August 2011 Ethanol Producer Magazine

www.ethanolproducer.com

INSIDE: ONE PLANT, 1 BILLION GALLONS LATER

AUGUST 2011

Photos and Reports from the 27th Annual International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo Page 50

2011FEW Review

ALSOThe Promise of

Sugar-based Feedstocks

Page 78

Troubleshooting the Basics of Fermentation

Page 86

Ethanol Producers, Farmers, Environmentalists

Share Views Page 94

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Rethink Tomorrow

4 | Ethanol Producer Magazine | AUGUST 2011

AUGUST iSSUe 2011 VOL. 19 iSSUe 8

contents

fEAturES50

70

eVeNT 2011 fEW reviewReports from the conference keynote and panel presentationsBy Holly Jessen, Kris Bevill, ron Kotrba and Susanne retka Schill

PROFiLeA Constant in Changing timesReflections on producing the one billionth gallonBy Kris Bevill

78

SUGARCatching the Sugar WaveProposed projects feature sugar-based feedstocksBy Holly Jessen

86

TROUBLeSHOOTiNGtroubleshooting—How the Lab Can HelpReviewing the basics of fermentationBy Sabrina trupia

94

DiALOGUeSeeking Common GroundFarmers, ethanol producers and environmentalists learn about each other on Brazil tourBy Julia Olmstead


AUGUST iSSUe 2011 VOL. 19 iSSUe 8

contents

Ethanol Producer Magazine: (USPS No. 023-974) August 2011, Vol. 19, issue 8. Ethanol Producer Magazine is pub-lished monthly. Principal Office: 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203. Periodicals Postage Paid at Grand Forks, North Dakota and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Ethanol Producer Magazine/Subscriptions, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, North Dakota 58203.

CONtrIButIONS102

106

110

ENZYMESHelping Ethanol Producers Operate in the ‘Sweet Spot’Better understanding of DP4+ peak informs new analytical methodBy Guillermo Coward-Kelly

STATeLouisiana Biofuels Plan Would Decentralize Production State vision for rural development through ethanol languishesBy Michael K. Bullard

FeeDSTOCKSweet Sorghum Boosts the Efficiency of EthanolInput/output ratios much higher for water-sipping cropBy Benjamin Burroughs

DEPARTMENTS

8 Editor’s Note A Satisfying Event By SuSAnnE RETkA SchIll

14 the Way I See It Plain Target Versus Imbedded Subsidies By MIkE BRyAn

15 Events Calendar Upcoming Conferences & Trade Shows

16 View from the Hill The Work at Hand for E15 Market Expansion By BoB dInnEEn

18 Drive How Far We’ve Come in the Ethanol Industry By ToM BuIS

20 Grassroots Voice E15. What Now? By Ron lAMBERTy

22 Europe Calling Entering the Endgame By RoBERT VIERhouT

24 taking Stalk Growing Challenge of Glyphosate-Resistant Weeds By MARk jESchkE

26 Business Matters Iowa Expands Renewable Fuels Incentives By AndREW AndERSon & AdAM B. ThIMMESch

28 Business Briefs

32 Commodities report

36 Distilled

114 Marketplace

118 Ad Index


The 27th Annual International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo is history. For many, the FEW is about hear-ing the latest from the experts and learning about new technologies. For exhibitors, it’s about the opportunity to meet customers face to face and make new contacts. For many others it’s all about the networking—seeing old friends, making new ones. Over a quarter of registrants were ethanol producers this year, a satisfying propor-tion for us at Ethanol Producer Magazine. One of our frustrations is that the event is so packed with important speakers and topics to cover that we barely have a chance to seek out and speak to our prime target audience—the men and women who work in ethanol plants in both North America, and around the world. The 2,000 registrants came from 45 states, six Canadian provinces and 24 countries. We must not forget the 300-some exhibitors. Without the expo, the FEW would never attract such a broad representation of the ethanol industry. In this issue, you’ll read reports on the keynote and breakout sessions from the editors of this magazine and our colleague, Ron Kotrba, editor of Biodiesel Magazine.

Also in this issue, we have the first of what we hope will become a regular feature. Sabrina Trupia, an expert in fermentation and laboratory training at the Na-tional Corn to Ethanol Research Center, writes about the basics of troubleshooting fermentation from the viewpoint of the laboratory analyst. The biological process of fermentation lies at the very heart of ethanol production and is a fitting start to a periodic article written by industry experts covering the basics of plant systems with a special focus on troubleshooting. Thanks to her article and the FEW presentations, I’m gaining a greater appreciation for the finely tuned ethanol plant—no small feat.

We’re also pleased to share an article from Julia Olmstead who works with the Minneapolis-based nonprofit, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The organization invited a small group of environmentalists, farmers and ethanol pro-ducers, along with IATP staff, to tour Brazil, where they learned more about indirect land use and each other. Olmstead asked three participants about their views follow-ing the trip. We think you will find their comments most thought-provoking.

SuSAnnE RETkA SchIll, [email protected]

A SAtISfyING EVENt

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

editor’s note

FOR INDUSTRy NEWS. FOLLOW US: tWIttEr.COM/EtHANOLMAGAzINE

Associate Editor kRIS BEvIll visits with Chief Ethanol on the occasion of producing its billionth gallon, and brings us several reports from the FEW.

Associate Editor holly JESSEn covers a handful of proposed ethanol plants looking at sugarcane and sweet sorghum feedstocks, and even a sugar-producing microbe, in addition to her coverage of the FEW.

Biodiesel Magazine Editor Ron koTRBA writes about coproducts in this issue, covering FEW sessions on corn oil, fraction-ation and DDGS.

AUGUST 2011 | Ethanol Producer Magazine | 9

TM

EDItOrIAL

EDITOR Susanne retka Schill [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Holly Jessen [email protected]

Kris Bevill [email protected]

COPy EDITOR Jan tellmann [email protected]

Art

ART DIRECTOR Jaci Satterlund [email protected]

GRAPHIC DESIGNERErica Marquis [email protected]

Lindsey Noble [email protected]

PuBLISHING

CHAIRMAN Mike Bryan [email protected]

CEO Joe Bryan [email protected]

VICE PRESIDENTtom Bryan [email protected]

SALES

VICE PRESIDENT, SALES & MARKETING Matthew Spoor [email protected]

EXECUTIVE ACCOUNT MANAGER Howard Brockhouse [email protected]

SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER Jeremy Hanson [email protected]

ACCOUNT MANAGERSChip Shereck [email protected]

Marty Steen [email protected]

Bob Brown [email protected]

Andrea Anderson [email protected]

Dave Austin [email protected]

Nick Jensen [email protected]

CIRCULATION MANAGER Jessica Beaudry [email protected]

ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Marla Defoe [email protected]

SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER John Nelson [email protected]

EDItOrIAL BOArD

Customer Service Please call 1-866-746-8385 or email us at [email protected]. Subscriptions to Ethanol Producer Magazine are free of charge to everyone with the exception of a shipping and handling charge of $49.95 for any country outside the United States, Canada and Mexico. To subscribe, visit www.EthanolProducer.com or you can send your mailing address and payment (checks made out to BBI International) to: Ethanol Producer Magazine Subscriptions, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203. you can also fax a subscription form to (701) 746-5367. Back Issues, Reprints and Permissions Select back issues are

available for $3.95 each, plus shipping. Article reprints are also available for a fee. For more information, contact us at (701) 746-8385 or [email protected]. Advertising Ethanol Producer Magazine pro-vides a specific topic delivered to a highly targeted audience. We are committed to editorial excellence and high-quality print production. To find out more about Ethanol Producer Magazine advertising opportunities, please contact us at (701) 746-8385 or [email protected]. Letters to the Editor We welcome letters to the editor. Send to Ethanol Producer Magazine Letters to the Editor, 308 2nd Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203 or e-mail to [email protected]. Please include your name, address and phone number. Letters may be edited for clarity and/or space.

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the way i see it

Plain Target Versus Imbedded SubsidiesBy Mike Bryan

Author: Mike BryanChairman, BBi international

[email protected]

To say I find it astonishing that the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax credit is likely to be cut by congress while leaving the subsidies for the oil industry in place, would be a gross understatement. it’s unimaginable that Congress cut the provisions for a domestically produced, environmentally sustainable renewable fuel without touching Big Oil.

In the final analysis, the ethanol industry will survive and perhaps will look back at this as a blessing. It will be one less tool in the arsenal of our opposition to use against us. it’s the principle of the thing that really is just wrong. At the risk of repeating the obvious, the oil industry is one of the most profitable industries in the world, making billions of dollars a year, and Congress cut ethanol subsidies.

