Digest readers indicated their interest early, ratring drop-in diesel and jet fuel the #1 and #2 “hot fuels” in a recent poll.

Here is some more background onsome candidate companies in this year’s rankings that are focused partially or completely on drop-in biofuels that require no change in infrastructure or engines for use. Fuels include renewable jet fuel, renewable diesel, renewable gasoline and biobutanol.

Amyris Biotechnologies

Amyris was the subject of a series of articles by Digest columnist Dr. Rosalie Lober earlier this fall. “Successful companies have choices! A successful company has options.  A successful company has possibilities,” wrote Dr. Lober.  “This is not only true because of their profitability and/or revenues and market share.  It results from the confidence the company gains by achieving its goals. Most times, success comes because of the networking and teamwork the company has garnered on the path to success. Amyris Biotechnologies received funds from a $42.6 million grant over a five year period from the prestigious Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The company was well on its way to accomplishing its goals for producing a life-saving anti-malaria therapy.  As they thought of future projects for the pipeline, they were at the proverbial crossroad.”

Aquaflow Bionomic-Solray Energy (NZ)

Aquaflow has developed technology to harvest wild algae from municipal sewage ponds, farm outflows or rivers.  Aquaflow’s manufactures 40-feet containers which can be deployed in remote locations, and scaled. The company’s approach avoids upfront capital costs of other algae-based fuel technologies based on development of monocultures, ponds or bioreactors.

BP-Dupont’s Butamax

Producing ethanol today, BP Biofuels has investments throughout the entire biofuels value chain: from sustainable feedstocks, including cellulosic energy grasses, through to advantaged molecules like biobutanol. BP’s close links into other sectors that will be crucial to the development of the biofuel industry, particularly the automotive industry, and its in-depth knowledge of the fuels market and infrastructure, will underpin the biofuels industry’s intentions to grow to be a more material and sustainable part of the global transport fuel market. In partnership with DuPont, BP is developing the advanced biofuel biobutanol and constructing a technology demonstration facility in the UK.

Cobalt Biofuels

Producer of Butanol, electricity and a small amount of acetone via integrated biorefinery and biomass electricity generation.  Biofuels production involves fermentation of non-food cellulosic (hemicellulose and cellulose) feedstock.  Lignin is passed to the onsite boiler and generates sufficient power to serve the needs of the biorefinery, with significant excess power exported to the grid.

Dynamic Fuels

Dynamic Fuels is a 50/50 venture between Syntroleum and Tyson Foods.  Dynamic Fuels’ business model is “own and operate” bio-refineries based on Syntroleum’s Bio-Synfining process.  The latter is a process for converting low value and waste fatty acid/glyceride streams (from spent vegetable oils used in food processing to palm oil fatty acid distillate) into high quality hydrocarbon fuels (diesel, jet fuel, naphtha, and LPG).

Gevo

Fermentation of all sugars including mixed sugars from cellulosics to biobutanol. Gevo will produce biobutanol that can be blended directly into gasoline (at any ratio without the need to modify standard engines) and be used to make renewable hydrocarbons (“green gasoline”), diesel, and jet fuel, chemical intermediates and biobased plastics.

LS9

Production of UltraClean Diesel, other UltraClean Fuels, and high-value chemicals. LS9 has a microbial, fermentation-based process that enables the cost effective conversion of renewable plant biomass into advanced biofuels that are drop-in compatible with the existing infrastructure.  The same technology platform enables the production of a diversity of high-value chemicals.

PetroAlgae

PetroAlgae is making fuel and proteins out of lemna (duckweed) in Fellsmere, and is nearing completion of a vertically integrated, scaleable, licensable 5-6,000 gallon per acre microcrop production system. A first master licensee has been announced for China, Taiwan and part of Japan, and an MOU was recently signed to develop fuels for Indian Oil, India’s largest company.

