• Home
• Calendar
• Advertising
• About Us
• BDI™ stocks
• Industry jobs
• Database

 Subscribe

Mascoma finalizing Michigan deal to build its first commercial scale ethanol plant

In Michigan, Mascoma is finalizing negotiations with the state government to locate its first commercial-scale plant in Chippewa county. The state has pledged $15 million towards the project, which will cost more than $250 million. The company also announced that J.M. Longyear will become a joint venture partner in the project. Longyear is a major forest landowner in the Upper Peninsula. The company expects to have its plant operational by early 2011.

Mascoma background

Mascoma received another $10 million in financing with an equity investment by Marathon Oil. The company said that it had received a total of $61 million in its latest funding drive, putting the total of equity investment and research grants for Mascoma at more than $200 million. Mascoma’s “single-step” production system for cellulosic ethanol has attracted attention for its potential to eliminate cost and risk in scale-up towards commercial scale cellulosic ethanol.

“Marathon is one of the premium players in the space, with as good a knowledge of ethanol distribution as you can have,” said Mascoma President Colin South in a Biofuels Digest Newsmaker interview.

Last week, General Motors and Mascoma announced a strategic relationship to develop cellulosic ethanol, which included an undisclosed equity investment in Mascoma by GM. Mascoma’s single-step biochemical process has received support from a host of high-profile investors and partners including the Department of Energy, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins.

The investment by GM is the second in cellulosic ethanol, following its partnership with Coskata earlier this year. “Taken together, these technologies represent what we see as the best in the cellulosic ethanol future and cover the spectrum in science and commercialization,” GM President Fritz Henderson said. “Demonstrating the viability of sustainable non-grain based ethanol is critical to developing the infrastructure to support the flex-fuel vehicle market.”

Mascoma last month raised an additional $30 million in equity and $20 million in debt from Khosla Ventures, Atlas Venture, Flagship Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Pinnacle Ventures, and VantagePoint Venture Partners. A Dartmouth College spin-off, Mascoma has commenced construction of its demonstration-scale plants, and is raising money to complete construction and fund future commercial-scale plants.

The company previously raised $40 million in venture funding and has received grants from three states related to its research. Dartmouth professors Lee Lynd and Charles Wyman founded Mascoma in 2005.

Mascoma decided late last year to move the location of its proposed cellulosic ethanol plant from Greece to Rome (NY), citing the need to be closer to biomass sources and the suitability of the former Griffiss Air Force Base as a facility. The switch had been mooted for some time and in September Mascoma appeared before the Oneida County Board in support of its plans to open in Rome.

The proposed demonstration plant would produce 500,000 gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol, and will commence production by March. The plant has received $14.8 million in assistance from New York state.

Last November, Mascoma acquired Celsys BioFuels, a cellulosic ethanol production technology company founded by a Purdue University team last year. The founder of Celsys has become the CTO of Mascoma.

Kansas State team receives NSF grant for ocean-based algae cultivation research

Kansas State University researchers have received a $98,560 Small Grant for Exploratory Research from the National Science Foundation to carry out a study on the potential for algae grown on solid carriers in the open ocean. Solid carriers float on the ocean surface and provide a nexus for algae to grow. The study will simulate an ocean environment and tests numerous strains of algae to determine which strains have the optimal characteristics for oil content and ability to grow in the ocean.

