what the biggest areasof improvement are going to be and

things of that nature. I try to make sure things are cost effective forindustry to implement.”

The scale of the work Aden does depends in large part on howfar the company has advanced in its own research. “Basically wework with that partner to figure out how much data they alreadyhave,” Aden says. “If we are going to the pilot scale, that means theyalready have some amount of bench-scale research.” NREL canalso help develop bench-scale experiments if the company’sresearch isn’t that far along. The lab can help ensure that the com-panies have all the information they need to move ahead with theirprocess. “For example, if we are doing pretreatment research we’regeared to doing dilute acid pretreatment, but there are a lot of otherchemistries you can use,” Aden explains. “So we would get to thepoint where we feel there is sufficient background data before wefeel justified in going to the larger scale. Then we would have to seeif the existing equipment we have would satisfy their needs or ifwe’d have to purchase some equipment to fill their needs. That’s one

Aden examines some feedstock to be used for an upcoming run ofNREL’s pilot ethanol facility. NREL has tested many potential cellulosic feedstocks, including corn stover, poplar and switchgrass.

Aden


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of the reasons we are expanding this facility over the next coupleyears, to anticipate the needs we have heard from industry.”

While testing a new piece of equipment such as a new pretreat-ment digester would require some repiping of thepilot plant, Aden says more time would be taken todevelop standard operating and safety procedures.The pilot plant was designed to make swapping equip-ment in and out as easy as possible. “We try to do asmuch plug-and-play systems as possible,” he says.“Theoretically, if someone wanted to do a butanolfermentation instead of an ethanol fermentation weuse this existing equipment, just different organisms,”Aden says.

NREL is one of the few facilities in the countrythat can work with bioenergy processes ranging froma few grams in a laboratory flask to up to a ton a day in the pilotfacility, according to Jim McMillan, principal chemical engineer forthe National Bioenergy Center. “One of our strengths is that wehave this whole spectrum of scales so some company doesn’t haveto over-invest because they have only a certain scale of equipmentfor a limited amount of time,” McMillan says.

NREL’s other strength is that few other institutions can matchthe level of experience it has working with biomass. This level ofexperience makes NREL a source for training and teaching futureresearchers and industry leaders about biomass. “The industry is

nascent right now,” McMillan says. “You are starting to see compa-nies with internal research programs and some funding in academ-ic areas. So you will have some students who have done work with

this material, but the talent pool is still one of the bot-tlenecks for the industry. That’s one of our roles, bring-ing on a lot of teachers, a lot of summer interns and insome CRADAs we will train people in the companies.That’s sometimes an important part of the project.”

As the technologies for cellulosic ethanol areramped up to commercial scale the excitement isintense. “Look out for the next five years,” Aden says.“With industry’s help there are going to be significantstrides made. I can’t wait to see exactly what’s going totake place. The common phrase used to be ‘it’s alwaysfive years out,’ well steel’s going in the ground right now.

It’s going be interesting to see how successful biomass is and who’ssuccessful because there are a variety of players out there now andit’s anybody’s ballgame.” BIO

Jerry W. Kram is a Biomass Magazine staff writer. He can be reached

at [email protected] or (701) 746-8385.

McMillan

BBI PD


power

Green Circle Bio Energy Inc. is building the world’s biggest wood pellet plant in the heart of the largest plantation-style pine forest inthe world. Until U.S. legislation promoting biomass power catches upwith directives in Europe, these pellets will be exported to a handfulof European power companies.

By Ron Kotrba

Closing theEnergy Circle


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arlier this year in Massachusetts v. U.S. EPA, theU.S. Supreme Court ruled in a split decision thatcarbon dioxide vehicle emissions are subject toEPA regulation as a greenhouse gas (GHG).While the ruling was specific to vehicle emissions,it represents a milestone precedent from the high-

est court in the land, and judicial experts suggest it could leadto broader regulation of carbon emissions from powerplants—the world’s worst carbon offenders. “The main green-house gas emitters are those in the power industry, so that is agood place to start,” says Olaf Roed, president and CEO ofGreen Circle Bio Energy Inc., a Florida-based company ownedby JCE Group AB, of Sweden which owns the world’s largestwood pellet plant now under construction in the FloridaPanhandle. According to Roed, all global transportationsources on land and sea, and in the air, contribute 14 percentof all GHG emissions, leaving much of the remainder in thehands of the power-generation industry.

Fossil fuels represent a broken circle,Roed says with staunch conviction. “Butbiomass—biomass represents a closedcircle.” Some smaller power plants inEurope run on biomass exclusively, headds. EU countries are required to gener-ate power from renewable productionunder the renewable directive derivedfrom GHG reduction targets in the KyotoProtocol. Widespread use of biomass inthe United States to any significant degreeis an unlikely scenario until federal restric-tions on GHG emissions and incentives

to boost renewable energy production are in play. Congress isexpected to cover new ground this session as topics such aslow-carbon fuel standards and carbon cap-and-trade systemsare tossed around in the House and Senate. Most environmen-tally conscious people think it’s about time. “It’s all one planetand it doesn’t matter whether the power plant is in China,Europe or the United States—it still goes out into the sameatmosphere that we’re all concerned about,” Roed tells BiomassMagazine.

Pinpointing the SoutheastConstruction of the Green Circle wood pelleting plant in

Cottondale, Fla., 60 miles north of Panama City, began inFebruary and initial production is targeted for December. The$65 million plant is scaled to produce 550,000 tons of woodpellets per year from regionally sourced pulp-quality southernyellow pine roundwood, which is produced in abundance in thefiber-rich southeastern United States. According to the ForestNutrition Cooperative, more than 32 million acres of pine aregrown in the southeastern United States. “The southeast

ETwo initial production lines at the Green

Circle complex will utilize 13 Buhler pellet machines, giving this facility the

single-largest wood pelleting capacity inthe world at 550,000 tons of wood

pellets per year.

Roed


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United States has the largest plantation-style pine forest in theworld,” Roed says. With ample nearby feedstock this plant willproduce enough wood pellets in a year to generate 2,400gigawatt hours of electricity—that’s more than 2.5 trillion watthours. “The idea for this plant has been around for about twoyears,” Roed says. “The concept is to supply the Europeanpower industry with our wood pellets.” Green Circle looked ata world map and gauged global fiber supplies while also con-sidering political stability and simple logistics chains. The resultwas a decision to build the plant in the Florida Panhandle.

In March, Jackson County received a $750,000 grant tohelp pay for Green Circle’s water and sewer facilities inCottondale. "The citizens of Jackson County are excited tohave Green Circle Bio Energy break ground on the world'slargest biomass pellet plant,” Ted Lakey, Jackson Countyadministrator, said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “Weexpect this plant to have a positive economic impact for theentire Florida Panhandle."

While much of the community response is positive, Roedsays there are those who don’t understand all the issues. “Like

agriculture, if it’s not cultivated it goes downhill. The virginwood here has been gone for hundreds of years so we’re talk-ing replanted forests here,” he says. “And when it’s not main-tained and cultivated—that, of course, is not good.” The proj-ect site is near the Alabama-Georgia state line, an area of tra-ditional roundwood surplus. According to 2005 data from theUSDA Forest Service’s Southern Research Station, Alabamaand Georgia respectively lead the South in total roundwoodproduction. Booming development has led to a growingsawmill industry in the Sunshine State, but the older, largersawmill timber is more difficult to harvest when the smallerpulpwood isn’t thinned out. “If we were not here to buy thepulpwood, which is in lesser demand than the saw timber, itwould be worse for the forest situation in the United States,”he says. Even though Green Circle isn’t purchasing wood quiteyet, a number of landowners and logging crews will be part ofthe wood-pellet production plant’s supply chain. “We’re look-ing at between 10 and 20 different suppliers,” Roed says.