Remfuel (India)

Developing biofuel technologies, which eliminate transesterification for straight vegetable oil (SVO), animal fat oil and algal oil. REMB-1 is based on a new biodiesel source, which generates multi-fold income to the farmer compared to traditional biodiesel sources like Jatropha and requires no transesterification. The cultivation of this tree also generates an exotic food for human consumption. Novelty of this technology invention is established by acceptance of all 38 claims by PCT as novel and patentable (PCT filed) REMB-2)is a fuel additive, which makes SVO to work as a ‘drop-in’ bio-fuel to blend into diesel. This essentially eliminates the transesterification of fats, and allows any SVO, animal fat oil and algal oil to be used directly as a diesel blend.

RenTech

The Company’s Rentech-SilvaGas biomass gasification process is the technology used in the only biomass gasifier operated at commercial scale in the United States. It can convert multiple biomass feedstocks into synthesis gas (syngas) for renewable power production, and can be integrated for conversion of syngas into complex hydrocarbons by the patented Rentech Process based on Fischer-Tropsch chemistry. The final products after upgrading are ultra-clean synthetic jet and diesel fuels, specialty waxes and chemicals

UOP - partnered with Sapphire Energy, Solazyme, Sustainable Oils, and Terasol

Honeywell’s UOP has developed a renewable jet fuel processing technology, as well as a joint venture. UOP and Ensyn announced the formation of a new joint venture, dubbed Envergent Technologies, that will market technologies and equipment for generating power, transportation fuel and heating oil from biomass using pyrolysis. The joint venture will utilize forest and agriculture residues as feedstocks in a Rapid Thermal process, where feedstocks are heated in the absence of oxygen, to produce pyrolysis oils that can be utilized directly in heating oil or power gen. UOP also owns a Renewable Energy & Chemicals business that produced green diesel using its Ecofining process. UOP and Vaperma announced a partnership to bring Vaperma’s polymer membrane technology to the ethanol industry, where it will reduce energy consumption and emissions for for first-generation ethanol, as well as cellulosic ethanol and butanol.

Virent

Virent’s patented catalytic BioForming process combines proprietary aqueous phase reforming (APR) technology with established petroleum refining techniques to generate the same range of hydrocarbon molecules now refined from petroleum.

50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy: Special voters’ report on Drop-in biofuels is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Reader traffic for voting has been building substantially over the past few days, and the last-minute voting will now be spread over the next three days to keep the Digest’s servers from keeling over. [Sunday's traffic to the Digest website - 30,000 page views - was double the normal rate for a weekend, and an overall 70% increase in overall web traffic in megabytes compared to 11/15/09.]

Please note: Balloting is open to registered subscribers of the Biofuels Digest, Geothermal Digest and Biomass Digest e-newsletters, through Monday November 23rd at 5pm EST. If you are not a subscriber but are interested in voting, please visit here to sign up.

Voting links are distributed each day, via the Digest newsletters.

Biofuels Digest extends “50 Hottest Companies” subscriber voting as web traffic surges is a post from: Biofuels Digest

The company, which received $59,000, also received a Green Business Fund grant last year and also has received support from Brunswick EMC, Brunswick County’s power utility. The grants are funded by the 2009 Federal Recovery Act, and Alganomics’ grant will support a partnership to establish an algae culturing system demonstration site at the Oak Island Wastewater Treatment Facility.

Alganomics receives grant from North Caroina Green Business Fund for wastewater biofuels project is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Based in: The Netherlands
2008-09 ranking: Unranked

Business: Chemical (heterogeneous) catalysis – components for diesel, kerosene and gasoline. Catalytic conversion – continuous flow and short reaction times, so less steel (capital) required than for biological batch processes.

Model: Fully owned: proof the chemical process to make our products and the basic properties of these products. Partnered: demonstration scale production and large testing programs. Licensed: commercial production

2009-10 milestones
Construction and operation of a pilot plant?Results of engine tests (diesel trucks and jet engines)?Results of material characterization (polyesters, with NatureWorks)

2010-12 milestones
Construction of demonstration plant?More and larger engine tests?More and larger tests for plastics (polyesters, nylons, polyurethanes)

Metrics: EUR 1.2 -1.5 (USD 1.7 – 2.1) per Gallon Diesel Energy Equivalent (so corrected for the same energy content as 1 gallon of regular diesel)
Annual Revenues: 2007: EUR 15 million / USD 21 million 2008: EUR 19 million / USD 27 million

The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.