Algae background

• In Washington state, Air New Zealand, Continental, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and biofuel technology developer UOP, a Honeywell company, today announced they will join the Algal Biomass Organization (ABO).
• In Israel, Seambiotic announced a partnership with US-based Inventure Chemical to construct its first commercial-scale algae biofuel plant. The plant will use high-oil yield algae strains developed over the past five years at the Seambiotics’ demonstration plant, adjacent to the Israeli Electric’s power station near Ashkelon. Inventure will contribute its proprietary process for manufacturing ethanol, biodiesel and other chemicals to the venture
• Algae biofuel company GreenFuel Technologies appointed Simon Upfill-Brown in June as CEO, who pronounced that “algae has come of age”. The company, which shut down a closely-watched pilot project with Arizona Public Service last year over cost concerns and algae blooms, reported that it is setting up a new project with APS and is designing projects to capture CO2 by co-locating with a range of manufacturing enterprises. The company said that it has abandoned glass tube and plastic bag photo bioreactors over cost concerns and will introduce a new set of designs for its closed production process.
• In Maryland, Algenol Biofuels announced an $850 million investment from Mexico’s BioFields, using the company’s technology to produce ethanol from micro-algae. The company uses a process developed by CEO Paul Woods in the 1980s to produce ethanol from algae cells, and the company says that its process bypasses the costly step of drying and pressing algae to extract oil for biodiesel.The company said that it plans to initially produce 100 Mgy of ethanol at its first plant using saltwater, in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, and will increase production by 2012 to 1 billion gallons, with a projected yield of 6,000 gallons per acre. The company reported that it had received $70 million from undisclosed private investors in addition to the BioFields proceeds. BioFields said that it has already signed an off-take agreement with Pemex, the Mexican state oil company.• In California, algae startup Aurora BioFuels announced that has raised $20 million in series A financing from Oak Investment Partners, Noventi and Gabriel Venture Partners. Gabriel and Noventi has participated in a seed stage round. Aurora will use technology developed by Berkeley professor Tasios Melis for an open-pond algae production system, and will produce biodiesel from algae. The company says that its process reduces the cost of biodiesel production by half, compared to current methods.
• In Washington state, a group of entrepreneurs, scientists and corporate executives have formed the Algal Biomass Organization to accelerate the development and commercial application of algae biomass. The group will organize the second Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle on October 23-24
• “The jury is out on all [algae systems],” Sandia National Laboratory researcher Ron Pate told Popular Mechanics.
• In Washington state, algae start-up Bionavitas said that it will take up to four years to reach commercial levels of production,
  but that its waste water treatment business is developing faster.
• In Florida, PetroAlgae said that it hoped to reach its commercial production stage next year, as algae producers begin to differentiate over varying methods of getting past the algae “shade wall” and other issues in achieving commercial scale.
• New Zealand’s Aquaflow said that it has developed a scalable method for producing and harvesting algae in the wild, and envisioned expanding to a series of 1,000 acre facilities in the US and other countries.
• A research team from the University of Texas has developed a new blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that secretes a soft cellulose, glucose and sucrose. The team told Science Daily that the microbe “could provide a significant portion of the nation’s transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.” The cyanobacteria is grown from sunlight and salty water at facilities on non-agricultural land. The team said that the
  cellulose is a soft, gel-like type that is easy to break down, and that the microbes secrete the sugars and cellulose, making it possibly to continually harvest biofuels feedstock without destroying organisms and using powerful enzymes to extract sugars.
• In Texas, US Sustainable Energy is awaiting lab results from a test of biocrude production using 20 pounds of algae as a feedstock. The company recently ran its initial test of 20 pounds of 5% oil-content algae feedstock with 40 percent water content, and resulted in an ignitable oil product.

Louisiana Advanced Biofuel Industry Development Initiative becomes law; will support fuels produced from La. crops with higher than 600 gpa yields

In Louisiana, state governor Bobby Jindal signed the Advanced Biofuel Industry Development Initiative, that will provide support for the development of ethanol from Louisiana crops that yield a minimum of 600 gallons of fuel per acre. The legislation includes a pilot programs for hydrous ethanol pilot program: the United States has traditionally manufactured anhydrous ethanol, while Brazil has manufactured hydrous.

Louisiana background

• The state Bond Commission approved a $100 million bond issue in support of the Dynamic Fuels project, a partnership between Tyson Foods and Syntroleum to produce synthetic diesel fuel from meat fats, corn oil and other substances into “synthetic diesel” fuel. The 75 Mgy project will commence operation in January 2010. Funding for the project comes from the Gulf Opportunity Zone tax-free, low interest bonds earmarked for economic development in areas affected by the 2005 hurricanes.