The PlantThe pulp-quality roundwood will be delivered to the Green

Circle facility on trucks, and as they enter the 225-acre site, thenearly 50 percent moisture-laden roundwood will be staged inthe wood yard and pre-dried by the sun. The wood will beshifted onto the conveyer line where it will encounter theplant’s de-barking system. The bark will be transported to aseparate pile for eventual use as energy. The stripped roundwood will move on to the chipper, after which it is piled. Thebark will enter a building where it will be stored under shelterto keep dry until it is transported to its final destination in thefurnace to provide the heat needed in the two, large, single-pass

The southern yellow pine wood pelletswill contain less than 1 percent bark,

moisture content between 7 percent and10 percent, ash content of approximately

0.5 percent, and an energy content of4.8 megawatts per metric ton.


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drying drums. The biomass-fired energy system comes by wayof The Teaford Co. Inc., a Georgia-based company. As a sup-plementary furnace fuel to the bark, Green Circle also plans topurchase and integrate sawmill residues. Once the wood chipsare dried they will be conveyed into a silo for temporary stor-age. From the silo, chips will be moved to the hammermill sup-plied by Switzerland-based Buhler AG, which will pulverize thewood chips into powder. Buhler is also supplying Green Circle

with the heart of its operation—the pellet presses.

Two initial production lines atthe Green Circle complex will uti-lize 13 Buhler pellet machines, giv-ing this facility the single-largestwood pelleting capacity in theworld at 550,000 tons of wood pel-lets per year. A similar 300,000-ton-per-year wood pelleting plantbuilt in Denmark, which is alsoowned by Green Circle’s parentcompany, JCE Group, holds thatdistinction until the Cottondaleplant comes on line in December.According to Brian Williams,Buhler marketing manager, hiscompany provided JCE Group’sDenmark plant with its pellet millsas well. “We’ve supplied similarequipment to plants in Germany,Austria and Denmark,” Williamstells Biomass Magazine. “This is

absolutely a growing trend and we’re proud of our involvementin this project.” The pellet mills employ such high pressuresthat the wood flour becomes almost fluid for an instant as themolecular structure of the wood is altered and it’s compactedfor extrusion through the die plate. “The lignin in the wooditself acts as a glue when the pellets come out,” Roed explains.“It’s hard and in pellet form, and there are no chemicals or any-thing added to the product. No binder—no nothing—added.”

An aerial view of Green Circle Bio Energy’s 225-acre project site in Cottondale, Fla., where thelargest wood pellet factory in the world is being built.


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After production, the pellets are loaded directly onto rail-cars serviced by Bay Line Railroad LLC, which moves fromnorth to south, with a CSX Transportation Inc. rail line nearby,which moves from east to west. Loaded cars move directly tothe Port of Panama City where they are placed onto cargoships and exported to Europe. Roed says marketing negotia-tions are still underway but he expects to sell directly to a sin-gle-digit number of European power companies.

The southern yellow pine wood pellets will contain lessthan 1 percent bark, moisture content between 7 percent and10 percent, ash content of approximately 0.5 percent, and anenergy content of 4.8 megawatts per metric ton. They arecylindrically shaped, 8 millimeters (0.3 inches) in diameter andare a maximum of 32 millimeters (1.3 inches) long.

Green Circle also spent approximately $7 million in emis-sions equipment. Roed explains the rationale behind such aheavy investment, and what that money is purchasing. “Being agreen company, it is important for us to keep a green profile,”he says. “When you burn the bark you do have air emissions sowe invested in a regenerative thermal oxidizer and a wet WestSystem. What that gives us is, despite having the world’s largestplant of its kind, we will be classified in the state of Florida asa minor emitter.” Pollution control is being provided by A.H.

Lundberg Associates Inc., based in Bellevue, Wash.Once fully operational the plant will employ 45 people,

who will run the plant in four shifts a day, 24 hours for sevendays a week.

Maximizing Net Energy Gain, Future PlansConsidering the fossil fuels used to produce these wood

pellets, Green Circle markets its pellets as possessing a netenergy gain of 11 times that of the fossil fuels needed to pro-duce them. “That’s not typical of most wood pellets,” Roedsays. “What we’re talking about here is the return on fossil fueluse. You can hardly do anything in this world without fossilfuels. So if we put in one unit of fossil fuels we get out 11times that in renewable energy.” Since typical wood pelletsdon’t yield an 11-fold net energy gain compared with fossilfuels used, how does Green Circle’s wood pellets achieve suchgood returns? “We use the bark to make the heat, which is thebiggest drain on energy consumption we have in making thesepellets,” Roed says. “Also, we’ve set up a logistics chain that islarge scale. You get economies of scale using only rail and ship(for outbound products). Outbound we have rail directly fromthe plant to the port, and then ocean service directly from thereto the customers.” Another aspect of the process adding to this


The Syntroleum Corp. team and its investors always knew their technology wassolid. That confidence was renewed when the company signed a deal withTyson Foods Inc. to commercialize its refining technology—turning animal fatinto renewable diesel and jet fuels. With that process under its belt, Syntroleumplans to turn to biomass gasification.

By Susanne Retka Schill

innovation

The Fischer-Tropsch/FatConnection


innovation

Ken Agee, founder and chief technology officer, explains Syntroleum’s work in refining Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) products into high-qualityfuels. The small white disc on his desk is a sample of F-T wax, which is quite similar in composition to animal fats.


en Agee was working as achemical engineer for apipeline company 23 yearsago when he first becameinterested in finding a wayto use surplus natural gas.

He read about Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) tech-nology during his lunch breaks and built ahomemade reactor in a garden shed in hisback yard. Three years later, he quit his jobto work on the project full time.

Agee assembled a team and formedGTG Inc., which later became SyntroleumCorp. To date, the Tulsa, Okla.-based com-pany has amassed nearly 160 patents on itswork. “In the early days, we tested 1,000 dif-ferent catalyst combinations,” Agee says. Inthe past decade, the company has comeclose to seeing its technologies commercial-ized, particularly when oil prices were highenough to make the capital-intensive F-Tprocess cost effective. The U.S. DOEhelped fund a demonstration plant to scaleup the Syntroleum process and produce400,000 gallons of synfuels for testing inmilitary jets and diesel applications.Syntroleum supplied 100,000 gallons of thesynthetic JP8 jet fuel it produced from nat-ural gas in the Cartoosa demonstration facil-ity to the U. S. Air Force. It passed the testsand is now certified for use in a 50 percentblend with petroleum-based jet fuel in B52bombers. The Air Force intends to certify allof its aircraft to fly on the blend by 2011.

With that project complete, Syntroleumwas in the process of mothballing thedemonstration plant when managementchallenged its team of chemists and chemi-cal engineers to come up with other uses fortheir technology. In one of those “ah-ha”moments, the group realized the chemicalstructure of triglycerides is similar to the F-T waxes refined in the company’s patentedand trademarked Synfining process. Labtesting confirmed that fats and oils could berefined into high-quality synthetic fuels, andidentified the needed adaptations to createwhat the company has trademarked asBiofining.

In making the fat connection,Syntroleum has identified an application forthe simplest and cheapest part of its

process—the refining step that follows theFischer-Tropsch reaction. “We couldn’t do a$1 billion project,” says Agee, referring tothe estimated cost to complete an F-TSynfining facility. “We can do a $150 millionproject.” The company’s business develop-ment group created a short list of potentialpartners and this summer closed a deal withTyson Foods Inc. The joint venture promis-es to bring two decades of research and

development to commercialization, givingSyntroleum a positive cash flow for the firsttime. “It’s been the most wonderful shot inthe arm for the employees and investors tobe not just a technical success, but a finan-cial success,” CEO Jack Holmes says.