Avantium: 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Fulcrum Bioenergy
Fulcrum utilizes new emerging technologies to convert post-recycled municipal solid waste (MSW) feedstock to cellulosic ethanol.  Fulcrum is deploying new technologies in a two-step thermochemical process.  In the first step, MSW received from feedstock suppliers under long-term contracts, will be processed through a down-draft partial oxidation gasifier followed by a plasma arc. In the second step, syngas will be converted to ethanol through an alcohol synthesis process developed by Fulcrum using a new, proprietary catalyst technology. By recycling heat and energy within the MSW-to-ethanol plant, Fulcrum is able to reduce its cost of production to less than $1.00 per gallon.  This represents a dramatic reduction in the cost of production when compared to both conventional ethanol production as well as other cellulosic ethanol production models using agricultural and wood-waste feedstocks.

Reclaim Resources
UK-based Reclaim Resources recently announced the launch of a financial package for UK councils allowing them to install and operate a Vantage Waste Processor without raising funds for project financing. The VWP uses thermal hydration to convert municipal solid waste into ethanol.  In the project financing package, Reclaim keeps all profits for five years, after which the project is turned over to the council. According to Reclaim, Operating a VWP will eliminate landfill tax levies as waste removal is no longer necessary. As landfill tax is set to reach $78 in 2010/2011, local councils will make annual savings of $13 million per year. Additionally, local authorities can augment profits by charging for MSW accepted from external sources.

Enerkem
Enerkem GreenField Alberta Biofuels was recently granted North America’s first unconditional commercial permit ever awarded to produce 10 Mgy of advanced biofuels from sorted municipal solid waste. The Enerkem technology utilizes diverse feedstocks, including sorted municipal solid waste, construction and demolition wood, treated wood and forest residues. The Enerkem technology is currently in operation and new plants are under construction. Since 2003, the company’s technology has been tested at a pilot-scale facility in Sherbrooke, Quebec.  Enerkem’s CEO, Vincent Chornet, confirmed that Edmonton gave  a 25-year commitment for 100,000 tons of presorted material.  The project is slated to commence construction at the end of 2009, and it will take about 18 months to build.

INEOS Bio
The INEOS Bio process is a combined thermochemical and biochemical technology for ethanol and power production.  It is comprised of four main steps:  (1) feedstock gasification, (2) synthesis gas fermentation (3) ethanol recovery and (4) power generation.  The process utilizes a patented fermentation process, where cleaned, cooled synthesis gas is converted selectively into ethanol by a naturally occurring anaerobic bacteria.  The pilot plant has been in operation for 6 years (2003-2009), and feedstocks successfully tested include: wood waste, MSW, sugar cane bagasse, corn stover, and auto shredder residue.

Terrabon
Terrabon’s process is anaerobic mixed culture fermentation followed by chemical conversion of fermentation products into biofuels and bio-chemicals. Depending on chemical pathway chosen, Terrabon can produce mixed primary alcohols (a mix of ethanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol and heptanol), mixed secondary alcohols (a mix of isopropanol, 2-butanol, 3-pentanol, 2-pentanol, etc), green gasoline, green diesel and green jet fuel. The company has joint venture arrangements with Valero/Waste Management, and licensing arrangements for larger facilities (300 to 500-ton per day) using agricultural and forest residue, food scraps and non-food energy crops as feedstock, with a target production cost of $2 per gallon or less.

Masada Resource Group
Last month, Masada announced a partnership with California-based entrepreneur Robert Lee in a proposal to build “hundreds” of municipal solid waste-to-ethanol production facilities. The company said that it would target facilities in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Ghana, South Korea, Denmark and France. The company said that its patented CES OxyNol process, converts municipal solid waste (MSW) and sewer sludge to ethanol and other commercial byproducts.  More than 90% of the waste process in a CES OxyNol facility is recycled or converted to beneficial use, according to the company. Masada’s first waste-to-ethanol facility in development in the United States is located in Orange County, New York.  Masada has international projects in development in the Dominican Republic and Switzerland. The company produces yields of 85 gallons of ethanol per dry ton of MSW.