• The Colombian-controlled form Inverandino plans to commence ethanol production at a 22 Mgy plant in Lacassine, in partnership with Louisiana Green Fuels, using feedstock from three sugar plants in Southern Louisiana acquired by Inverandino in the past two years. It will be the first sugar cane ethanol plant in the US.

• Last month, Imperial Sugar said that it is investigating a 60-100 Mgy sugarcane ethanol plant that would be located next to its Gramercy sugar refinery. The company is currently investigating financial incentives as well as seeking an ethanol partner. The proposed plant would be operational in 2011.

• Verenium said that it was in the process of commissioning its 1.4 Mgy demonstration-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Jennings.

• PetroSun announced a letter of intent to supply 54 million gallons of algal oil to a new 54 Mgy Bio-Alternatives biodiesel plant in south Louisiana.

Omnia Group invests $3 million in Zambian jatropha research

In Zambia, the Omnia group will invest $3 million in jatropha research, saying that the imperative to develop alternative fuels is stronger in landlocked Zambia than neighboring South Africa, and said that the company hopes to understand as much as possible about rh nutrients required by jatropha so that it can develop and sell better fertilizers if cultivation of jatropha continues to increase in Southern Africa.

Jatropha background

• In Malawi, the government said that the country is on track to commence biodiesel production in 2009 from several jatropha projects underway throughout the country. The government also said that the Department of Science and Technology and Lilongwe Technical College are developing engine modifications that will allow conversion of cars to E100 sugarcane ethanol, with initial tests scheduled to be complete by mid-2009.

• The Chinese and Italian governments have initiated a feasibility study for jatropha biodiesel at Sichuan University. The project received $650,000 in support from Italy. The project is the third signed by Italy and China, promising cooperation in biofuels research since mid-April. The others covered industrial waste oil-based biodiesel in Hubei Province, and thin-film solar cells in Shanghai.

• In England, De-Ord Fuel opened a new 100,000 GPY biodiesel facility in Mansfield that will use jatropha and waste vegetable oil as feedstocks. The company will distribute fuel to bus and truck fleets. The $550,000 project is one of the first of a wave of micro-facilities that will utilize sustainable feedstocks in Europe.

• Recently D1 Oils officially announced that it would close its rapeseed oil biodiesel plant in Teesside and lay off 40 workers until it could sell the plant. The company said that it would close plants in Middlesbrough and Merseyside that are unable to compete with US imports and concentrate on development of its 500,000 acres of jatropha in Africa and India. The jatropha is planted in partnership with BP, and will begin yielding jatropha oil later this year with full scale production by 2011

• In Myanmar, “Biofuel by Decree: Unmasking Burma’s bio-energy fiasco,” was released by the Ethnic Community Development Forum, detailing the use of forced labor and land confiscation to plant 8 million acres with jatropha to provide a solution to Myanmar’s fuel crisis. The report, based on government documents, media reports, and 131 interviews conducted in Myanmar between November 2006 and April 2008. The report said that individuals “have been fined, beaten, and arrested for not participating.” The plan has been plagued with mismanagement by the army soldiers supervising the work. “The soldiers carry guns. They don’t know anything about agriculture,” said a farmer in the report.

• The first national jatropha crops were ready for harvest this month, with up to 7 million acres planted by small farmers, after a national directive in 2006 that all farmers with more than 1 acre of land had to plant a minimum of 200 jatropha seeds to establish a hedge around their landholdings. The ruling junta developed the plan in light of soaring oil import costs, and the biggest anti-junta protests since the 1980s which erupted last year over cuts in diesel subsidies

• In California, Allegro Biodiesel has commenced processing of jatropha oil into biodiesel on a test basis.

• China’s largest state oil company, Sinopec, said it will invest $5 billion in jatropha and palm plantations in Indonesia.

• In the United Arab Emirates, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi announced an $15 billion investment project in renewables, managed by Masdar. Masdar’s major initiative in bio-fuels is focused on jatropha and other arid climate crops.