In June, Syntroleum and Tysonannounced a joint venture to createDynamic Fuels LLC. The deal involvesbuilding multiple, stand-alone facilities pro-

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Syntroleum CEO Jack Holmes holds up vials of black rendered poultry fat and whiteFischer-Tropsch wax. Both can be refined into clear synthetic diesel or jet fuel.


ducing “ultra-clean, high-quality, next gen-eration renewable synthetic fuels usingSyntroleum’s patented Biofining process, a‘flexible feed/flexible synthetic fuels’ tech-nology,” according to Tyson. The first facil-ity expected to be built somewhere in themid-South will produce about 75 MMgy offuel from low-grade animal fats, greasesand vegetable oils supplied by Tyson. The$150 million project is targeted to be on lineby 2010. The price tag includes a contin-gency for unanticipated expenses in build-ing the first facility. Then the work willbegin to add biomass gasification capabili-ties to the front end of the Biofining plant.A third-party will be recruited to supply thegasification technology and Syntroleum’stechnology will be added to convert thebiogas into F-T products that can berefined in the same Biofining plant as thefats.

In the SpotlightSyntroleum has been riding a wave of

publicity created when it inked the deal withTyson, telling its story on television, makinga presention on Wall Street and providingtours of its Tulsa facilities as the companybegins the work of raising its share offunding for the joint venture. Standingbeside the structure of pipes and tanks, SidSchmoker, manager of facilities mainte-nance, explains how the company’s F-Ttechnology works as he guides a tour ofSyntroleum’s demonstration plant forBiomass Magazine. The $60 million plantdemonstrated the company’s technologyusing natural gas as the feedstock to manu-facture synfuels. Biomass-to-liquid or coal-to-liquid will require adding a gasifier andsyngas clean-up to the front end of theSyntroleum process.

Jim Engman, manager of catalyst test-ing, continues the tour at the Syntroleum F-T laboratory in another part of Tulsa,where a bank of small reactors and a room

full of monitors permit multiple test runs,while the researchers tweak process condi-tions to see how well they can control theoutcome. Across town, at Syntroleumheadquarters, researchers in another set oflaboratories are running tests on dozens offat samples from Tyson.

F-T is not a new process. TheGermans used the technology to producefuel from coal during World War II topower its military. Sasol Ltd., based inSouth Africa, became the world leaders inF-T technology when an internationalembargo during the country’s apartheidregime stopped oil imports. In the rest ofthe world, cheap oil has discouraged thedevelopment of F-T technology, whichrequires oil prices above $50 per barrel tomake it economical. Syntroleum targeted itsF-T innovations to stranded gas reserves—the natural gas that gets flared off oil wellsin areas where there’s no access to naturalgas infrastructure. As the price of oil hasclimbed, the economics of recoveringstranded gas has improved.

From Incomplete Combustion to Liquids

The process starts with syngas comingfrom a gasifier. The incomplete combus-tion in the gasifier produces carbonmonoxide and hydrogen, along with tarsand particulates that have to be scrubbedout, Agee explains. Earlier this year, thecompany took two bench-scale reactors toEastman Chemical Co.’s coal gasifier inTennessee for a 100-day trial. Agee consid-ers gasified coal, which contains sulfur,arsenic, mercury, iron and other metals, theultimate test of whether syngas from mul-tiple sources of biomass can be cleaned upenough to avoid killing the F-T catalyst.Unfortunately, there is no commerciallyoperating biomass gasifier to test its theory.However, with the results from the coalgasifier in hand, Agee is confident that bio-

innovation

Jet fuel is Syntroleum’s target market. The U.S. Air Force’sgoal is to replace half of the 1.6 billion gallons of domesticfuel it uses per year with alternative fuels by 2016.


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gas from any biomass source can be cleanedadequately. “We consider coal the worst casescenario,” Agee says.

Once it’s cleaned the syngas is piped tothe F-T reactor. One of Agee’s break-throughs was developing a catalyst thatwould not be killed by nitrogen. In the caseof gas-to-liquids, the innovation permits theuse of compressed air and eliminates theneed for oxygen purification, thus reducing

capital costs and boosting safety. Anotherunique feature of the Syntroleum F-T tech-nology is its ability to remove a stream ofthe catalyst to be regenerated while the plantis running. The Syntroleum process uses aslurry-phase reactor. Clean syngas is intro-duced at the bottom of the reactor and bub-bles up through the catalyst and wax. Thecatalyst facilitates a chemical reaction whichreorganizes the carbon and hydrogen mole-

cules into long carbon chains of paraffinicwaxes along with light oils and water.

After auto-thermal reforming and theF-T reactor, the liquids enter the finalprocess which Syntroleum has patented andtrademarked as Synfining. This last step useshydrocracking and hydroisomerization tobreak the long chains in the waxes into thedesired fuels—diesel or jet fuel. When pro-cessing synthetic diesel, the coproduct is 20

Syntroleum and Tyson’s joint venture, Dynamic Fuels, will start with Step 3 where the F-T products are upgraded in the Synfining process,or animal fats in the slightly modified Biofining process, into synthetic diesel or jet fuel. Once Step 3 is operational, the plan is to add abiomass gasifier and F-T reactor.

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innovation

percent naptha, and if synthetic jet fuel isthe end product it results in 40 percentnaptha, Agee says.

Targeting the Jet Fuel MarketJet fuel is Syntroleum’s target market.

The U.S. Air Force’s goal is to replace halfof the 1.6 billion gallons of domestic fuel ituses per year with alternative fuels by 2016,Holmes says. “The current alternative fuelsfrom ethanol and biodiesel can’t meet the[Department of Defense] specs,” he says.“Our technology will.” This summer,Syntroleum signed a contract to supply 500gallons of the synthetic jet fuel made fromfats to see if it performs the same as its syn-thetic JP8 jet fuel. “It will,” Holmes says,adding that in their lab tests, the fuels fromrenewable fats exactly match the fuels fromnatural gas (see the chart on page 34).

Flying high after its success with the AirForce and its deal with Tyson, Syntroleumhas raised the initial $4.25 million, matchedby Tyson, to conduct site selection studiesand prepare the process design package andfront-end engineering. The challenge will beto raise the next $70.75 million, which is theremainder of its share of the capitalrequired to build the first plant. In the

meantime, Syntroleum executives arepleased with the joint venture. “Tyson hasturned out to be a wonderful partner,”Holmes says.

One resource Tyson brings to the tableis its governmental relations division whichis helping with state-level negotiations assites are considered. Government supportof renewable diesel will be an importantcomponent for Syntroleum’s success. Thebiodiesel industry protested this summerwhen Tyson agreed to supply fats toConoco-Phillips to produce renewablediesel and collect a $1-per-gallon tax credit.Biodiesel supporters are concerned thatrefinery-scaled projects will dominate feed-stock supplies and qualify for tax credits thatwere intended to aid the fledgling biodieselindustry. Holmes makes a distinctionbetween the oil companies’ plans tocoprocess a small amount of fats with crudeoil in the refinery and Syntroleum’s renew-able diesel. “We are different,” Holmes says.“We are stand-alone, new construction. Wecreate new jobs, and we’re making 100 per-cent renewable diesel.” He’s hoping theattempts to rewrite legislation to prevent oilcompanies from getting the federalbiodiesel incentive will not rule out incen-

tives for small companies like Syntroleumdeveloping new technologies and utilizing100 percent renewable feedstocks. At cur-rent prices, the biodiesel tax credits are cru-cial, he says. “Our cash margins are about $1per gallon, which includes the $1 tax credit,”he adds. In the company’s projections, thefirst plant making 75 MMgy per year shouldnet $60 million per year to cash flow, whichwill be used to pay off the investment.