GeoSynFuels
GSF’s technology is simultaneous saccharification and solid-state fermentation for ethanol and potential for other advanecd biofuels such as biobutanol. GeoSynFuels is currently a development company focused on the construction of a continuous pilot plant.  The company has several processing routes that range from treating beetle killed pine for both hemicellulose and cellulose conversion and fermentation to treating waste fiber (MSW, waste paper, etc) whcih requires no pretreatment.  The beetle kill process has a projected price of $1.25 per gallon while the waste fiber process will be less than $1.

BlueFire Ethanol
Last month, cellulosic ethanol pioneer BlueFire Ethanol Fuels announced strategic relocation of its second planned biorefinery to Fulton, Mississippi. BlueFire has completed a 20-month licensing process and is currently awaiting the final financing needed to break ground on its ethanol biorefinery in Lancaster, CA. The Lancaster facility will use post-sorted cellulosic wastes diverted from Southern California’s landfills to produce approximately 3.9 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol per year.

Range Fuels
Range Fuels is focused on commercially producing low-carbon biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol, and clean renewable power using renewable and sustainable supplies of biomass that  cannot be used for food.  The company uses an innovative, two-step thermo-chemical process to convert non-food biomass, such as wood chips, switchgrass, corn stover, sugarcane bagasse and olive pits to clean renewable power and cellulosic biofuels.

Powers Energy of America
Power announced in August that it will apply for a state waste handling permit in the next 45 days, based on one of up to three locations in Lake County, IN. The $285 million waste-to-ethanol project in Lake County will be the first to generate ethanol from municipal solid waste, if it stays on its current timeline, with a construction period of 18 months. Following application for the waste permit, a 90-day comment period will follow before the plant can move to secure up to 15 permits and thence officially commence construction by spring 2010. The company is focused on locations in the towns of Lowell, Crown Point and Schneider, and will handle up to 10,000 tons of waste per day. Opening of the facility is slated for fall 2011.

Agresti Biofuels

Also in August, Agresti Biofuels said that it was seeking to replace $5 million lost for its Pike County waste-to-ethanol project, when an earmark placed by Senator Jim Bunning was removed in a congressional budget review. Agresti is seeking $5 million in private capital towards its $13 million phase one expense. Total cost of the project is $200 million, which will produce up to 20 Mgy of ethanol from municipal solid waste using a gravity pressure vessel technology that produces a net gain in potable water.

Special Digest Update on biofuels made from municipal solid waste is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Obtaining Vital Information – Part III

How do you sift all the available information to find only what you need to help you make sound decisions?  It is worthwhile to know the best sources of information for your business.  Many industries have websites, research reports or other sources that already mined through the more mainstream data.  They have experts that take this data and transform it into trends and patterns.  In fact, once transformed, this data is sometimes called ‘intelligence.’  Though costly, these sources can save hours of time.  These are particularly beneficial if your company does not have a research department or if transforming data is not one of your core capabilities.

Search data to your purpose

As you begin to obtain vital information, one of the Bioenergy PROFITS Principles, highlighted in Dr. Rosalie Lober’s, newly released book, Run Your Business like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for Boosting PROFITS, you can apply some of the best practices and proven principles of successful biofuels companies for running your business most effectively in this current world of climate change and renewable energy.

A good start is to ask yourself:

• What do I want to accomplish?
• What is the current state of my business
• What is required for my company to become more profitable?

If you are an ethanol producer, or want to learn about ethanol companies you may know that there are six principal advantages to using cellulosic biomass to produce biofuels:

1. use of dedicated energy crops

2. it is comparatively low-cost

3. it uses marginal lands for feedstock growth

4. it has a beneficial net energy balance

5. it uses less fertilizer and water relative to other crops

6. it reduces emissions of greenhouse gases.

The following are examples of some of ethanol companies that will help you search data to your purpose and sort through many of the categories you may be looking for.