How could that possibly happen, one might ask? In my opinion, it’s from a Congress that has lost its direction, a Congress that appears to be more concerned about re-election and revenge than it is in doing what’s best

for the country. This is not the kind of representation that most of us expected when we went to the polls.

I suppose it’s understandable, given the fact that the subsidies provided under VeeTC were straightforward and easily identifiable on Congress’s radar screen. The subsidies provided to the oil industry, on the other hand, are much less obvious. From drilling subsidies, to oil depletion allowances and foreign tax credits, the subsidies for Big Oil are so deeply imbedded in the budget that it would actually take some work to ferret them out and eliminate them. ethanol was right there in plain sight with a bullseye painted on its back.

ethanol now constitutes nearly 10 percent of America’s gasoline supply. it’s even been adopted by NASCAR as its fuel of choice. (Visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKSFqVN6EVofeature=related) Clint Bowyer, NASCAR sprint driver said, “If it (ethanol) can withstand what we put it through on race day, it can certainly withstand the highways.” ethanol has become a vital part of our automotive liquid fuel requirements. So, the action of Congress to abandon this American-made renewable fuel is mystifying to say the least.

We all know that ethanol will survive and prosper without VeeTC, but the sting of being singled out by Congress as a fuel that should be penalized over Big Oil, will remain in our memories for a long time to come. We all hope and anticipate that in the months ahead measures will be taken to put mechanisms in place that will help to not only sustain the ethanol industry, but to provide a platform for long-term growth.

That’s the way i see it.


events calendar

International Biorefining Conference & trade ShowSeptember 14-16, 2011Hilton Americas – Houston | Houston, TexasThe International Biorefining Conference & trade Show brings together agricultural, forestry, waste, and petrochemical professionals to explore the value-added opportunities awaiting them and their organizations within the quickly maturing biore-fining industry. (866) 746-8385 www.biorefiningconference.com

Northeast Biomass Conference & trade Show October 11-13, 2011Westin Place Hotel | Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaWith an exclusive focus on biomass utilization in the Northeast—from Maryland to Maine—the North-east Biomass Conference & trade Show will connect current and future producers of biomass-derived electricity, industrial heat and power, and advanced biofuels, with waste generators, aggrega-tors, growers, municipal leaders, utilities, technol-ogy providers, equipment manufacturers, investors and policymakers. Register by Aug. 30 and save $200 on conference registration. (866) 746-8385 www.biomassconference.com/northeast

Algae Biomass SummitOctober 24-27, 2011Hyatt Regency Minneapolis | Minneapolis, MinnesotaOrganized by the Algae Biomass Organization and coproduced by BBI International, this event brings current and future producers of biobased products and energy together with algae crop growers, municipal leaders, technology providers, equip-ment manufacturers, project developers, investors and policy makers. It’s a true one-stop shop—the world’s premier educational and networking junction for all algae industries. (866) 746-8385 www.algaebiomasssummit.org

Southeast Biomass Conference & trade ShowNovember 1-3, 2011Hyatt Regency Atlanta | Atlanta, GeorgiaWith an exclusive focus on biomass utilization in the Southeast—from the Virginias to the Gulf Coast—the Southeast Biomass Conference & trade Show will connect the area’s current and future producers of biomass-derived electricity, industrial heat and power, and advanced biofuels, with waste generators, aggregators, growers, municipal lead-ers, utility executives, technology providers, equip-ment manufacturers, investors and policy makers. (866) 746-8385 www.biomassconference.com/southeast

Bioconversion, Biomass Experts Will Meet in Houston to talk Biofuels, Biobased Chemicals

The inaugural International Biorefining Conference & Trade Show will take place Sept. 14 -16, 2011, at the Hilton Americas in Houston.

This event will unite bioconversion technology providers and researchers from around the world with agriculture, forestry and refining professionals to discuss and examine the scale-up and commercial establishment of advanced biofuels and biobased chemicals.

The International Biorefining Conference & Trade Show brings together agricultural, forestry, waste and petrochemical professionals to explore the value-added opportunities awaiting them and their organizations within the quickly maturing biorefining industry.

The International Biorefining Conference & Trade Show will examine in great detail four critical questions facing the industry:

• What sustainable inputs will feed the biorefineries of the future? • Which conversion approaches will find commercial success first? • What market opportunities are available to producers of biobased fuels and

chemicals? • How will these capital intensive biorefineries be funded and built?These questions will be examined by researchers, venture capitalists,

foresters, farmers, petroleum refiners, agri-business professionals and association representatives within four customized program tracks:

Track 1: Pathways & industrial Hosts Track 2: inputs & Supply Chains Track 3: Products & Markets Track 4: Capital & Strategic Partners These tracks correspond with the critical questions facing the industry and will

offer conference attendees an unparalleled opportunity to gain a broad understanding of where the industry is, what challenges it faces, and where it is headed. Professionals actively pursuing the biorefining industry as a growth opportunity can’t miss this event. Register today for the 2011 International Biorefining Conference & Trade Show. Visit www.biorefiningconference.com

9/14


view from the hill

The Work at Hand for E15 Market ExpansionBy Bob Dinneen

Back in october, I wrote on the RFA blog, “The E-Xchange,” about the steps that would be necessary to make E15 the standard fuel available in the united States, in much the same way E10 is today. With the issuing of the U.S. ePA’s label for E15 now final, the industry can move forward with more confidence to educate and assist gasoline marketers, retailers and consumers in making E15 widely available.

First, working with Growth Energy, the RFA has submitted health effects testing and worked to fulfill the fuel registration pro-cess that must be conducted for any new fuel. That process is now nearly complete.

Second, through our ethanol emer-gency Response Coalition, the RFA is researching the efficacy of current firefight-ing tools and techniques to address any E15-related incidents. Additionally, RFA is working with local fire marshals to ensure existing fueling infrastructure can operate with E15 blends and that they provide the go-ahead to sell E15 blends.

Third, the RFA is working through ASTM, the standard-setting body for fuels, to certify E15’s octane rating as required by the Federal Trade Commission. Pure etha-nol has an octane rating upwards of 109, compared to a standard gallon of unleaded gasoline octane possessing a rating of 87.

Octane is an important component in fuel to ensure it ignites and burns properly in the engine.

Additional federal regulations, such as Reid vapor pressure standards, and state-specific fuel regulations must be addressed. in the case of the states, some are pre-pared to begin offering E15 immediately. in iowa, for instance, the regulatory path is nearly cleared and some retailers have made clear their desire to offer E15 blends. Other states are not as far along in the process, and through the RFA’s technical committee, we are working with the appro-priate state officials and other stakeholders to address these needs.

it is important to remember the same challenges were presented to the wide-spread adoption of E10. With persever-ance and a bit of elbow grease, the industry has been successful in removing those remaining barriers to e10 blends and the same will be done for E15—and it will not take the nearly 30 years it did for E10.

Equally important to the regulatory work that is currently ongoing are RFA and industry efforts to educate fuel marketers, retailers and consumers alike. The final E15 label issued by EPA is an improve-ment from the agency’s original design and should not unintentionally frighten consumers away from using the fuel. But that doesn’t mean that our efforts to make stakeholders comfortable with E15 are not needed. To the contrary, they are more important today than they have ever been.

Through the RFA market develop-ment team, and specifically through the

Blend Your Own ethanol campaign with the American Coalition for ethanol and a larger group of state corn grower associations, the industry is actively and aggressively reach-ing out to gasoline marketers and retailers to educate them about ethanol use, encour-age them to install blender pumps and other ethanol-related infrastructure, and providing them all the tools they need to move forward. In the coming months and years, these efforts will be intensified until we are maximizing the amount of domestic ethanol this nation is consuming.

On a separate note, but still related, the RFA is also working with fuel retailers to address the concerns created by ePA’s approach. Namely, the RFA is working with the Petroleum Marketers’ Association of America, the Society of independent Gasoline Marketers of America, the Na-tional Association of Convenience Stores and others to gain reintroduction of the Renewable Fuels Marketing Act. This bill is a commonsense approach to deal with liability concerns raised by retailers.

This may seem a daunting task but the industry has no other choice than to do the hard work necessary to drive ethanol mar-ket expansion and accelerate this industry’s evolution. As we have clearly seen, no one is going to do it for us. The success of E15 and the future of this industry are firmly in our capable hands.

Author: Bob DinneenPresident and CeO of the

Renewable Fuels Association(202) 289-3835

A Tradition of Industry Education

For 30 years, The Alcohol School has been educatingfuel ethanol and distilled beverage producers in thescience of alcohol production. The weeklong program is designed for lab, plant, and managementpersonnel and is organized around lectures, laboratory demonstrations, seminars, and plant visits.

The program will cover the process of ethanol andbeverage alcohol production from milling and mashpreparation through fermentation and distillation.Enzyme usage, yeast biology, bacterial contamina-tion and control will also be discussed, along withother issues currently affecting both industries.