Detailed projections for the biomasssystem have not yet been worked out, butinitial numbers show promise. Agee esti-mates the biomass gasifier and F-T reactorwill cost two to three times more than the$150 million needed to build the firstBiofining facility. However, the higher capi-tal investment will be offset by lower feed-stock costs, he says. While fats cost about 20cents per pound, biomass is expected tocost $20 to $60 per ton. “I think all the com-ponents are there to make biomass diesel,”he says. “But they aren’t there on a commer-cial scale yet.” After 23 years of working outthe details in Syntroleum’s process, Agee’senthusiasm hasn’t waned. “Part of thedemonstration process is working out thebugs,” he says with quiet confidence. BIO

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Biomass Combustion Specialists


Researchers are taking another look at animal-processed fiber(APF), a coproduct of the anaerobic digestion process. APF contains an abundance of protein and fiber fractions such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin and can be used for a varietyof biobased products.

By Bryan Sims

coproduct

Renewed Interest in

Bovine Biomass


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or years, horticulturists andagricultural researchers haveexploited the valuable prop-erties of ruminant animalwaste for energy production.Today, those same

researchers are reviving the scienceknown as “chemurgy,” the developmentof nonfood, industrial products madefrom agricultural materials.

Much of the energy captured fromcattle manure is derived from anaerobicdigestion. On dairy farms, the system isused to sequester methane and carbondioxide to generate energy, controlpathogens and reduce odors. The anaer-obic digestion process also produces acoproduct called animal-processed fiber(APF) that has become a target of scien-tific interest. Many in the biomass indus-try have come to perceive APF as one ofthe most undervalued and underutilizedforms of cellulosic material. Research inAPF involves uncovering the various val-ues and properties the material holds fora number of biobased industrial prod-ucts.

APFs are the undigested residualmaterial that neither the animal nor theanaerobic digester can breakdown anyfurther. APF can be used in animal bed-ding and potting soil, but agricultural sci-entists would like to learn more about itspotential applications. Although thematerial does contain trace amounts ofnonvaluable components, APF also con-tains an abundance of protein and fiberfractions such as cellulose, hemicellulose,lignin and other valuable components.These fractions, along with minerals andother nutrients, represent a biologicallyprocessed feedstock suitable for a varietyof purposes—as a supplement in thepaper, pulp and wood industries, inwood-derived composite products suchas fiberboard, floor tiling, siding andother wood-derived biocomposite prod-ucts, and as a binding agent in adhesives,industrial tape and masonry patchingmaterials.

F

APF can be integrated into wood production. The top board is a hard fiberboard with high APF den-sity. The middle fiberboard has medium APF density and the bottom fiberboard sheet is medium density with an APF core and wood fiber surfaces.

This pile of APF was extruded from a GHD Inc. separator. APF are highly fiberous and contain an abundance ofnutrients and other cellulosic components, which are amenable for wood, paper and pulp manufacturing. Farmersand researchers are currently exploring its marketability


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According to Steve Dvorak, presi-dent of Chilton, Wis.-based GHD Inc.,a firm that designs and installs anaerobicdigesters, extensive research on APFuses should take off in the next five to10 years. “There’s a lot of potential inthis and there are many people lookingat it,” Dvorak says. “I think we’re goingto see a lot of changes in the next yearor two of where this material goes.”

The key to transforming APF andmanure, often perceived as low-gradewaste, into value-added biorenewableproducts involves the development ofrefining operations that convert thesecomponents into commercially viablecommodities.

Making StridesSince 1989, Deland Meyers, consid-

ered by many in the biomass industry tobe a pioneer in APF and ruminantmanure-related biobased productsresearch, has been successfully convert-ing APF into potentially marketablebiobased composite products such asfiberboard, particleboard and varioustypes of fiber-based plastics. Shortlyafter Meyers joined Iowa StateUniversity’s Food Science and HumanNutrition Department, he began toexplore the idea of creating nonfoodproducts from plant proteins for theCenter for Crops Utilization Research.The same functional properties of pro-tein are applied to both food and non-food products, he says. “[The research]was trying to find a new use for a

biobased material that has been pro-duced in the state [of Iowa],” saysMeyers, now director of a newly createddepartment at North Dakota StateUniversity in Fargo that will be calledthe School of Food Systems and is cur-rently the Department of Cereal andFood Sciences. “We were able to takethat fiber and add a little processing andessentially came up with fiberboards thatlook very similar to wood or other typesof agriculture-[based] fiber products.”

Farmers traditionally use manure tofertilize their fields. As farms havegrown and animals are densely concen-trated in single locations, farmers havemore manure than land to spread it on,especially in the livestock-heavy states ofWisconsin and Texas. Finding new usesfor APF and the raw manure could pro-vide a solution to disposing of the morethan 2 trillion pounds of manure pro-duced annually in the United States. Itwould also help to allay environmental-ists concerns about contamination ofstreams and underground water sourcesfrom manure runoff. “In some regionsof the country there’s a shortage of [thenutrients found in manure] and in manyregions there’s an excess because oflarge livestock concentrations,” saysTom Richard, associate professor ofagriculture and bioenergy atPennsylvania State University. Richardhas research ties with Meyers onmanure-based applications. “In theregions where there’s an excess ofmanure this looks like a potential win-win solution,” he says

There are concerns about odors andpathogens when APF products are pro-duced in tandem in the pulp, paper andwood mill industries. However, noxiousodors and microbes that manifest dis-ease are killed off by the manufacturingprocess, according to Richard. Once thefinal product is dry enough it doesn’tserve as a substrate for microbialgrowth, unless it gets wet, which issomething researchers are looking at

very closely, he says. So far, fiberboardmade with APF seems to match or beatthe quality ofwood-based prod-ucts. “The down-side is that the fiberis weakeningthroughout thatprocess,” Richardsays. “I expect thatfor structural appli-cations wherestrength is impor-tant it may be nec-essary to blend in some additional woodfiber in order to strengthen that materi-al.”

Another possible APF-related appli-cation that is currently being researchedis potting soil. Tim Zauche, associateprofessor of chemistry at the Universityof Wisconsin-Platteville, is in theprocess of developing a soilless pottingmix for orchids from APF. Creating amarketable soil for the floral industrycould be commercially viable becauseorchid sales in the United States haveincreased and the cost of peat moss,which is mostly imported from Canada,has risen. “Greenhouses would like thismaterial because it’s so consistent,”Zauche says. “APFs are consistent overthree to four months, whereas compost-ed material depends on whether the pilewas warm here or there or not, green-house growers don’t always like it.”Zauche has also worked with the USDAForest Products Laboratory to developAPF-derived fibrous material that canact as a substitute for sawdust in themaking of fiberboard.

Tackling the ObstaclesOne of the biggest challenges in

APF research is successfully marketingthe biobased products and convincingindustrial product retailers like Menards,The Home Depot or Lowe’s stores tosell the products. In an attempt to pro-mote his products, Meyers and his team

Richard

‘If we can bring the valueup on [APF] then itbecomes a little morefeasible to build moreanaerobic digesters,which is good for theentire livestock industry.’


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created biobased composite noveltiessuch as “cow pie Frisbees” and demon-strated the products’ unique qualities atIowa fairgrounds, expos and other pub-lic events. But still the products “neverreally took off commercially,” he says,which is impeding widespread marketacceptance.