• POET

The largest dry mill ethanol producers in the US, Poet is collaborating with Novozymes in the research and development of cellulose ethanol technology. The technology utilizes enzymatic hydrolysis and uses agriculture and biomass feedstock.  Poet will expand their Emmetsburg, Iowa facility to include cellulosic ethanol production from corn hulls and cobs. Completion is expected in 2009.

• Mascoma

Mascoma is developing bio and process technology for cost-effective conversion of cellulosic biomass. Similar to POET, the technology utilizes enzymatic hydrolysis and uses agriculture and biomass feedstock.

• Coskata

Coskata is a biology-based renewable energy company with technology that enables the low-cost production of ethanol from a variety of input material including biomass, agricultural and municipal wastes, and other carbonaceous material.  The company utilizes a gasification technology.

Using proprietary microorganisms and patented bioreactor designs, the company  produces FlexEthanol™, or feedstock flexible ethanol, to fuel energy security, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

• Verbio

The VERBIO group is one of the leading producers and suppliers of biofuels and also the only industrial-scale producer of biodiesel and bioethanol in Europe. Nominal capacity currently amounts to around 450,000 tons of biodiesel and 300,000 tons of bioethanol per year. The company has developed its own processes and innovative technologies for the production of biodiesel and bioethanol. It supplies its products directly to European mineral oil corporations, mineral oil traders, independent gas stations and haulage companies.

As a biofuel producer with proven CO₂ savings of more than 80%, VERBIO sees itself as the link between agriculture, energy provision and mobility.

• ZeaChem

ZeaChem Inc. has developed a cellulose-based biorefinery platform producing ethanol. Their approach addresses carbon dioxide (CO₂) problems associated with traditional and cellulosic based processes.  ZeaChem’s patented process offers the highest yield ethanol, at the lowest cost, with the lowest fossil carbon footprint of any known biorefining method.

• BlueFire Ethanol

BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, Inc. was established to deploy a patented Concentrated Acid Hydrolysis Technology Process for the conversion of waste materials to ethanol, and other viable alternatives to petroleum derived fuels. BlueFire’s technology has demonstrated production of ethanol and other petroleum displacing fuels from urban trash (post-sorted MSW), rice and wheat straws, wood waste and other agricultural residues. BlueFire uses the Arkenol Technology Process (which has been used in Izumi, Japan since 2002) for creating cellulosic ethanol.

BlueFire is one of four ethanol companies awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to construct a commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production facility. Its biorefineries will be located in markets with the highest demand for renewable transportation fuels thereby dramatically reducing delivery costs while simultaneously increasing the areas biofuel supply and reducing the waste streams sent to landfills.

• Iogen

Iogen operates a demonstration scale facility to convert biomass to cellulose ethanol using enzymatic hydrolysis technology. Full scale commercial facilities are being planned. It is very likely they will announce plans for an Idaho plant that will make ethanol from wheat straw.

• Abengoa

Abengoa constructed the world’s first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in Babilafuente (Salamanca), Spain using some components from SunOpta. In 2006, Abengoa formed a partnership with Dyadic and, Abengoa started conversion of a corn-based ethanol plant in York, Nebraska into a bio-mass ethanol facility, which would initially use small grain straw and corn stover as the bio-mass feedstock

They quantify emissions by means of conducting an inventory of greenhouse gases, with internal regulations established for this purpose, and validate this inventory through an external auditing process. Based on this inventory, plans are drawn up for reducing, compensating and neutralizing emissions.

Abengoa also defined a system of indicators of the sustainability for the company’s use of energy consumption; water consumption; biodiversity; emission of atmospheric contaminants; odor emissions; contaminated water dumping; soil and aquifers; noise; recycling potential of materials and products, undertake improvement actions.

• Verenium

Verenium produces next-generation cellulosic ethanol using advanced enzyme science to reduce the cost of ethanol production that enables the use of a wide variety of biomass. Unlike traditional ethanol manufactured using natural gas or coal, cellulosic ethanol from biomass can be broken down into fermentable sugars using a mild acid or enzymatic hydrolysis. The biomass is hydrolyzed using steam and mildly acidic conditions. This portion of the process creates five carbon sugar (pentose) syrup from the hemicellulose found in the biomass, and prepares the remaining cellulose fiber for further enzymatic conversion into glucose. This is then turned into ethanol. The principal feedstock now being used in Verenium’s pilot facility is agricultural waste from sugar cane production, bagasse.