Registration is open to fuel ethanol, distilled beverage, and allied industries. Now is a good time to invest in education.

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September18–23, 2011


drive

How Far We’ve Come in the Ethanol Industry By Tom Buis

last month, I attended the International Fuel Ethanol Work-shop & Expo in Indianapolis and was once again impressed with the presentations, booth exhibits and new technologies on display.

Every year, as I travel to these expos, i am reminded of how far the ethanol industry has come in only a few short decades, and how important it is that our industry succeeds in the future. ethanol today is the most commercially viable alternative we have to foreign oil. It repre-sents nearly 10 percent of our transporta-tion fuel, reducing oil imports and harmful emissions. And now, with the U.S. ePA’s approval of a label for E15, we are one step closer in the process to adding E15 into the marketplace—a move that will create U.S. jobs, improve the environ-ment and strengthen national security by displacing foreign oil.

The label was announced by the EPA on the first day of the FEW—on the heels of a plenary panel about the American Ethanol partnership, an initiative by NASCAR to use Sunoco Green E15 in all of its Sprint Cup Series races. The new fuel has been used in every Sprint Cup

Series race this season and, according to NASCAR, E15 hasn’t caused a single problem for their drivers. In fact, they have found that ethanol is a higher combustion fuel that provides their drivers increased horsepower.

The American ethanol’s partner-ship is helping NASCAR to go green and educating millions of consumers about the economic and environmental benefits of ethanol. The partnership is also a key validation of ethanol as a fuel for all Ameri-cans just as we are engaged in debate to open the market to even higher blends.

As i write this column, negotiations are continuing between leaders in the House and Senate to reform ethanol tax policies to invest in ethanol infrastructure and next-generation feedstocks.

Today we don’t have a production issue, we have a market-access issue. If we’re ever going to advance biofuels in this country, we need to open the market through expanded installation of flex-fuel pumps and other means, so that consum-ers do not have their fuel choice made for them. We know flex-fuel pumps work because in places such as North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, ethanol sales have skyrocketed—more than 200 or 300 percent since the flex-fuel pumps were put into the ground.

People make choices based on their pocketbook as well as on their values. ethanol is the most affordable motor fuel on the planet and, as people in the Midwest know, it also creates jobs and helps our Midwestern economies. In the near term, E15 is a crucial step in giving consumers more choices at the pump. Long term, an investment in infrastructure will level the playing field and spur the private capital investment move into next generation cellulosic ethanol, a 50-state solution.

There is no doubt that the ethanol industry has come a long way, but we still have much farther to go. Growth Energy is committed to working with producers and supporters of ethanol to ensure the future of this industry and continue to help our nation reduce our dependence on foreign oil, revitalize our rural communities and secure our energy future for generations to come.

Author: Tom BuisCeO, Growth energy

(202)[email protected]


Grassroots voice

E15. What Now?By Ron Lamberty

While some in the ethanol industry may have imagined that EPA’s E15 label rollout would put an end to the foot-dragging that is keeping the approved ethanol blend out of gas stations, it instead appears to have just changed some of the foot-draggers into heel-diggers and/or kickers and screamers.

Yes, there are rules and regulations that need to be adjusted or rewritten, and there need to be specifications and official i’s that need to be dotted and t’s that need to be crossed. And there is the trouble-some summer Reid vapor pressure rules that will probably keep E15 out of stations until at least fall, and will need to be dealt with before next summer. The fact that most regulators didn’t want to rewrite rule books until E15 is a reality was expected, and those changes are underway right now.

But what most did not expect was the unbelievable level of misinformed rhetoric and vitriol being aimed at a fuel that has done exactly what ethanol was asked to do when the first renewable fuel standard was passed. Ethanol has helped improve

air quality across the nation, has kept fuel prices from going even higher, and has helped bring the nation close to providing more than half of our own fuel—something we haven’t done in over 20 years. And yet the current opposition is as strong as sup-port was only a few years ago.

One attempt at an E15 “do-over” took the form of Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin asking companies that didn’t offer a shred of science during the E15 debate to come to, ironically, the House Science Committee to tell non-scientific, anti-ethanol ghost stories. Those stories were primarily automakers saying that they might void warranties of cars that use E15, as well as the continuing shrill whines from the small engine people, whose engines aren’t supposed to use the stuff anyway.

The warranty discussion is interest-ing, because contrary to what most people believe, a car company can’t actually just “void a warranty.” Unfortunately, most people don’t question that statement, and can’t afford to fight an automaker in a court of law. if challenged, in the case of E15, a car company could only deny cov-erage if it could prove that ethanol was the only possible cause of a vehicle’s prob-lem. Not only that, but since their warran-ties cover E10, they would have to prove that the extra five percent ethanol caused a problem that would never have hap-pened with E10. It defies logic to assume that car makers could offer such proof and

that, for some reason, they simply chose not to provide that information while EPA spent two years doing their own, unevent-ful, E15 testing.

But what does all of that mean for E15 availability? Where does all of this leave station owners?

Frightened, mostly.That is the purpose of the ghost story,

and the E15 spook stories have come from many angles, and have been very effective. But as happened a few years ago, when ethanol opponents tried to scare marketers out of selling E10, some marketer will step forward and offer E15 to his customers. And his customers, and some of his competitors’ customers, will buy it. When that happens, the marketers who originally joined in the protest against E15 will start to ask why more was not done to make it easier for them to sell E15—and why it wasn’t done sooner.

Maybe then, some elected official will hold hearings to find out why that hap-pened.

Author: Ron LambertyVice President/Director of Market Development

American Coalition for ethanol(605) 334-3381

[email protected]

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europe callinG

Entering the Endgame By Robert Vierhout

The battle in Europe on how to address indirect land use change politically is heating up with the European commission in the final stage of coming to a conclusion. To prepare the report, the commission asked that a 2009 study be updated using a slightly updated version of the MIRAGE model (a multi-country, multi-sector dynamic model, developed initially in Paris) and a new scenario based on what EU members project the volume of biofuels will be in the near future. The results are shockingly bad, especially for biodiesel. From an average additional emission of 17 grams CO2 equivalent per megajoule in the previous study, it is now 38.4. The higher number is mainly caused by relatively high volume of biodiesel expected to be used to fulfil the target and that the raw material to supply that need is palm oil. There is where the problem lies—deforestation outside the EU. The researchers recognize the limit of their study when they say “many model param-eters are based on weak estimates, and therefore systematic sensitivity analysis is required to measure the potential range of iLUC”.

So much for science and so much for using “evidence” and “robust findings” as a basis for policy, in my humble opinion. if i were in the shoes of a regulator, i would want to think twice before putting a legal burden upon the shoulders of biofuel pro-

ducers based on this.Still, the enormous noise made by nongovernmental organiza-tions, concerned politicians and scientists, leaves the commission no other option but to regulate land use change. The option of “doing nothing and keep monitoring the situation” would not address rebuilding the damaged image and reputation of the biofuel industry. Doing nothing is also not good for potential investors as the discus-sion on iLUC would become perpetual.

So, if an iLUC factor (penalty) is dif-ficult to justify, what measure could then be proposed to mitigate unwanted land use change? The most obvious would be to recognize that some of the present biofuel production does not lead to deforestation and/or unwanted ILUC effects. Animal feed as a coproduct of wheat/sugar beet ethanol production guarantees that. it has been demonstrated by a peer-reviewed study of E4tech in October 2010. Equally, certain cultivation techniques, avoidance of the use of certain land and improved productivity have positive effects.

Another possibility is to increase the threshold of direct emissions sav-ings that need to be achieved. Currently set at 35 percent reduction compared to the emission of fossil fuel emission, the threshold increases to 50 percent by 2018. There are plans, however, to increase that threshold to 65 percent and to have this enforced as of 2014 or even earlier. Whether such a measure would silence the critics is far from certain. Some critics want biofuels off the planet whatever the emission saving. The industry would not automatically accept this either. Such a

high threshold could put lots of capacity out of business, certainly in the biodiesel sector, and could well open the debate on whether having a biofuel target is useful at all.

There will certainly be a grandfather clause, but crafting it will be a challenge. As the biodiesel sector already has enough production capacity in place to achieve the target still nine years away, a grandfather that would not reduce the biodiesel capacity in some way would be regarded by biofuel critics as green-washing. Will it be possible to agree on a grandfather clause that safeguards pres-ent investments at least another nine years and even allows fuel ethanol production capacity to expand while at the same time limits the use of biodiesel that is linked to deforestation?

The eC energy and climate depart-ments are still at loggerheads as to what will be the best way forward. According to the grapevine, the higher threshold has the best chances to make it to the finish, com-bined with a measure to prevent deforesta-tion in countries outside the eU. There are too many doubts that the “best available” science on iLUC is mature enough to use for a policy that justifies an ILUC penalty.