According to Monlin Kuo, an asso-ciate professor of natural resources and

ecology management at ISU and a for-mer colleague of Meyers during theirjoint research efforts on biobased com-posite products, other major hindrancesfor advancing APF-derived productsinclude the cost of research and compe-tition from the existing wood mill pro-duction. This is especially true in theUnited States, which has sufficient sup-plies of wood from forestry sources for

wood milling. In countries without a suf-ficient fiber source, however, APF couldpotentially be a valuable commodity. “Ithink [APF] would be more applicable inmore fiber-hungry countries like China,”Kuo says. Although the technology isavailable, it’s a matter of getting the mostout of the research and time allocatedfor that research to find new uses forAPF-derived biobased composite prod-ucts and gain consumer acceptance Kuosays.

Dvorak has observed that more live-stock farmers are changing their percep-tions of APF and/or manure. Onceviewed as a low-value, recycled materialthat’s expensive to dispose of, APFcould be transformed into a valued com-modity with the potential for significantprofit if a solid market can be estab-lished. As a result, GHD sales have risen.“If we can bring the value up on [APF]then it becomes a little more feasible tobuild more anaerobic digesters, which isgood for the entire livestock industry,”Dvorak says.

According to Richard, it may only bea matter time before we see moremanure-based materials integrated intoconventional wood-derived products.The end result could be so transparentthat consumers don’t even realize it’shappening. “I think over time, excite-ment about biobased energy is going toneed to be coupled with excitementabout biobased materials,” Richard says.“There are many livestock operatorswho would love to find something dif-ferent to do with their manure and thislooks like one of the choices to evalu-ate.” BIO

Bryan Sims is a Biomass Magazine staffwriter. Reach him at [email protected] or (701) 746-8385.

APF as a Feedstock for Cellulosic Ethanol?

As corn prices continue to fluctuate and concern overwhether corn-based ethanol production is straining the food andfeed industries, producing cellulosic ethanol from feedstockssuch as switchgrass, corn stover and sweet sorghum is beingheavily researched. Could animal processed fiber (APF) con-tribute to that mix?

“I think one of the questions that is going to be important iswhat are the trade-offs and best feedstocks for the different pur-poses?” says Tom Richard, associate professor of agricultureand bioenergy at Pennsylvania State University. “We’re in aperiod now where energy has got a lot of value and there’s a lotof interest and excitement about cellulosic ethanol. A significantpart of APF is cellulose so that’s something that certainly needsto be explored.”

Although the notion hasn’t been thoroughly explored,Deland Meyers purports that with continued refinement ofresearch and technological advancements, APF could comple-ment conventional cellulosic feedstocks for ethanol production.“That’s something that we hadn’t thought about, but theoretical-ly [APF] probably could,” says Meyers, who recently joinedNorth Dakota State University as the director of its newly creat-ed School of Food Systems. “I think it definitely has merit and Ithink it’s something that could be seriously looked at.”

According to Monlin Kuo, associate professor of naturalresources and ecology management at Iowa State University,the biggest hurdle that would prevent APF from becoming aviable feedstock for cellulosic production would be the locationof farms that operate anaerobic digesters relative to cellulosicethanol plants because transportation costs would be expen-sive. “The logistical issues are very important factors to consid-

er,” he adds.


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Members of the Biocomposite Research Group at Iowa State University, include, left to right,Douglas Stokke, senior lecturer, Yilin Bian, a research associate, Kuo and John Schmitz, a doctoral student.


The U.S. Congress is getting closer to passing a renewable electricity mandate, which couldmean dramatic growth for the biomass industry. Ironically, the Southeastern states—the regionmost likely to benefit from the development of the biomass industry—are resisting such a mandate.

By Anduin Kirkbride McElroy

policy

igh-Voltage DebateOver Renewable Electricity MandateH

llinois and North Carolina recently enacted renewableelectricity standards, which mandate that a certain per-centage of the state’s electricity must come fromrenewable sources. With those additions, 25 states andthe District of Columbia have passed some form ofthis policy, most commonly referred to as a renewable

portfolio standard (RPS).With this kind of support, one would think that a federal

RPS would be just around the corner. And indeed, it hasbeen—since 2001. The Senate has passed a version of an RPSin three different Congresses, but each time it was struckdown by House Republicans, according to Leon Lowery, pro-fessional staff for the Senate Committee on Energy andNatural Resources. Now that the Democrats are in control ofCongress, an RPS might be closer to reality.

This summer, both houses of Congress passed major billsmeant to promote efficiency and wean the country from fos-sil fuels. Though the Senate bill didn’t include an RPS, theHouse did approve a measure that would require 15 percentrenewable energy by 2020. This is the first time the House hasever passed an RPS.

If an RPS becomes law, the biomass industry could seesignificant growth, as it follows in the footsteps of otherrenewable mandates. The policy can be compared with therenewable fuel standard (RFS) passed by Congress in the 2005Energy Bill. The RFS mandated that an increasing percentageof the motor fuel pool must be renewable fuel. This mandatespurred incredible growth in the ethanol and biodiesel indus-tries by guaranteeing a market for the product. ManyWashington policy experts agree that a national RPS has thepotential to do the same thing for various renewable indus-tries, including biomass. “According to the [EnergyInformation Administration (EIA)], our portfolio standardwould result in a 50 percent increase in wind generation and a300 percent increase in biomass generation,” Lowery says.“There's already twice as much biomass generation in thecountry as there is wind generation.”

The Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) is an avid sup-porter of the RPS. “I think [the biomass industry is] going toenjoy the benefits of a new and unexplored market that’sgoing to develop as a result of this legislation,” says MarchantWentworth, legislative representative for clean energy for the

I


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UCS. “Whether it would achieve thestratospheric growth of the ethanolindustry, it’s hard to say. But it wouldfurnish a stable, long-term market, andthat’s the point of the legislation.”

The legislation would spur variousrenewable industries within regionalmarkets, according to GeorgeSterzinger, executive director of theRenewable Energy Policy Project, arenewable energy policy think tank. “Ifit passed, I think people feel that, interms of biomass, the impact will openpotential markets, especially in theSoutheast where biomass is the greatestpotential resource,” he says. “In theSouthwest it’s solar, in the West it’s windand the Southeast it’s biomass.”

An RPS also has the potential tosave electric consumers money. A 2005

EIA study determined that the price ofnatural gas would go down with a 10percent RPS. “Think about it, you justreduced the demand for natural gas bysubstituting something else for genera-tion,” Lowery says. He cited a 2005study by Ryan Weiser of the LawrenceBerkeley Lab, where 15 separate model-ing exercises of different portfolio stan-dards each came to the same conclusionthat the price of natural gas goes down.A UCS study on a 20 percent RPS con-

firmed these findings, Wentworth says.“During the life of the program, wecompute that it would save $49 billion,although less under a 15 percent RPS,”he says.

Not only would an RPS save money,but it would also generate jobs. “Whenyou create a requirement/standard forrenewable energy, you generate jobs,”Wentworth says. “In the case of bio-mass, it would be the jobs building theequipment to handle the biomass to sellit to market. All of this is about furnish-ing a reliable, long-term market forrenewable energy.”

It’s All PoliticsEven though political support for

all-things “green” is at an all-time high,the RPS has trailed behind other suchpolicies. “Many elected officials whosupported the RFS object to the RPS,”Wentworth observes. “There is an essen-tial contradiction. Why do you supportthe mandate in one area and oppose themandate in another?” Wentworth creditsthis contradiction to the big politicalpowerhouses on Capitol Hill, and Lowryagrees. “There’s real strong oppositionon the part of a lot of electric utilities tohaving a requirement,” he says. “There’sreal strong support from a lot of farm-ers for having a fuel requirement. Thepolitics are different, that’s all. Both aremandates.”