• Algenol

Algenol Biofuels is an innovative algae to ethanol company, using DIRECT TO ETHANOL™ technology a process powered by the sun.
Algenol’s technology produces industrial-scale, low-cost ethanol using algae, sunlight, CO2, and seawater, producing ethanol at a rate of over 6,000 gallons per acre per year.

The Direct to EthanolTM process links photosynthesis with the natural enzymes to produce ethanol inside each tiny algae cell.  The Direct to EthanolTM technology is the only end-to-end commercial process that stabilizes and reduces CO2 levels and puts CO2 to work.

• Dyadic

Dyadic International, Inc. is a global biotechnology company with the groundbreaking technology that brings nature to the marketplace. Dyadic focuses on the discovery, development, and manufacturing of novel products derived from the DNA of complex living organisms – including humans – found in the earth’s biodiversity.

For over a decade, Dyadic’s designed and developed enzymes for the increasingly efficient extraction of sugars from biomass. Using its integrated technology platform, Dyadic develops biological products such as proteins, enzymes, polypeptides and small molecules for applications in large segments of the agricultural, industrial, bioenergy, chemical and biopharmaceutical industries. Dyadic’s unique technology virtually ensures that each time a useful gene is discovered, it can also be expressed and then mass-produced.

In Summary

It’s easy to veer from seeking solutions to specific issues when faced with the multitude of data available.  Asking yourself three key questions will keep you focused.

• What do I want to accomplish?
• What is the current state of my business
• What is required for my company to become more profitable?

Over the next few weeks we will be exploring the Profits Principles: position for growth, reality, flexibility, integration, test and revise and steering the company, as we continue to explore ethanol companies – looking at their feedstocks and technologies.

Bioenergy PROFITS Principals: Obtaining Vital Information, and Verenium, Dyadic, Coskata is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Balloting will be open to the registered subscribers of the Biofuels Digest, Geothermal Digest and Biomass Digest e-newsletters, through Monday November 23rd at 5pm EST. To cast your vote, click here.

To download your free copy of the Selectors Data Book for Digest subscribers – including 230 pages of company profiles, surveys and industry data, please click here.

“Early precincts” are reporting – 25 percent of the invited selectors have already cast their votes. Though it it far too early to “call” the results, early leaders are:

1. Amyris
2. LS9
3. UOP
4. Sapphire Energy
5. POET
6. Coskata
7. Solazyme
8. Gevo
9. DuPont Danisco
10. ZeaChem

Among subscribers, early ratings are:

1. BP (last year – unranked)
2. POET (last year #4)
3. ExxonMobil (last year unranked)
4. Coskata (last year #1)
5. Novozymes (last year #14)
6. Solazyme (last year #6)
7. Sapphire Energy (last year #2)
8. Shell (last year unranked)
9. DuPont Danisco (last year #9)
10. Chevron (last year unranked)

Overall – four companies are appearing on both lists: POET, Coskata, Sapphire and Solazyme, while Amyris jumped into the top slot in the invited selectors’ poll, and ZeaChem reappeared.

Is your favorite bioenergy company missing? Be sure to cast your ballot in their support.

50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy: Amyris takes leads in selector balloting as 11/23 vote deadline nears is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Based in: Madagascar

2008-09 ranking: 47

Business: GEM BioFuels is initially focusing on the establishment of ‘company managed’ plantations of Jatropha trees in Madagascar and the extraction of the vegetable oil that is produced from its seeds as this oil is well suited to use in the production of biodiesel.

GEM BioFuels has been established to supply jatropha-based feedstock to the rapidly growing global biodiesel market. The Directors believe that one of the most significant potential constraints on the growth of this market is the relatively limited supply of biodiesel feedstock, and that this provides a significant commercial opportunity for the Company.??Model: ?Owner-operator, in parnership with communes.

Past milestones:
Entered into 18 agreements with Communes in relation to 452,500 hectares of land suitable for the establishment of plantations in Madagascar, which provide it with the exclusive right to establish Jatropha plantations on the land.

