Recently in Energy Sources Category
The Alabama Forestry Commission has released a guide to help residential, commercial, and industrial consumers evaluate the opportunity to use woody biomass to fuel their energy needs. The guide illustrates the available woody biomass in Alabama and states that between 2001 and 2008 "Alabama's tree inventory increased by a net amount of 13.9 million tons annually or a 1.3% increase." The guide also lists helpful tools in evaluating woody biomass opportunities including the USDA Forest Service's fuel value calculator. The guide can be accessed here.
A group of nine biomass
companies has formed the Biomass Thermal Energy Council (BTEC), a non-profit
association dedicated to advancing the use of biomass for heat and other thermal
energy applications. The founding members of BTEC include biomass fuel
producers, appliance manufacturers and distributors, and supply chain companies
that represent the breadth of interests in the fast growing biomass thermal
energy industry. The initial founding members of the
Biomass Thermal Energy Council are: Bear Mountain Forest Products, BioHeatUSA,
Energex Corporation, Forest Energy Corporation, International WoodFuels, Marth,
New England Wood Pellet, PelletSales.com, and Woodstone. Learn more here.
The 35 governors of
the Governors' Biofuel Coalition have written a letter to President Obama
asking, among other things, to increase the allowable ethanol blend from 10
percent to 13 percent. The Governors also asked for a "continued,
straight-forward message" from the Obama administration on the significance of
biofuels, an inter-agency task force to resolve the debate over life-cycle
greenhouse gas emissions, new policy options to improve the sustainability of
biofuels, and the development of a biofuel market development program.The letter can be found here.
Sandia National
Laboratories - February 10, 2009
An
in-depth study by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corp. has
found that plant and forestry waste and dedicated energy crops could sustainably
replace nearly a third of gasoline use by the year 2030....Using a newly developed tool known as the
Biofuels Deployment Model, or BDM, Sandia researchers determined that 21 billion
gallons of cellulosic ethanol could be produced per year by 2022 without
displacing current crops. The Renewable Fuels Standard, part of the 2007 Energy
Independence and Security Act, calls for ramping up biofuels production to 36
billion gallons a year by 2022. The 90 Billion Gallon Study, which focused only
on starch-based and cellulosic ethanol, found that an increase to 90 billion
gallons of ethanol could be sustainably achieved by 2030 within real-world
economic and environmental parameters. Press
release and full report can be found here.
A new article published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology found that corn ethanol emits, on average, 51 percent less greenhouse gases than gasoline. The University of Nebraska study researched dry-mill ethanol plants that use natural gas. The research team stated that this was the first study "to quantify the impact of recent
improvements throughout the corn-ethanol production process, including
crop production, biorefinery operations and co-product use ... Previous
studies, which found ethanol to have a much smaller edge over gasoline
in GHG emissions, relied on estimates based on corn production, ethanol
plant performance and co-product use as they were seven years ago." The press release can be found here.
From EERE:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it has approved its first-ever loan guarantee to a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant. Range Fuels, Inc. will apply the loan to the construction of its plant near Soperton, Georgia, that will convert wood chips into ethanol through a high-temperature gasification process. The loan guarantee falls under the Biorefinery Assistance Program that was authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill.
From the National Algae Association:
Due to the high cost of oil, commercializing the algae oil industry is now on a fast track. If you are working on algae and you have an innovative or breakthrough technology you would like to present to a large group of biofuels producers, scientists, researchers and potential investors, you are invited to submit your presentation for review for the next National Algae Association event on January 29-30, 2009. We are seeking presentations from experienced subject matter experts, organizations, institutions and scientists with applied knowledge in biology, biochemical engineering, plant physiology, petrochemical or refinery engineering, mechanical/process design engineering, and entrepreneurs who can effectively communicate scientific knowledge into business language for biofuels producers, investors and other entrepreneurs. If you would like to be considered as a speaker, please submit your presentation and papers at your earliest convenience.
The EPA has determined that the renewable fuels standard will increase from 2008's 7.76 percent to 10.21 percent in 2009 equaling over 11 billion gallons of renewable fuels. The goal is to replace 36 billion gallons of gasoline with renewable fuels to by 2022. The press release can be found here.
This is the question two ethanol industry associations, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) and Growth Energy, are asking. A new report by RFA cites that while corn prices have fallen nearly in half since it's peak in June, ethanol production continues to increase. Therefore, RFA is calling into question earlier claims that ethanol was the primary factor in the rising price of corn and food. Growth Energy, a new ethanol industry association, has written a similar policy brief asking that if earlier claims were true, when will food prices drop, now that commodities are selling at half the price. The RFA report can be found here. The Growth Energy report can be found here.
The report, State of the States 2008: Renewable Energy Development and the Role of Policy, was recently release by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report takes steps to identify the impact of renewable energy policy on renewable energy development. The authors found that the:
The report also provides a comprehensive overview of renewable energy policies including market and production incentives and provides, when able, best practices in policy development. The authors also report which states have enacted various types of renewable energy policies and grades them on whether they encourage or hinder renewable energy development. The full report can be found here.
- Existence of an RPS is significantly correlated to higher renewable percentages of overall electricity generation
- Production incentives at the state level, while a small sample (n=6), are significantly correlated to higher renewable electric capacity and generation, as well as individual resource categories.
- Interconnection policies meeting best practices ... are correlated with increased renewable energy capacity and generation overall, as well as individually with higher biomass, hydroelectric, and PV capacity.
The report also provides a comprehensive overview of renewable energy policies including market and production incentives and provides, when able, best practices in policy development. The authors also report which states have enacted various types of renewable energy policies and grades them on whether they encourage or hinder renewable energy development. The full report can be found here.