Whatever the outcome of this pro-cess, it will not take very long. The presi-dent of the european Commission wants a political solution before the August recess. Once the proposal is out, we will move on to the next phase involving parliament and council where politics will prevail. The final outcome is very much undetermined.

Author: Robert VierhoutSecretary-general, ePURe

[email protected]

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The Growing Challenge of Glyphosate-Resistance By Mark Jeschke

The expansion of the ethanol industry has accompanied tremendous growth in corn production that has been based on agricultural technology advances. One of the first genetic engineering advances, the development of herbicide-resistant corn varieties, is now entering a new phase.

With glyphosate-resistant weeds already an issue in many Corn Belt states and throughout the South this growing season, we’re urging growers to scout regularly and carefully for resistant weeds that can seem to appear overnight. Resistant populations tend to grow on a logarithmic scale, growing at a low level and then exploding all at once. So it may seem like resistant weeds are a new problem, but they probably have been in the field for a few years as weeds uncontrolled by herbicide treatments. This makes it all the more important to keep an eye out for weeds that aren’t being controlled.

Crop producers and advisors know that weed resistance to herbicides has been a management challenge for decades. in the past decade and a half, growers have widely embraced the use of herbicide tolerance technology not only because of its convenient, effective and economical weed control, but also because many weed species were no longer being controlled by other herbicides.

Unfortunately, the long-term use of any single herbicide mode of action can lead to the development of weed resistance, and now glyphosate-resistant weeds have become an issue as well. The continued widespread use of glyphosate makes it likely the problem will only get worse. To date, glyphosate resistance has been confirmed in 21 weed species worldwide, including 12 in North America, with glyphosate-resistant weed populations identified in 25 states, according to the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds.

To help combat this issue, agronomists recommend growers not only scout their fields, but also adopt integrated management practices that can help minimize risk while providing growers with a more consistent, effective weed control program. This includes rotating their herbicide modes of action, focusing on herbicide efficacy, persistence and frequency of application. In addition, agronomic practices such as crop rotation and tillage can decrease herbicide selection intensity by reducing weed populations, depending on the weed species. Another good practice, if growers know there are resistant populations in the area, is to clean tillage and harvest equipment when moving between fields. Weed seeds carried by machinery can spread resistance from field to field.

Because weed management can be a localized issue, we at Pioneer also have equipped our local sales professionals

with information on managing resistant species within a specific geographic area, as well as training modules to help build knowledge. In cases where resistance already exists, the way to manage the problem really depends on the situation. Growers may need to look to a different herbicide. in corn, there are still some options available; however, soybeans can be more difficult, especially postemergence, as a lot of glyphosate-resistant weed species are resistant to other herbicides as well.

Development of new herbicide-resistant technologies in crops may provide new options for dealing with herbicide-resistant weeds. That said, overreliance on any new technology in the absence of appropriate weed management practices is likely to create new sources of resistance in weeds. It’s often said that, given time, pests will eventually find their way around man’s ability to control them and that’s certainly the case here. However, the good news is that good scouting and the right management techniques should help growers maintain effective weed control to help them maximize yields on their acres.

Author: Mark JeschkeAgronomy Research Manager,

Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business(515) 535-3698

[email protected]

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Iowa Expands Renewable Fuels Incentives By Andrew Anderson and Adam B.Thimmesch

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad signed comprehensive renewable fuels legislation into law on May 26. The new law creates additional tax credits and extends and increases prior incentives to promote biofuel sales and production in iowa. The bill enhances the ethanol promotion tax credit, replaces the current E85 credit, creates a new tax credit for certain ethanol blends, establishes a biodiesel production incentive, and liberalizes the biodiesel tax credit. Companies nationwide involved in the ethanol industry can learn from what iowa is doing and can factor this into their economic plans.

The ethanol Promotion Tax Credit applies to the current iowa Renewable Fuels Standard, which provides tax incentives for retailers selling renewable fuels as a certain percentage of their total gasoline sales. Retailers qualify for this credit based on their sales of biodiesel and ethanol. in claiming this credit, retailers may elect to compute their iowa RFS threshold on a company-wide or site-by-site basis.

The new law increases the ePTC at each level of compliance. Retailers that meet the RFS schedule are now eligible for a tax credit of 8 cents per gallon of ethanol sold (up from the prior rate of 6.5 cents per gallon). For retailers within 2 percent of the RFS schedule, the new law

increases the available tax credit from 4.5 cents to 6 cents per gallon of ethanol sold. For retailers beyond 2 percent, but within 4 percent of the RFS schedule, the new law increases the 2.5 cent tax credit to 4 cents for years beginning in 2011.

The E85 Promotion Tax Credit allows a retailer to claim a tax credit based on the total gallons of E85 fuel sold in a given tax year. For 2011, the tax credit is 10 cents per gallon. Under the new law, the E85 credit has been raised to 16 cents per gallon for 2012 through 2017.

With the 2011 bill, iowa became the first state to incentivize E15-specific production. The E15 credit allows retailers to claim a tax credit for ethanol-blended gasoline classified as E15 or higher, excluding gasoline classified as E85, effective July 1. From that date through 2014, the tax credit is 3 cents per gallon. For 2015 through 2017, the tax credit will be 2 cents per gallon. With the addition of the E15 tax credit to Iowa law, the 2011 bill clarifies that a retailer may claim any or all of the EPTC, the E85 Promotion Tax Credit, and the E15 Tax Credit, if eligible.

The iowa Biodiesel Tax Credit is available for retail dealers of diesel fuel who operate motor fuel pumps at a retail motor fuel site in iowa. The 2011 bill liberalizes the eligibility requirements for that tax credit by eliminating the requirement that a retailer’s biodiesel sales represent at least 50 percent of total fuel sales. Current Iowa law provides for a tax credit of 3 cents per gallon for B2

and higher in 2011. Under the new law, the tax credit for B2 to B4 blends will drop to 2 cents per gallon in 2012, while the tax credit will be 4.5 cents per gallon for B5 or higher blends. For 2013 through 2017, the biodiesel-blended fuel must be classified as B5 or higher to qualify for the credit and the credit will be 4.5 cents per gallon.

The new law also provides some protection for retailers of biofuels by providing relief from liability for damages caused by the use of incompatible motor fuel dispensed at the retailer’s motor-fuel site. To be afforded that protection, three conditions must be met: 1) the incompatible motor fuel must comply with the fuel specifications as provided by Iowa code, 2) the incompatible motor fuel must be selected by a person other than the retailer, including an employee or agent of the retailer, and, 3) the motor fuel pump must be correctly labeled.

Authors: Andrew AndersonPartner, Faegre & Benson LLC

[email protected] Adam B. Thimmesch

Associate, Faegre & [email protected]

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Ron Lamberty and Chuck Beck re-cently were promoted by the American Coalition for Etha-nol. Lamberty, who previously served as ACE’s vice president for market develop-ment, is now senior vice president. Beck was promoted from communications and membership assis-tant to public affairs

director. Lamberty will continue to manage ACE’s market development program, which has focused in recent years on midlevel etha-nol blends and the installation of blender pumps, including the ongoing Blend Your Own Ethanol Campaign in partnership with the Renewable Fuels Association and several state corn grower organizations. The pro-motion will enable him to direct a planned expansion of ACE’s market development ef-forts and prioritize key markets and market-ers poised to switch to midlevel blends and blender pumps. Beck, who has six years of experience working in television and radio media, takes on new duties developing and executing ACE communications and public affairs strategies to support ACE’s mission and goals. “Chuck is a passionate advocate for ethanol and the epitome of a team player. He will enable ACE to rapidly communicate our positions to the media and help pitch story ideas about the ethanol industry,” said Ace executive Vice President Brian Jen-nings.

Douglas Cameron joined the board of directors of Proterro Inc., developers of a sugar-producing microbe. Cameron is founder and managing director of Plymouth, Minn.-based Alberti Advisors llc. Prior to establishing the venture advisory firm, he was managing director and chief science advisor

at Piper Jaffrey where he helped build the firm’s clean technology and renewable sector, including the ethanol biofuels subsector. He also previously served as chief scientific of-ficer at khosla Ventures. Proterro has devel-oped a unique photobioreactor based on the structure of a leaf to grow sugar-excreting microbes that can be used as a fermentation-ready sugar feedstock. Founded in 2008, the company is backed by Battelle Ventures and Braemer energy Ventures.