To date approximately 13,300 hectares have been planted.

Future milestones:
In addition GEM BioFuels has an agreement in relation to 40,000 hectares containing natural forest, including significant numbers of mature wild Jatropha trees. Separately, the Company also has informal arrangements with a number of individuals for the delivery of wild seed to the Group’s storage facility.

Metrics:
The Company has secured 50 year agreements giving exclusive rights over 452,500 hectares
(in excess of 1 million acres) to establish plantations, ranging in size from 2,500 – 50,000
hectares with a further 40,000 hectares of natural forest containing substantial numbers of
mature Jatropha trees.

The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.

GEM Biofuels: 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Prince Joachim of Denmark opens the Inbicon cellulosic ethanol plant in Kalundborg, Denmark

In Denmark, Prince Joachim inaugurated the 1.4 Mgy, demonstration-scale Inbicon cellulosic ethanol plant in Kalundborg, which is utilizing wheat straw as its initial feedstock. The plant is the largest cellulosic ethanol facility in Europe, and second globally only to the KL Energy project in Upton, WY.

Inbicon and its parent company DONG Energy, the state oil, power and gas firm, confirmed that Inbicon will license its technology for use outside of Denmark, while DONG CEO Alders Eldrup said that the company expects to “construct a few factories also in Denmark.

Inbicon, a DONG Energy technology subsidiary, has invested $80 million in the project, which is co-located with a DONG Energy power plant, and utilizes waste heat from the power plant as a critical cost-reducing inputs in its system.

The plant opening was timed to coincide with the COP 15 Climate Change conference in Copenhagen where the successor to the Kyoto Treaty is scheduled to be finalized. A number of official vehicles at COP 15 will utilize E85 cellulosic ethanol produced by the Inbicon plant. The remainder will be supplied to Statoil Hydro under a long-term offtake agreement, and will appear in E10 ethanol blends in Danish service stations commencing in 2010.

Wheat straw utilized in the Inbicon process

In addition to ethanol, the plant is expected to produce 13,000 metric tons of lignin pellets — which will be supplied to the DONG Energy power plant to replace coal — and 11,000 metric tons of molasses that will be utilized in animal feed.

Inbicon’s technology allows the molasses to be converted to biogas or processed into ethanol if economics warrant further processing of the C5 (xylose) sugars. Currently, only the C6 (glucose) sugars are processed into ethanol, although the company is continuing to improve its technology.

A unique feature of the technology is symbiotic relationship with power production — utilizing waste heat from power gen to eliminate the use of natural gas and costly heating infrastructure in a free standing ethanol plant, which also reduces greenhouse gas emissions associated with production. In addition, the company has pioneered a proprietary pretreatment process and proprietary designs on its first-stage hydrolysis units, where enzymes are first introduced to capture sugars from the lignin and cellulose – both innovations are designed to reduce the energy intensity of the process, thereby reducing emissions and cost.

Inbicon CEO Niels Henriken confirmed that he expected that Inbicon technology would next surface in Southeast Asia, with several sites and projects under consideration. However, a team of executives from Minnesota’s Great River Energy were on hand for the Kalundborg opening, and confirmed that they expect to license or partner with Inbicon on a 20 Mgy cellulosic ethanol project planned for the Spiritwood complex in North Dakota. Like Kalundborg, the Spiritwood project is planned as a symbiosis to capture and convert waste streams from the Great River Energy’s CHP plant currently in operation at Spiritwood.

Inbicon opens 1.4 Mgy demonstration cellulosic ethanol plant in Denmark is a post from: Biofuels Digest

The company said that it expects to reach its $2 per gallon gola by the time the Project LIBERTY 25 Mgy plant opens in Emmetsburg. The company pointed to reductions in chemical raw materials amounting to $0.20 per gallon, plus a 50 percent reduction in energy used in the pretreatment process. The company utilizes corn cobs in its technology.

POET drops cost of cellulosic ethanol to $2.35 per gallon; will reach $2 by 25 Mgy plant opening is a post from: Biofuels Digest