Uproar in East Timor over plant to give 16 percent of arable land to sugar and ethanol project

In East Timor, opposition parties are protesting over a decision by the government to give a 50-year lease on 247,000 acres to Indonesian company GTLeste Biotech for a sugar plantation and ethanol mill. The opposition dismisses government claims that the land involved was unproductive, noting that it can support sugarcane cultivation, and says that the land involved is more than 16 percent of the total arable land in the country. In turn, the government said that no final agreements had been signed, and that the project would bring economic development to the country.

Indonesia background

The Indonesian Palm Oil Association said that oil palm produces will no longer clear land to plant oil palm, and will use only existing lands or idle lands for palm cultivation. Rainforest clearing had raised an international outcry over destruction of carbon sinks. Association leadership said that 7 million hectares of unused and was available for oil palm cultivation.

The chairman of the Indonesia Palm Board said earlier this month that the Indonesian government is considering a B3 biodiesel mandate to reduce the use of petroleum. IOPB chairman Franky O. Widjaja did not say when the mandate would take effect. The state oil firm, Pertamina, has been offering a biodiesel blend since 2006 but has reduced the blend from B5 to B1 on account of rising palm oil prices.

The Indonesian government said earlier this year that it would return to a B5 standard by 2010, based on projected yields from new palm and jatropha cultivation. Indonesia will overtake Malaysia in 2007 as the largest producer of palm oil and expects to produce 20 million tonnes by 2010, up from 17 million tonnes in 2007.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace released its “Cooking the Climate” report which concluded that forest clearance in Indonesia for palm plantations has made the country the third largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, behind the United States and China.The study found that Indonesia is losing 2 percent of its tropical forest each year to deforestation, and that the resultant emissions more than offset the gain from switching from fossil fuels to biofuels. Indonesia has six million hectares of palm under cultivation and plans to expand this to 10 million hectares by 2015.

The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior blocked a 33,000 tonne load of palm oil from leaving the port of Dumai. The Rainbow Warrior was positioned by its crew so close to the oil tanker that the tug boats can’t move it from the dock area. The cargo of palm oil was headed for India, and Greenpeace is using the exercise to highlight the impact of deforestation on the peat lands of Riau province in Indonesia. Greenpeace believes that the peatland forest store 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon that would be released to the atmosphere if the forest are cleared for oil palm.

South Carolina passes law to allow local distributors to blend ethanol, capture tax credit, pass savings to consumers

In South Carolina, state lawmakers passed legislation over a gubernatorial veto requiring oil companies to provide pure gasoline to state-based distributors, saying that local companies would capture the ethanol tax credit and pass the savings on to consumers. “What the oil companies attempted to do is a travesty to the consumers of South Carolina,” Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken told the Associated Press. “I have never seen such an unfair pricing strategy. By blending it and selling a blended product, they’re trying to take what should belong to the retailer.”

The legislation stems from action this spring by BP, confirming to distributors that all gasoline would be sold to them on a pre-blended basis.  Reacting to the news, BP file suit in state court, saying the legislation was unconstitutional and saying it would not comply with the law while it was in the courts. The company faces penalties of up to $32.500 per day for non-compliance.

The fight has erupted in April between the S.C. Petroleum Marketers Association and major oil companies over who blends ethanol and receives a 5.1 cent per gallon tax credit.  “This 5 cents a gallon is crucial to the survival of the smaller petroleum marketers here in the state,” Sam Bell, president of the SCPMA, told groupstate.com. “That’s a nickel that allows us to be competitive and goes back into our businesses and to our employees, and it stays in South Carolina’s economy. The big oil companies are going to take that away from us and it’s going to end up in London, Houston and The Netherlands.”

Meanwhile, a research analyst from Newedge said that “data show ethanol blending inching closer to saturation”. The report said that 92% of East Coast gasoline produced in March contained ethanol, with the Midwest at 82 percent. The Gulf Coast, where blending is at 14 percent, is the only region that could show a dramatic increase in ethanol consumption without a breakthrough past the ethanol, E10 blend wall.