Leah Hurtgen Ziemba and Mary Ann Christopher have joined Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, and will work with the firm’s en-ergy and sustainabil-ity team. Now a part-ner in Michael Best, Christopher worked as a partner with the law firm Foley & lardner llP, where she chaired the Off-shore Wind Energy Team and was vice chair of the project and infrascture team. Ziemba, now an as-sociate in the firm’s Madison office, will focus her practice on the siting and permit-ting of new develop-ment projects and counseling clients on environmental mat-ters. She has experi-ence in environmen-tal/natural resource

law involving water, solid and hazardous waste. Prior to joining Michael Best, she was an associate at nixon Peabody llP in new York.

M a s c o m a Corp. named David Arkowitz its new chief financial officer (CFO), responsible for the company’s fi-nance and investor relations. For the past seven years he served as CFO of two pub-lic bio-pharmaceutical companies, transition-ing both organizations from development state to commercial enti-ties. he last worked at AMAG Pharmaceu-ticals Inc. where he served as executive vice president , cFo and chief business officer.

Duane Parkin-son has rejoined Ash-land Hercules Water Technologies as cor-porate sales manager, food and beverage, north America. Par-kinson’s responsibili-ties will include cor-porate accounts sales to the food and bever-age markets, focusing on grain processing and ethanol production companies. Ashland Hercules Water Tech-nologies is a global producer of papermak-ing and specialty chemicals for the com-mercial and institutional food and beverage, chemical, mining and municipal markets. Its process, utility and functional chemistries are used to improve operational efficiencies, enhance product quality, protect plant assets and ensure environmental compliance.

David Nothmann, vice president of business and product development for Ar-borGen, has been named to the U.S. DOE and UsDA Biomass research and Develop-ment Technical Advisory Committee. The

BuSINESS BRIEFSPeople, Partnerships & Deals

Senior VPRon Lamberty was recently promoted at ACe. He owns two fuel stations and has more than 30 years experience in the ethanol and petroleum industries.

new cFo David Arkowitz brings two decades of finance leadership in the healthcare and life sciences to Mascoma.

Grain Specialist Duane Parkinson specializes in grain processing and ethanol production.

Energy Expertise An avid member of the energy Bar Association, Mary Ann Christopher brings her broad experience in renewable energy to Michael Best.

Farm Roots Leah Hurtgen Ziemba brings a unique set of skills to the agribusiness practice of Michael Best having been raised on a Wisconsin dairy, earning a degree in animal science and co-owning and operating a dairy in upstate New York.


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committee of 31 volunteers offers expertise on strategic planning and the technical as-pects of the Biomass research and Develop-ment Initiative. The initiative is legislatively directed to address feedstock development; biofuels and biobased product development; and biofuels development analysis. The com-mittee’s work will aid the DOE and USDA in building a sustainable biomass energy indus-try. ArborGen’s scientists are developing new feedstock sources through purpose-grown trees to meet the growing demand for wood, fiber and energy.

Wes Bolsen, chief marketing offi-cer of Coskata Inc., was recently named Chief Marketing Of-ficer of the Year by Chief Marketing Of-ficer Institute. he re-ceived the award for small to midsize com-panies with revenue less than $250 million, while his counterpart at Zurich Financial won the award for

large companies. “I am truly humbled by this recognition,” Bolsen said. ”At the same time, I must recognize the entire Coskata team for the success of our marketing pro-grams in 2010. Everyone here understands the vision for what is possible and helps the company communicate that to our various stakeholders.” The award will help generate new interest in ethanol and advanced biofu-els, he added.

Florida-based Protec Fuel named Am-ber Thurlo Pearson its director of market-ing and publications. Pearson’s background in alternative and renewable fuels lends itself to Protec’s mission of helping meet the re-newable fuel standard through retail ethanol

blending and sales in the South, Southeast and mid-Atlantic regions. She worked in public relations for the national Biodiesel Board as well as for the U.s. Doe clean cit-ies program. Protec offeres turnkey ethanol programs for retailers, fleets and fuel distrib-utors for E85, E15 and midlevel blends. It currently supplies, either directly, or through distribution partners, approximately 250 E85 stations.

Craig Shealy has launched an invest-ment banking advisory business to serve the biofuels and biomass marketplace in partner-ship with Cary Street Partners, a Richmond, Va.- based investment banking and wealth management firm. shealy served as chairman and managing partner of Blackcreek Group, an energy-focused investment, development and advisory firm, and as president and ceo of osage Bio energy, where he led the development of a $200 million ethanol plant in hopewell, Va. Prior to osage Bio energy, he managed a $1.5 billion revenue business unit for nextel Partners and was a member of the senior management team that posi-tioned the company for its sale to Sprint for just under $10 billion. Before joining nextel Partners, shealy worked in Microsoft’s cor-porate development and strategy group.

Sweden-based Perten Instru-ments has re-leased its second-generation grain

moisture meter, improving upon the AM 5100. The

AM 5200 meets the speed and connectivity requirements of today’s grain industry, the company said. Flow-through analysis allows its use in automatic sampling systems, and the larger sample size improves repeatability. The moisture meter includes a color touch screen and RF-electronics.

Gamajet Cleaning Systems released the PowerFleX tank cleaning machine, which offers 400 times the cleaning force of a standard sprayball at the same pressure and flow. The added power reduces cost in time, water and chemicals, often up to an 85 percent savings, accord-ing to the company. The av-erage operating conditions are from 50 to 100 psi and 20 to 80 gallons per min-ute, under which the Pow-erFleX will maintin 8 to 15 pounds of force at a 10-foot distance. The PowerFleX uses Gamajet’s rotary im-pingement technology. The jets of the fluid-driven machines scour an entire tank interior in a reliable 360-degree pattern.

Global supplier of fuel dispensers and technologies, Dresser Wayne will now op-erate under the brand name, Wayne—A GE Energy Business. GE acquired Dresser Inc., including its Dresser Wayne business segment, in February. GE and Dresser Wayne worked with an international brand research firm and concluded that maintaining the Wayne name was critical to preserving the strong brand. The company introduced the first oil pump in 1891, and been responsible since for many industry innovations such as the blending pump and pay-at-the-pump self-service.

Duluth-based company, Save Our Steam, was awarded the Minnesota Gover-nor’s Safety award for superior performance in workplace safety and health. SOS routinely works in hazardous conditions, fixing high-pressure leaks in industrial steam, gas and acid lines, without interrupting production.

Recognition for All A recent award given to Wes Bolsen, Coskata, he says is for all of Coskata’s team and demonstrates that those outside the industry are paying attention.


customers include refineries, steam, ethanol, power and paper plants. In his 30-plus years, SOS has never had a reportable injury, said Jim Carter, president and own-er. The company started do-ing busi-ness in Minneso-ta, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Nebraska, and now serves clients all over the continen-tal U.S.

Spraying Systems Co. announced two new TankJet models for use in cleaning ap-plications that can be mounted permanently or moved from tank to tank. The new Tank-Jet 75 fluid-driven tank cleaner from spraying Systems Co. provides thorough impingement cleaning of small tanks without the expense of high impact tank cleaners. The unit uses external gears to reduce nozzle speed for better impact and cleaning efficiency. Ideal for medium-impact cleaning of tanks, totes and intermediate bulk containers, the unit cleans tanks up to 30 feet in diameter using rotating solid stream nozzles that complete a 360 degree indexing pattern.

The TankJet 190D motor-driven tank cleaner provides powerful 180 degree down-ward coverage and outperforms other units especially when removing sticky residues/skim lines and cleaning heavy sludge from the bottom and shadow areas of tanks, the company says. It operates at pressures up to 1000 psi and uses high-impact solid stream nozzles to clean tanks up to 34 feet in di-ameter.

Canadian cleantech company, NIM-Tech Inc., (short for noninvasive mea-surement technologies), is currently dem-onstrating its SonicGauge technology at

a Canadian ethanol plant with the aim of increasing operational efficiencies and qual-ity control. The trademarked SonicGauge system simultaneously measures multiple properties of a substance, noninvasively through a pipeline, utilizing dispersive ultra-sound, nonlinear measurement methods and proprietary algorithms, to determine precise product and process quality, online and re-altime. It can be used for quality assurance or process control in multiple industries. The Prince edward Island-based company is seeking further demonstration opportunities and investors as it readies the technology for commercialization.

Indianapolis-based Xylogenics won the TechPoint Mira Award for its clean energy innovations. The bioengineering firm won the 2011 award for its work in genetically modifiying yeast strains to improve the con-version of sugar to ethanol. The proprietary yeast strains can potentially boost fermenta-tion yields by 30 to 50 percent in cellulosic ethanol production facilities, according to the company.

Industrial Scientific Corp. announced the availability of iNet InSite, a plug-and-play docking station solution for its portable gas detectors that provides critical function-ality and information for safer work environ-ments. Subscribers of iNet InSite receive unlimited user access to iNet Control—a Web-based application—along with docking stations. With iNet Control software users can manage the performance of their en-tire gas detector fleet, scheduling automated events such as calibrations, as well as set up alarm thresholds.