This opposition is a reason previousCongresses haven’t passed the measure.Some argue an RPS would favor regionsof the country that have more abundantrenewable resources. This argumentcomes primarily from the Southeasternstates. Sterzinger says there is somevalidity to the claim. “It’s extremely like-ly that a national RPS would have a pro-vision to allow trading,” he says.“Hypothetically, the example that every-one throws out is that a state like NorthDakota with enormous wind resourceswould develop in excess of their require-ments. The electricity wouldn’t necessar-ily go to the South, but they could sellover-compliance credits to someone

who needs them.”“The biggest political opposition

and the loudest arguments come fromsoutherners who claim that they don’thave any renewables—that the portfoliostandard is all about wind,” Lowery says.“They say there aren’t good resources inthe Southeast and it would cost to trans-port the electricity. The truth is, accord-ing to the EIA, the big winner from theportfolio standard is biomass. Thereport says that wind would increase by50 percent and biomass would increaseby 300 percent. When you understandthat there’s twice as much biomass asthere is wind, you do the arithmetic:there is four times as much biomass gen-eration as wind. There’s enormous bio-mass potential in the Southeast.”

The Southern Alliance for CleanEnergy (SACE) has found that theSoutheast, as a region, can meet a 20percent RPS, according to John Bonitz,who does farm outreach and policyadvocacy for the SACE. “Tennessee,North Carolina and Georgia are rich inbiomass. North Carolina and SouthCarolina have considerable off-shorewind resources. Florida has excellentsolar power resources and possiblywind. And all of the Southeast can dotremendous amounts with energy effi-ciency.” Arguments that an RPS isinequitable are flawed, according toJennifer Rennicks, federal coordinatorfor the SACE. “Renewable energy ismore equitably distributed than fossilfuel energy,” she says. “That is such acrucial point in this debate. Every statehas renewable energy potential. Somestates could meet well more than 20 per-cent simply from one source. Why weare so in favor of an RPS is because itlevels the playing field.”

Nevertheless, Sterzinger says it’simportant to ensure that the RPS is writ-ten so it benefits all regions of the coun-try and doesn’t end up being a drain oncertain parts of the country to the ben-efit of others. Additionally, he says it’simportant that the policy support themanufacturing industries that supply the

‘Renewable energy ismore equitably distributedthan fossil fuel energy.That is such a crucialpoint in this debate.Every state has renewable energy potential. Some statescoud meet well more than20 percent simply fromone source. Why we areso in favor of an RPS isbecause it levels theplaying field.’


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parts and technology for the renewableprojects. Finally, he says a good RPSpolicy must also include the ability tostabilize carbon emissions. Good policy,however, is just part of the answer. Theregional playing field can only be leveledif the biomass industry can develop tomeet the demand. If an RPS is enacted,it will be important for the biomassindustry to quickly develop so it cancompete with other renewables.Depending on how aggressively bio-mass energy technology is developed,Sterzinger says the biomass industry canprevent regional disparity with an RPS.“The trick would be if it were cheaperto buy credits than to buy local biomasspower in the South,” he says. “If bio-mass could get to where a kilowatt isunder 5 cents, and the price of new gen-eration is 4.5 cents, that would be agood scenario for the biomass market.That would leave only one-half a centfor the extra credit, which would proba-bly not support development in otherregions.”

Unfortunately, Sterzinger says thebiomass industry is far behind the windand solar industries that have seen greattechnological advances. “There’s beenwork on the feedstock side, but genera-tion technology, there really hasn’t beenany change, he says. “That’s the greatchallenge going forward for the indus-try, to get out of the 1940s generationtechnology to much more advancedgeneration and conversion techniques.”

Though rationale seems sound andpolitical support is probably thestrongest it’s ever been, it will be anuphill journey to get an RPS enactedthis year. There are a lot of difficultprocedural steps to take to get anEnergy Bill in front of the president,who has threatened a veto. The firstchallenge is to get the same numberedbill to the conference committee. TheHouse and Senate have introduced sep-arate pieces of legislation. The Houseoriginally passed H.R. 6 in January as aplaceholder bill. In June, the Senatepassed its version of the bill, which

included new corporate average fueleconomy (CAFE) standards. The billrequires automakers to hike fuel effi-ciency by 40 percent to a combined fleetaverage of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.It did not include an RPS.

In August, the House passed anoth-er Energy Bill—H.R. 3221—thatincludes a 15 percent RPS. “Our posi-tion, along with the rest of environmen-tal community, is to take the best ofboth bills—include the CAFE and therenewable electricity standard,”Wentworth says. “That’s the simple ver-sion of where we’re going.”

But before those discussions cantake place in conference committee, thebills must be the same number. Thisbrings it back up for discussion andopens the opportunity for a filibuster.“If someone wanted to prevent it frommoving forward, there are a lot of hur-dles that they would make us go over,”Lowery says. Although he doesn’t knowwhen the procedural jumps will begin,he says the committee staff membersare working on it. If the bill makes it toconference committee, Lowery thinksthere’s a high likelihood that an RPS willbe included. “It’s an extremely high pri-ority for [U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.],” he says of the committee chair.Additionally, support for the measure isstrong in both houses, he says. In theHouse, the vote was 220-190 in favor ofan RPS. On the Senate side, he says themeasure would have had 60 votes if ithad come up for a vote. This supportmay bring the bill, with the RPS, for-ward yet this fall. BIO

Anduin Kirkbride McElroy is a BiomassMagazine staff writer. Reach her at [email protected] or (701) 746-8385.

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here may soon be anotherreason to support the localdairy farmer.In Wisconsin, where a sim-ilar message is proudly plas-tered on everything from

bumper stickers to T-shirts to coffee-shop windows, researchers at the USDAAgricultural Research Service’s (ARS)U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center(DFRC) are proving that the nation hasan unlikely ally in its quest for energyindependence: dairy cows.

Featuring one of the most sophisti-cated digestive systems in nature, cowsand other ruminants can convert rough,fibrous plant material into critical, life-sustaining energy and milk.

Yet, while herds of these naturalplant processors are scattered across thecountry’s vast bucolic landscape, there’snot a single commercial facility in theUnited States capable of a similar feat:converting the Earth’s most abundantrenewable resource—plant cellulose—into fuel.

Lignin Locks Up Energy Even though dairy cows are impres-

sive plant-to-energy converters, they can’tdigest especially fibrous feed portionstoughened up by lignin, the cementingagent that holds plant cell walls together.

For bioenergy researchers, lignin andother cell wall components are significantstumbling blocks to unlocking the enor-mous energy that’s tied up in plants. “It’sall about the sugars,” says Michael Casler,

a geneticist based at DFRC. “To drawenergy from a crop, you’ve got to get tothe sugars so that they can be fermentedinto fuel.”

However, in cows and biofuelsresearch, lignin almost always gets in theway. Plants use three main materials tobuild their cell walls: the polysaccharidescellulose, hemicellulose and the phenolicpolymer lignin. Cellulose is a chain ofglucose (sugar) molecules strung togeth-er. As these molecules multiply, theyorganize themselves in linear bundles thatcrisscross through the cell wall, giving the

plant strength and structure.The cellulose bundles are weakly

bound to an encircling matrix of hemi-cellulose, which is strongly linked tolignin. The gluey lignin polymer furtherstrengthens plants and gives them flexi-bility. Lignin is the reason plants can popback up after heavy rains and winds, andit’s how they made the leap from a life inthe ocean to one on land eons ago.

Plants have invested great energy incrafting exquisite cell wall structures thatresist degradation and loss of their pre-cious sugars. Over the course of millions

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Breaking Down WallsBy Erin K. Peabody

Weimer, center, discusses tests of a new biobased glue with chemist Chuck Frihart, left,and technician Brice Dally of the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory.