Alternative Energy Sources to shut down operations

In Missouri, Alternative Energy Sources will shut down this week after failing to find financing for its proposed 110 Mgy corn ethanol plant in Boone County, Iowa. The company had attempted to expand its operations into consultancy to avoid the shut down.

In April, Alternative Energy Sources filed a $1.65 million suit against Florida attorney Louis W. Zehil, alleging that the attorney made millions in illegal “short-swing” insider trading activity in its shares and warrants. Zehil, who at one time served as AES corporate secretary, is accused of duping at least six ethanol companies, and realizing $17 million from insider trading activities. One of those companies, Ethanex Energy, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. lawyer The AES suit alleges negligence and harm to its reputation.

Ethanex Energy filed for bankruptcy in March after failing to raise $1.5 million in interim financing for a planned $220 million, three-plant acquisition in Nebraska. Ethanex Energy had announced that it would acquire the Midwest Renewable Energy ethanol plant in Sutherland, for $220 million in cash and Ethanex stock, in a series of three transactions.

Under the final agreement, Ethanex would have acquired  the existing 26 Mgy Midwest corn ethanol plant for $50 million, and subsequently acquire an additional 85 Mgy in production capacity under
development by Midwest. Total capacity for the plant would have been 111 Mgy upon project completion. The deal was initially announced in November.

Biofuels Digest Index falls 2.36 percent to all-time low of 90.16 as oil passes $140

The Biofuels Digest Index™ (BDI), a basket of public biofuels stocks, fell 2.36 percent  to close at an all-time low of 90.16 as ethanol and agribusiness stocks tumbled amidst a sharp general market downturn on fears over the economy.  For the day, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) fell 2.36 percent to $32.51, while VeraSun Energy fell 1.70 percent to $4.04.  Among small caps, MGP Ingredients (MGPI) fell 9.09 percent to close at $5.80.  Overall, declines led advances 3 to 1 for the day.

Biofuels Digest Columnists

Jim Lane. Get behind the headlines with the editor of Biofuels Digest.

Sean O’Hanlon. Straight talk and perspective from the founder and Executive Director of the American Biofuels Council.

Will Thurmond. Market trends and insights on algae, jatropha, bio-crude and more from the author of Biodiesel 2020.

Energy Information Administration releases 2030 international outlook; European biodiesel association revises ‘08 forecast

Two key projections were released yesterday. The new International Energy Outlook to 2030 was released by the US Energy Information Administration that showed biofuel production doubling by 2030 while CO2 emissions rise 42 percent. Also, a near-term forecast from the European Biodiesel Board said that European production will increase 17 percent in 2008 and capacity will increase 55 percent to 16 million tons.

The EIA report projects that global biofuels production will increase from 1.3 million barrels in 2008 to 2.7 million by 2030, or 2.4 percent of world liquid fuel consumption. The US is expected to produce 44 percent of global biofuels by 2030, up from 33 percent in 2006.

The EBB report is more surprising, since European administrators have taken the US to the European Commission over policies which were said to have had a catastrophic effect on European biodiesel production. The 17 percent increase in production is substantially down from previous years, but the data suggests that Europe is suffering from an overcapacity crisis.

The highlights of the EIA release are here and the basic data is in excel format here.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Making Algae Biodiesel at Home


The Garbrook Advanced Biofuels Resource

FREE Subscription

The Biofuels Daily News Digest
The biofuels 4-minute "must read"

It's the world's most widely-read biofuels daily e-mail newsletter, providing news, data and insight every morning to subscribers at more than 2,000 companies around the globe.



“This is a great news source which I look forward to reading every day.” - Tina B.

“Biofuels Digest is a great way to keep up on the news. I appreciate the ease with which I can pinpoint research topics.” - Diane B.

Email:

• Recent Posts

  • FREE Subscription: The Daily Biofuels News Digest, the industry’s 4-minute “must-read” email
  • General Atomics, Eastern Kentucky U partner in algae research venture
  • US Federal Trade Commission says ethanol industry too decentralized to respond effectively to market signals

Copyright © 2008 Biofuels Digest · Log in