Rockwell Automation Inc. acquired U.K.-based Letronix, an independent indus-trial automation repairs and service provider in Europe and Asia, accelerating the growth

of Rockwell’s service business abroad. Lek-tronix provides automation repairs, spares and other maintenance services for most in-dustrial automation products, including pro-grammable logic controllers, electric motor drives, industrial computers, and computer-ized numerical control equipment. Lektron-ix’s management team will join the Rockwell Automation control Products and solutions operating segment.

The Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway Co. and Archer Daniels Midland Co. received the Win-Win award from in-ternational energy reporting agency Argus, receiving the reward at the North Ameri-can Rail Shippers Association conference earlier this summer. The award recognizes how both parties developed an innovative solution that allows the railroad to handle 35 percent more carloads from ADM while giv-ing the shipper more control over its railcar maintenance processes. The nearly $1 million invested by both parties included improving two miles of rail line to handle unit trains of more than 100 railcars plus new mother-and-slug locomotive combinations add force to the switching fleet. ADM is on pace to load 30,000 carloads through the facility this year after starting production in the middle of 2010 on an expanded dry mill ethanol facility next to its wet mill at Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

share your industry briefs to be included in business briefs, send information (including photos and logos if available) to: business briefs, Ethanol Producer Magazine, 308 second ave. n., suite 304, Grand forks nd 58203. you may also fax information to (701) 746-8385, or e-mail it to [email protected]. please include your name and telephone number in all correspondence.

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Natural Gas Report

Corn Report

Volatility ahead for late summer, early fall prices By CASEy WHELAN

Bearish reports reel in the corn market By JASON SAGEBIEL

COMMODItIES REPORT

July 5—USDA’s larger-than-expected estimates of June 1 corn stocks and planted area have significantly loosened the funda-mentals. Corn stocks in all positions June 1 totaled 3.67 billion bushels, down 15 percent from June 1, 2010. The stocks estimate was above expectations, the reverse of the March 1 estimate that was well below expectations. off-farm stocks, at 1.99 billion bushels, are down 9 percent from a year ago. The March to May indicated disappearance is 2.85 billion bushels, compared to last year’s 3.38 billion. The variability makes it hard to tell if the es-timates are a head fake or an indication of an ongoing trend.

Another bearish surprise was USDA’s es-timate of 92.3 million acres corn planted, up 5 percent from last year, and the second high-est since 93.5 million acres in 2007. The es-

timate was slightly above the March report, but well above the June forecast of 90.7 mil-lion and the average trade es-timate of 90.8 million. Pro-tracted planting delays were expected to confound the strong economic incentive to plant corn and shift acre-age to soybeans or prevented planting. While declines ver-sus March occurred in states such as Ohio and the Dako-tas, this was more than offset by an increase of 500,000 acres in Nebraska and smaller increases in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Growers expect to harvest 84.9 million acres for grain, up 4 percent from last year.

July 1—As fall approaches, the natural gas market starts to exhibit strange behavior, moving dramatically up or down from July. The accompanying table shows the actual pat-tern from July through September for 2005-’10. In 2005, the September price rocketed up 56 percent from July and prices continued to move up after September. In 2008, prices dropped a whopping 36 percent from July to September. The price change has never been less than 16 percent over the six-year period.

Late-summer volatility is driven by two factors—inventory and hurricanes. In the absence of hurricanes, storage fills up and excess production has nowhere to go. Pro-ducers discount product prices to move sup-ply. This gas-on-gas competition can quickly erode prices, as has happened over the past few years. Hurricane activity, however, spurs

panic and prices go wild—remember Hurricanes Rita and Katrina?

What will happen this year? Storage inventories are currently strong and pro-duction levels are robust. Barring hur-ricane activity, that gas-on-gas competi-tion could again occur late this summer. On the other hand, forecasters expect an active hurricane season.

Using history as a guide, we have de-veloped a best case and worst price fore-cast. The July nYMeX contract settled at $4.36 per MMBtu. If prices move up at the same rate as 2005 due to hurricane activity, we could see $6.78 per MMBtu gas in september. on the flip side, prices could fall to $2.79 per MMBtu. Bottom line—be prepared for price volatility.

Summer/Fall Pricing PatternsJul. Aug. Sept. Jul./Sept.

Change

2005 $6.97 $7.65 $10.84 56%

2006 $5.88 $7.04 $6.81 16%

2007 $6.93 $6.11 $5.43 -22%

2008 $13.10 $9.21 $8.39 -36%

2009 $3.95 $3.38 $2.84 -28%

2010 $4.72 $4.77 $3.65 -23%

2011 Low $4.36 $ - $2.79 -36%

2012 High $4.36 $ - $6.78 56%

With the above information the corn market was able to reel values back the highs that came after the June supply/demand re-port.


DDGS Report

Ethanol Report

Markets experience fire works, shifting demand By SEAN BrODErICK

Gasoline prices ease as summer progresses By rICK KMENt

COMMODItIES REPORT

DDGS Prices ($/ton)

LOCAtION AuG 2011 JuL 2011 AuG 2010

Minnesota 175 190 95

Chicago 202 208 115

Buffalo, N.Y. 215 205 110

Central Calif. 238 257 147

Central Fla. 239 245 136SOURCe: CHS inc.

Natural Gas Prices ($/MMBtu)

LOCAtION JuL 1, 2011 JuN 1, 2011 JuL 1, 2010

NYMEX 4.36 4.33 4.72

NNG Ventura 4.36 4.30 4.63

CA Citygate 4.64 4.54 4.64

SOURCE: U.S. Energy Services Inc.

regional Ethanol Prices Front Month Futures (AC) $2.610

rEGION SPOt rACK

West Coast $2.74 $3.05

Midwest $2.62 $2.85

east Coast $2.72 $3.02SOURCe: DTN

regional Gasoline Prices Front Month Futures Price (RBOB) $2.9660

rEGION SPOt rACK

West Coast $2.86 $3.03

Midwest $3.18 $3.01

east Coast $2.88 $3.08SOURCe: DTN

Corn futures Prices (Sept. Futures, $/bushel)

DAtE HIGH LOW CLOSE

July 5, 2011 6.29 1/2 6.14 1/4 6.25 1/2

June 6, 2011 7.33 7.09 3/4 7.11 1/2

July 6, 2010 3.80 3.67 1/2 3.68SOURCe: FCStone

Cash Sorghum Prices ($/bushel)

LOCAtION JuNE 25,2010

MAy 25, 2011

JuLy 1, 2011

Superior, Neb. 2.76 6.82 5.64

Beatrice, Neb. 2.88 6.57 5.50

Sublette, Kan. 2.67 6.52 5.41

Salina, Kan. 3.20 6.68 5.59

Triangle, Texas 3.04 6.82 5.89

Gulf, Texas 3.20 6.92 6.22

SOURCe: Sorghum Synergies

u.S. Ethanol Production (1,000 barrels)

PEr DAy MONtH END StOCKS

Apr. 2011 886 26,591 20,807

Mar. 2011 909 28,194 21,440

Apr. 2010 832 24,962 19,682SOURCe: U.S. energy information Administration

July 5—Energy prices moved in a wide trading range over the last weeks of June, and anticipated commercial de-mand through July is expected to create additional pressure. Although there is evidence some economic improvement could be seen through the second half of the year, most consumers are not willing to take this information to the pumps, as driving habits have been curbed through early summer with retail prices holding be-tween $3.50 and $4 per gallon. Although the market trended lower through June, much was regained due to a significant reversal based on light, noncommercial, outside market support. Continued vola-tility is expected in July with traders torn between potential support in the stock market and the softness in consumer de-mand.

Ethanol contracts, on the other hand, continued to follow in the footprints of the corn market as it eroded. The tipping point was seen June 30 as corn prices fell nearly 70 cents per bushel following the announcement of increased corn planted acres and higher than expected stocks. This pushed ethanol futures—already struggling to maintain support—into a tailspin. The potential political changes have had very little effect, as yet, on the market. It’s obvious, though, that Con-gress is not willing to follow the status quo with the blenders credit. Ethanol futures will continue to follow corn, although a late summer pullback in gasoline demand could significantly limit ethanol demand, and add another cog in the already com-plicated pricing process.

July 5—There was unprecedented volatility in the corn futures market prior to July 4th, and DDGS followed. Multiple moves created significant margin oppor-tunities, as DDGS and ethanol moved slower than the futures on the way down. Reportedly, some plants booked their highest margins of the year—especially important considering near-negative mar-gins less than two weeks earlier.