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of years, they’ve had to fend off an insa-tiable crowd of energy-hungry fungi,bacteria, herbivores—and now, people.

A Sticky Plasticity John Ralph, a DFRC chemist, is one

of a handful of scientists in the worldwho are probing lignin’s structural details.With the help of nuclear magnetic reso-nance (NMR), a technology that takesadvantage of the magnetic fields sur-rounding atoms, Ralph and colleagueshave been able to chip away at lignin’smysteries, including how plants make itthrough a process known as “lignifica-tion.”

Many of Ralph’s insights have comefrom years of scrutinizing the ligninstructures in transgenic plants. He saysthere’s much to be learned about a geneby watching what happens when it’saltered.

For example, almost 10 years ago,Ralph and colleagues published a paperdescribing what happens to loblolly pinetrees when they’re deprived of the genethat codes for cinnamyl alcohol dehydro-genase—an enzyme that helps make vitallignin building blocks. Ralph says thateven with extremely low levels of theimportant lignin-building enzyme, thetrees compensated by incorporatingnovel monomers—small molecules thatcan bind with others to form polymers—to ensure that they had the necessarylignin-like glue to perform basic func-tions.

After using NMR and other methodsto analyze many other genetically trans-formed plants—including tobacco,aspen, alfalfa, corn and the model plantArabidopsis—Ralph and his colleaguesand collaborators have laid a foundationof basic knowledge about how ligninproduction is orchestrated in plants.

Ralph belongs to a major camp ofscientists who maintain that the forma-tion of the lignin polymer is pretty mucha random affair and isn’t strictly con-trolled by proteins and enzymes like

many other plant polymers. Anothergroup argues that lignification is just likeprotein building, a process that’s pre-dictable and leaves few surprises.

But Ralph contends that there are awider number of building blocks theplant has at its disposal for assemblinglignified cell walls. He says the plant canput these components together in a virtu-ally infinite number of ways, as did thepine trees and many other transgenicplants. Ralph calls it “metabolic plastici-ty.” Lignification is “a remarkably evolvedsolution that allows plants considerableflexibility in dealing with various environ-mental stresses,” he says.

Even if some don’t appreciatelignin’s evolutionary role in helping plantsadapt, that’s OK, Ralph says. “A greaterawareness of these plant processes willincrease our opportunities to modifylignin composition and content,” he says.

Zooming In on Lignin Another of DFRC’s many lignin-

related discoveries has been especiallywell received in scientific circles.

Fachuang Lu, a research associate inRalph’s group, was the first to find a wayto study the highly detailed chemicalstructure of the entire plant cell wall.

In the past, the job of extracting thevarious polymers from cell walls fordetailed analysis required the deftness ofa brain surgeon. There was always atradeoff between the integrity of thematerial extracted and the speed withwhich it could be done.

Now, entire cell walls can be dis-solved in a special solution in which alltheir contents—cellulose, hemicelluloseand lignin—are dissolved in a matter ofhours instead of weeks, as with tradition-al methods. Once all the polymers are inthe solution, NMR can provide a struc-tural picture of them. “Traditionally, wecould only get a portion of the cell wallinto solution,” Ralph says. “By using thisnew solution and NMR method, we canget a chemical fingerprint of the majorand minor structures of the entire cellwall. The amount of detail is striking.”

Researchers interested in running cellwall samples from either conventionally

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To find breeding lines of switchgrass with traits that improve its conversion to bioenergy,Casler, left, and technician Christine Budd scan switchgrass plant samples using a near-infrared spectrophotometer.

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bred or genetically modified energy crops can usethe tool to get a zoomed-in view of what theirplants’ modified cell walls look like. With suchpowerful capabilities, the method can serve as animportant gauge of progress.

Low-Input Plants for Energy In addition to probing minute cell-wall struc-

tures, DFRC scientists are also breeding plantsthat possess energy-friendly qualities. Casler ishanging his hopes on grasses—the perennials thatcover an estimated one-third of the nation’sacreage.

Aside from switchgrass, on which he’s builtan entire breeding program, Casler is also eyeingthe promise of other low-input grasses, such assmooth bromegrass, orchardgrass and reedcanarygrass. He thinks they’ve got the potential tofeed both cows and the country’s enormous ener-gy appetite.

Casler and colleague Hans Jung, a DFRCdairy scientist based in St. Paul, Minn., have beenselecting grasses that possess either less lignin orfewer ferulates, which are chemicals that helpbind lignin to hemicellulose in the cell wall,impeding access to the sugars. “When we startedthese studies, we wondered ‘Is it lignin that’s mostresponsible for binding up the carbohydrates, or isit the way ferulates link the lignin to hemicellu-lose?’” Casler says.

After running studies in several grass species,Casler, Jung and collaborators have proved thateither approach works when it comes to breakingdown tough cell walls. Hoping to breed plantswhose cell walls are more easily degraded, Caslerand Jung will soon begin crossing promising grasslines.

Focusing on AlfalfaOther DFRC researchers are focused on

alfalfa—a crop that, unlike corn and other grass-es, fixes its own nitrogen and therefore requiresless fertilizer. Plant physiologist Ronald Hatfieldand molecular geneticist Michael Sullivan areworking to boost alfalfa’s biomass by alteringgenes that affect its development. “We’re lookingat alfalfa’s developmental structure, how itbranches,” Hatfield says. “We’re also trying toreduce leaf abscission, or leaf drop.”

Because alfalfa plants are grown close togeth-er, many of their understory leaves fall off from

research

Unlike most bioenergy researchers, who wish plant cellwalls were more pliable, ARS microbiologist Paul Weimerisn’t frustrated by their rigid structures. Instead, he’s found away to capitalize on them through fiber-hungry microbes witha taste for the extremes. For instance, one that Weimer’smost interested in has such a high threshold for heat that itgrows best at 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

The name of this heat-loving bacterium is Clostridiumthermocellum. That it also likes environments devoid of oxy-gen makes it especially attractive for use in commercialethanol production. “The conventional system for makingethanol from plant fiber relies on two reactors,” Weimer says.“One’s dedicated to growing the fungi that produce cellulose-degrading enzymes. It’s got to be aerobic, since the fungineed oxygen to multiply. The fungal enzymes are thendropped into a second vat, an anaerobic one, which containsthe yeast and the cellulosic plant material.”

However, the two-part system is inefficient and ratchetsup the cost of ethanol production. That’s why the Madison,Wis.-based researcher has seized upon a more streamlinedsystem, known as “consolidated bioprocessing,” in whichbacteria and plant fiber are processed in just one vat. Usingthis energy-tidy platform, he’s found a way to produce ethanoland an all-natural wood glue.

The Clostridium strains he’s studying—like some bacteriain the cow rumen—can’t process every scrap of plant fiberthey’re unleashed to feast on. Whatever they don’t degradewhile making ethanol, they latch onto with such fiercenessthat the only way to break the bond is to destroy themicrobes, Weimer says.

This bond—which Weimer has found to be especiallypowerful between Clostridium and alfalfa—is what motivatedhim to pursue his bioadhesive technology.

“Unconverted plant material is usually sold as distillersgrains, a livestock feed that only fetches about 4 cents apound,” Weimer says. He believes his all-natural glue hasmuch more money-making potential. Studies he’s done withcollaborators at the USDA Forest Service’s Forest ProductsLaboratory in Madison show that the bioadhesive is toughenough to replace up to 70 percent of the petroleum-basedphenol-formaldehyde (PF) currently used to manufacture ply-wood and other wood products. With an estimated 1 billionpounds of PF produced each year, there must be a market foran eco-friendly substitute.

New Bioadhesive’s a Super Glue

Barr-Rosinlack of sunlight. Hatfield and Sullivanwould like to minimize loss of this valu-able plant material.

Hatfield, Sullivan and Ralph are col-laborating with the Noble Foundation inArdmore, Okla., to build the ideal alfalfaplant. “The Noble Foundation usuallyengineers the plants with reduced lignin,”Hatfield says. “Then we use NMR andother analytical techniques to see what themodified cell walls look like and how eas-ily they can be processed either by thecow or for biomass conversion to ener-gy.”

The alfalfa research team has alreadydiscovered that when they transformplants by down-regulating enzymes called“methyl transferases,” they can reducelignin content, boost cellulose contentand enhance cell wall digestibility.

Part of the Big PictureIn the end, DFRC researchers believe

that agriculture’s role in supplying renew-able energy to the country is crucial.However, Hatfield cautions that thebioenergy movement mustn’t miss theforest for the trees. “We need to considerthe whole agricultural picture,” he says.“You can’t convert everything into bioen-ergy.”

There are other biobased productsand niche industries to consider. Takealfalfa, for instance. DFRC researchershave found that, in addition to providinggreat grist for the ethanol mill, alfalfa is asource of quality protein and health-pro-moting nutraceuticals. Plus, its fiber frac-tions have value as a water-filtering agent,and it’s an ideal substrate for making anall-natural glue.

“We’ve also got to think in terms ofsustainability for the sake of local agricul-tural economies and our naturalresources,” Hatfield says. BIO

Erin K. Peabody is a member of the USDA-ARS’ information staff. Reach her [email protected] or (301) 504-1624. This article was published in the April

2007 issue of Agricultural Research.

research

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IN THE

LABirror mirror on the wall, what’s the greenest fuel of

all? That’s a serious question for researchers and

policymakers concerned about global warming.

Because the interaction between human activities

and the earth are so complicated, sophisticated

models are needed to tease out the implications

of promoting one biofuel over another.

People have many reasons for wanting to switch from fuels and

products made from petroleum and coal to those made from biomass.

Some are concerned with the inevitable decline of fossil fuel resources

and their growing cost. Others worry about greenhouse gases and cli-

mate change. For the latter, there is a thorny question. Do alternative fuels

actually reduce the likelihood of global warming?

While that question is still somewhat controversial, researchers are

generating new data that is starting to fill in the blanks and lead toward a

definitive answer. One tool in the search for an answer is a computer sim-

ulation of how agricultural crops, such as corn used for ethanol produc-

tion, affect the release of greenhouse gases from the soil. The program is

called DayCent, and one of its developers is Stephen Del Grosso of the

USDA Agricultural Research Service.

The program simulates the production of greenhouse gases from the

soil and also simulates the growth of crops, Del Grosso says. That gives

scientists the data they need to compare the impact of different biofuels

feedstocks. “So it gives you your soil emissions and your crop yields,” he

explains. “If you have your crop yield, you know how much fossil fuel you

are displacing. Then there are some other models that come into play.”

In order for the model’s estimates to be accurate, a large amount of

background data must be gathered, analyzed and incorporated into the

program. “We don’t feel comfortable running the model with any arbitrary

crop that we haven’t compared with data,” Del Grosso says. “So that is

the first thing we want to establish—that the model does perform reason-

ably well.”

One of the model’s recent tests was a comparison of biofuel feed-

stocks in Pennsylvania. That state was chosen because data was avail-

able for yields of potential biofuel crops such as switchgrass along with

comprehensive data on soil types and conditions. “So we could do what

we called model validation, comparing the model to the data and tuning

the model for different crops,” Del Grosso says. “We were pretty satisfied

with how the model predicted [nitrogen dioxide]. That’s not to imply it’s

anywhere close to perfect, but compared to other models of similar

sophistication, it does pretty well.” Other research groups are testing the

model in locales from Canada to New Zealand.

Nitrous oxides, such as nitrogen dioxide, are potent greenhouse

gases. “In these types of systems, [nitrogen dioxide] is by far the biggest

source because it has a global warming potential of 300 [times the same

amount of carbon dioxide],” Del Grosso says. “So even though the actu-

al fluxes of [carbon dioxide] might be higher, once you account for the

global warming potential of [nitrogen dioxide], it totally swamps things out.”

So far, DayCent has matched or beaten other models when its predictions

are compared with actual data. The Pennsylvania study indicated that all

the biofuel feedstocks studied reduced net greenhouse gas emissions

when compared with fossil fuels.

The next stage of the project is to validate the model for different

areas of the United States. “There are switchgrass plots in the Midwest,

[particularly] Iowa and the Dakotas,” Del Grosso says. “We are in the

process of running the model in those areas to make sure we get reason-

able results. So I think in a year or two we will have [verified the model]

that can produce switchgrass yields in a couple areas of the U.S. So the

next big goal will be to run DayCent countrywide in areas where these bio-

fuels are feasible and try to come up a first cut of a rough estimate on a

national scale of how much fuel we could reasonably create with a nation-

al effort.” BIO

—Jerry W. Kram

DayCent computer model compares biofuels’ impacts

M

DayCent uses readily available data to estimate potential greenhouse gasemissions from different crops. Researcher Stephen Del Grosso says it is agood compromise between computer models that require vast amounts of dataand simpler models that make sweeping assumptions.


EERCUPDATE

Biomass Power Options for Existing Ethanol Plants

s corn-to-ethanol production increases and natural gas prices appear steady or poised to rise,more facilities are interested in fueling their production with biomass residues. One of thefirst steps in assessing energy options at existing corn-to-ethanol plants is exploring poten-tial available feedstocks.

For utilization of biomass to be economically viable for heat andpower, even with high fossil fuel costs, plants need to look for the

opportune biomass fuels available to them. Biomass that has already been processed anddesignated as a renewable fuel, such as a pelletized biomass, tends to be more costly on aheating basis than most fossil fuels.

Finding opportune fuels requires a regional search where the plant operates. The bio-mass may already be getting land-filled or be considered a nuisance material that can beobtained for little more than trucking cost. In many cases, trucking is the largest cost forbiomass used as a fuel source since most biomass materials are far less energy-dense thanfossil fuels. Biomass generally tends to contain more moisture than fossil fuels, which low-ers its energy density.

Flexibility is a key element when considering biomass as a fuel. Many of the plant’s biomass resources willnot be available on a continuous basis, requiring plant engineers to consider several different kinds of biomassas energy fuels over the course of a year.

Corn stover may be ideal immediately after the corn harvest, but in late winter and early spring anothersource such as wood biomass may be required. Plants using more than one consistent fuel source must con-duct a careful evaluation of the conversion process design to ensure its adaptability to the various biomassfuels under consideration.

Additional considerations include biomass storage. Coal can be brought in by the trainload and stored onthe ground, and natural gas is just another pipe into the plant. However, biomass requires more storage areaper unit of energy potential. In addition, drying may be necessary to prevent spoilage, odors and feeding prob-lems within the conversion process.

Another key issue is the permitting process, which should start as early as possible to ensure enough leadtime to facilitate anticipated start-up dates. Once the potential biomass feedstocks have been identified, engi-neering studies will need to be completed to assess how the biomass will be converted to heat and power.

There are four basic ways to utilize biomass for heat and power: 1) direct combustion with the biomassas the sole fuel source, 2) cofiring biomass with fossil fuels, 3) gasification of the biomass to produce a syn-thetic natural gas or syngas, and 4) fast pyrolysis to produce a combustible syngas and a combustible liquidfrom the biomass. These will be discussed further in next month’s issue. BIO

Bruce Folkedahl is a senior research manager at the EERC in Grand Forks, N.D. He can be reached [email protected] or (701) 777-5243.

Folkedahl

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