Domestically, demand is still strong—from the East due to corn availability, from the Southwest due to drought, and from the West Coast be-cause of dairy profitability and logistics issues. rerouting rail cars around flood-ing is slowing turn times. Some plants whose cars are all “on the road” have had to move significantly discounted product locally. Plants and end users in the east

are using more wheat—imported from Canada and from a larger-than-normal local crop, particularly in North Carolina. It remains to be seen how much corn will be displaced, but it will be a significant difference from past years.

Internationally, demand has been strong from Mexico and Canada. Cars to Canada are having a tough time shipping through a flooded north Dakota, and in Mexico cars are being rationed because of a slippage in turn times. Containers have been filling Asia’s demand as op-posed to bulk shipments. China’s anti-dumping case should see some resolution by mid-August.

The fireworks are everywhere this time of year, and they are not over for the summer.

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distillEd Ethanol News & Trends

In June, the U.s ePA issued its proposal to reduce the coming year’s cellulosic biofu-els volume target for the renewable fuel stan-dard (RFS). The RFS goals set by Congress in 2007 call for increasing amounts of cel-lulosic biofuels, beginning with 100 million gallons in 2010 and ramping up to 16 bil-lion gallons in 2022. The ePA is authorized to reduce those targets if the industry does not have the capacity to reach them, which is what it has been doing every year since 2009.

Cellulosic producers agree that the re-ductions have been necessary and say this year’s proposal to drastically reduce the 2012 volume requirements from 500 million gal-lons down to no more than 15.7 million ethanol-equivalent gallons is on par with the industry’s growth. While some critics cite the repeated reduction in cellulosic biofuels vol-umes as proof of the industry’s failure, cel-lulosic producers say it is merely an indicator of the enormously difficult financial climate and stress that the technology is ready for take-off as soon as facilities can be built.

“Bioscience and process engineering so-lutions are being delivered across the nation, but the capital required to enable meaning-ful production, and the difficulty in sourcing such capital, has resulted in project delays,”

Who’s on the List?The U.S. EPA pegs a handful of cellulosic producers to contribute to next year’s RFS goal

Potentially Available cellulosic Biofuel Plant Volumes for 2012Company Location Fuel Type Million ethanol-equivalent gallonsDuPont Danisco Cellulosic ethanol LLC Vonore, Tenn. ethanol 0.25Fiberight of Blairstown LLC Blairstown, iowa ethanol 0.25Fulcrum Bioenergy inc. McCarran, Nev. ethanol 0.5ineos Bio Vero Beach, Fla. ethanol 3.0KiOR inc. Houston, Texas Gasoline, Diesel 0.3KiOR inc. Columbus, Miss. Gasoline, Diesel 6.4KL energy Corp. Upton, Wyo. ethanol 1.0Terrabon inc. Port Arthur, Texas Gasoline 1.0ZeaChem inc. Boardman, Ore. ethanol 0.25Total 15.7SOURCe: U.S. ePA

says Craig Stuart-Paul, ceo of Fi-beright LLC. “The industry, however,

is populated with creative entrepreneurs and strategic industries willing to shoulder this risk, and new financing options have been established which, with support from gov-ernment loan funding, will ensure that proj-ects come online in 2012.”

Fiberight has been working for some time to transform a former corn-ethanol plant to produce 5.5 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol from municipal solid waste (MSW). The facility was one of a few plants expected to produce measurable volumes of cellulosic ethanol this year, but has yet to achieve that goal. stuart-Paul says that while the plant produced several tanker loads in 2010, the delay in market value for cellulosic renewable identification numbers (rIns) prompted the company to focus its 2011 efforts on fund-raising. He hopes to begin production by the end of the year, but says he can’t predict an anticipated volume until construction and commissioning activities are complete. The ePA expects Fiberight will contribute 3 mil-lion ethanol-equivalent gallons to the 2012 volume. The facility is expected to begin producing at capacity in 2013.

DuPont Danisco cellulosic ethanol llc also made the ePA’s short list of ex-pected producers for both 2011 and 2012. The company has been producing small

amounts of ethanol at its demonstration-scale facility in Vonore, Tenn., and plans to continue. It recently announced Nevada, Iowa, as the location for a 25 MMgy cellu-losic ethanol facility, expected to be ready in 2013. Jennifer Hutchins, communications director for DDCE, says it is critical that the long-term RFS goals remain in place to pro-vide assurance to investors. “The most im-portant thing is consistency in policy, which will be key to meeting U.S. goals for renew-able fuel and energy independence,” she says. “From DDCE’s perspective, the technology is proven and now we are preparing the pro-cess for large-scale production and establish-ing a cost-efficient model for commercial biomass supply. The industry continues to advance.”

Ineos Bio is a new addition to the ePA’s anticipated producer list for 2012. The com-pany’s joint venture, Ineos new Planet Bio-Energy LLC, is currently constructing an 8 MMgy vegetative waste and MSW-to-ethanol facility in Vero Beach, Fla., and is expected by the ePA to contribute up to 3 million ethanol-equivalent gallons of fuel next year. Dan cummings, vice president of Ineos Bio, says the company is comfortable with the ePA’s target for the Vero Beach plant and believes the overall reduction proposal is ac-curate. “ePA conducts a thoughtful screen-ing and interview process to determine the level to set for each year,” he says. “We don’t have any information or reason to second-


Ethanol News & Trends

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guess their work or process. While the tar-get may have been lowered in 2012, we be-lieve new technologies like ours are coming online, which will help the U.S. in its quest for energy security and help meet the RFS targets in the coming years.” Ineos expects the Vero Beach plant to come online mid-2012 and will operate at capacity by the end of the year. The company is currently ac-tively discussing licensing opportunities for its technology with companies around the world and believes its 8 MMgy model can be replicated at larger scale to help meet fu-ture RFS goals in coming years, Cummings says.

Fulcrum Bioenergy Inc. is also new

this year to the ePA list. The company has struggled to obtain federal loan guarantee assurance for its project and has not yet begun building its 10.5 MMgy post-sorted MSW-to-ethanol plant in McCarran, Nev., but the ePA believes it could contribute 500,000 ethanol-equivalent gallons of cel-lulosic ethanol next year. Ted Kniesche, vice president of business development at Ful-crum, declined to comment on whether the ePA’s target for its facility is accurate, but says the continued waiver of the cellulosic biofuels category should not be perceived as an industry failure. “The industry is moving rapidly into construction with several com-mercial plants, which will begin contributing

materially to the RFS in the coming years,” he says. “It’s important to remember that the gallons ‘waived’ under the cellulosic cat-egory are still required to be blended under the overall advanced biofuel category. By holding firm to those volumetric require-ments, ePA sends an important signal to obligated parties that the overall 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels will continue to be required by 2022.”

comments on the ePA’s proposal are being accepted until Aug. 11. The agency is required to finalize the 2012 volume re-quirements by Nov. 30. —Kris Bevill

Build it yourselfEthanol producers take blender pumps into their own hands

Infrastructure expansion continues to be a major concern for the ethanol industry. Recent assistance in the form of grant and loan guarantee offerings from the USDA to assist retailers have been welcome, but there seems to also be a growing trend among in-dustry members to offer their own financial incentives. In Marcus, Iowa, Little Sioux Corn Processors, a 108 MMgy farmer-owned facil-ity, decided in June to pony up $150,000 to assist in the installation of 10 blender pumps in its area. “There is a strong need for E85 and midlevel blends in this area,” Ron Weth-erell, lscP chair, says. “little sioux’s board decided that in order to expand the availabil-ity of high-blend ethanol to northwest Iowa motorists, they needed to get involved by in-vesting in future markets for ethanol.” Steve roe, lscP general manager, said in early July that money had not yet been dispersed to re-tailers because it was contingent upon USDA loan guarantee or grant approval. Retailers must also present proof that the equipment has been installed at their station, he said.

Blender pump expansion efforts are not restricted to just ethanol plants. In north-ern Iowa, a group of ethanol supporters

and board members including Dave Sov-ereign, chairman of the board of directors at Golden Grain Energy LLC, decided to apply for grants on its own to install three blender pumps. Sovereign says the group first approached retailers in the area to install the pumps, but was unsuccessful in gaining their cooperation. He believes the biggest constraint holding retailers back from install-ing blender pumps is the cost of the system. “There isn’t very much of a margin to be made in selling fuel. Unless you can demon-strate it will bring in more sales inside to their profit centers, it’s very difficult to substanti-ate that type of a business investment,” he says.

Sovereign admits there is a learning curve associated with the blender pump build-out, both for retailers and consumers, but says he’s aware of several other ethanol plant boards who are crafting plans to work with local retailers to install the pumps, and his own experience has shown ethanol plant stakeholders view the incentives as a worthy investment. “I’ve found quite a bit of sup-port on several different boards from several different plants as well as from our share-

holders,” he says. “Everybody wants to have access to it and that’s what we’re after. Let’s get the access out here to be able to use these homegrown renewable products and show-case what we can do with them.”

As of July, 142 retail outlets in Iowa offered E85 and only 30 blender pumps were located in the state, according to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. The state recently passed legislation that includes $50,000 grants for retailers to install biod-iesel, E85 and blender pumps, an exten-sion of a previous program which, accord-ing to Lucy Norton, managing director for the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, was quite popular. “In fact, the infrastructure funding was exhausted in March of this year so we were fortunate that the Iowa legisla-ture renewed funding as of the first of July,” she says. As part of its retailer outreach pro-gram, an IRFA representative is responsible for contacting retailers to explain blender pumps and the infrastructure program. That person will also complete grant applications and submit them on behalf of the retailer, making the process as easy as possible for the retailer, she says. —Kris Bevill


Previously, Allard research and Devel-opment LLC sold its small- to medium-scale ethanol refineries to customers that had a ready source of a cellulose, starch or sugar feedstock. That might include waste items such as grass clippings, sawdust, newspapers, waste fruit or waste soda.

Although those and other feedstocks are still options, Allard Research now has something for customers that don’t have a specific feedstock identified. simply pur-chase the company’s cellulose grass-grow system, which includes four hydroponic shipping containers that will produce 15 tons of grass per day. The patent-pending system runs fully automated—drop the seeds in the hopper on one end and feedstock comes out the other end, where it is fed into the etha-nol refinery, says sharon Allard, ceo of the Farmersville, Texas-based company. On the way out the feedstock is ground and hydro-

lyzed with heat, pressure and a weak sulfuric acid solution.

“The ability to grow the cellulose feed-stock as part of the system is a game-chang-er,” says Adam Allard, founder and chair-man. “Historically, the big limiting factor for people wanting to make their own ethanol fuel has been a lack of abundant feedstock. Now it comes with the system.” He adds that it also makes moot the food vs. fuel argu-ment.

The systems are designed to be small and movable. A 20-gallon per hour ethanol plant, including the grass-grow system, takes up about 3,600 square feet. The modular system can be scaled up by adding additional units. At 200 gallons per hour, the ethanol plant would produce 1.75 MMgy, cost $5 mil-lion and generate $3.5 million yearly in earn-ings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization cash flow, the company says.

Although there’s no limit on the number of modules that can be networked, the com-pany figures the optimal plant size for one location at 200 to 500 gallons per hour of ethanol output, sharon Allard tells ePM.

The refineries use waste heat from the engine for distillation, creating enough electricity to power the plant. The engine is fueled by gasified waste from the cellulose conversion process. Water is also recycled back into the system.

By the end of the summer, Allard re-search hopes to have systems installed with clients for beta testing. The company plans to sell the refineries to clients as well as op-erate the systems themselves. “What better way to demonstrate our products than oper-ating our own commercial-scale refineries,” Sharon Allard says. “We can better serve the clients we sell ethanol systems to if we are also in the business. The demand is so high that there are no worries about competition with our customers.”—Holly Jessen

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feedstock SolutionAutomated grass-grow system offered with modular ethanol refineries

Self-contained Production A process diagram outlines the path cellulose takes from the container grow system to ethanol production. SOURCE: ALLARD RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

lab Assistant An Allard Research lab unit produces 2 gallons per hour of ethanol. The company also markets a 20 gallon-per-hour modular cellulose ethanol refinery module.SOURCE: ALLARD RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT


When it comes to labeling fuels, does it really make a difference if the label is bright orange or peach? Well, yes, actually, it does. So does one single word placed across the top of a label. These and other details were the subject of several months of scrutiny by the U.s. ePA and stakeholders following the agency’s initial E15 label offering last fall. Their conclusion? less is definitely more and orange is a color best used at Halloween.

The ePA’s proposed e15 label featured a bright orange color to draw consumers’ at-tention to the label. The color and the word “CAUTION!” were meant to mitigate poten-tial misfueling. But after reviewing more than 80 comments submitted in response to the proposal and consulting with Federal Trade Commission “label experts,” the agency is-sued a revised, final label on June 23. This muted label follows the color and wording scheme of other FTC labels and is meant to inform consumers. “We believe that the final E15 label provides consumers with the key information they need about the appropri-ate use of e15,” the agency stated in its final rule, adding that the prohibition against mis-fueling should further incentivize proper use of the fuel.

According to the ePA, comments were split on whether the use of “CAUTION!”

was too harsh or not effective enough. The ethanol industry strongly opposed that por-tion of the proposed label. The ePA cited comments suggesting that any kind of warn-ing would result in undue skepticism from consumers. Others suggested using stronger warning words, such as “sToP,” in order to provide adequate liability protection for re-tailers. The agency settled on the word “AT-TenTIon,” which the ePA said “strikes the right balance.”

other significant changes to the label included the wording of the text used to identify which vehicles are legally able to use the fuel and what risks are posed to those who do not follow the law. The text on the proposed label was found to be too wordy, based on FTC advice. Consumers are not likely to read detailed labels when performing routine activities such as filling their vehicle with gasoline, the FTC cautioned. Therefore, labels need to be as concise as possible in or-der to get the point across quickly. Based on this information and other submitted com-ments, the ePA streamlined the language used to identify approved vehicles, which left enough room to add explicit instructions warning consumers not to use E15 in boats or other unapproved equipment.

Comments had suggested the use of icons to further simplify which motors are compatible with E15, a method that could also help to inform non-English speakers, but the ePA determined that there is sim-ply not enough room on the label to include those items. The agency said it will allow retailers to submit alternative labels for ap-proval, which could include icons, other lan-guages and/or minor changes in shape and size as long as they adhere to the required components of the label.

The move to E15 has arguably been the most hotly contested issue in ethanol’s recent history. The American Petroleum Institute and others filed multiple lawsuits in response to the ePA’s approval for the use of e15 in vehicle model years 2001 and newer, argu-

ing that testing conducted on E15 was not thorough enough. Meanwhile, the ethanol industry expressed disgruntlement over the partial approval, but for opposite reasons. Ethanol producers claim there is no evidence to suggest potential problems stemming from E15 use in any model year vehicle. The ePA briefly addressed the ethanol industry’s claims in its final label rule, explaining that it will uphold its misfueling prohibition be-cause comments that said E15 would not have adverse consequences on older vehicles did not present information or analysis to support their claims.

While the final e15 label is a much-anticipated step toward final approval of the fuel’s sale, multiple issues remain to be resolved before retailers can begin selling the fuel. In a presentation delivered to attendees of the International Fuel Ethanol Work-shop & expo in June, renewable Fuels As-sociation Technical Director Kristy Moore highlighted the “to-do” list, which includes: fuel registration, state regulatory issues, oc-tane certification, automaker warranties, and safety and emergency response procedures. —Kris Bevill

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the (Not So) Little thingsThe U.S. EPA’s recently finalized E15 label addresses color, wording influence on consumers.

CAUTiON!

Use only in:2007 and newer gasoline cars

2007 and newer light-duty trucksFlex-fuel vehicles

This fuel might damage other vehicles.Federal law prohibits its use in other

vehicles and engines.

This fuel contains 15% ethanol maximum

E15Up to 15% ethanol

Use only in• 2001 and newer passenger vehicles• Flex-fuel vehicles

Don’t use in other vehicles, boats, or gasoline-powered equipment. It may cause damage and is prohibited by federal law.

ATTEnTIon

Attention The final E15 label features less shocking coloring and wording than the original proposal.

SO

UR

Ce

: U.S

. ePA

Rejected The U.S. EPA’s proposed E15 label included brighter coloring and a bold warning which some groups said would discourage use.

SO

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Ce

: U.S

. ePA


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Got $1,000?Federal patent program encourages commercialization

Want to take advantage of the more than 15,000 patents and patent applications held by the 17 national laboratories? A new program makes that easier and more attractive than ever.

In May, the U.S. DOE started offering a streamlined option agreement for a $1,000 fee through its “America’s Next Top En-ergy Innovator” challenge. When first announced, the Doe said that only about 10 percent of federal patents had been licensed to be commercialized. The department hopes the energy inno-vator challenge will double the amount of start-up companies coming out of national laboratory work. “America’s entrepre-neurs and innovators are the best in the world,” said Secretary Steven Chu. “Today, we’re challenging them to create new busi-

nesses based on discoveries made by our world-leading national laboratories. Be-cause we’ve cut the upfront fees and re-duced the paperwork, we’ll make it easier for start-up companies to succeed and create the new jobs our economy needs. Our goal is simple: unleash America’s in-novation machine and win the global race for the clean energy jobs of the future.”

The first such option agreement was awarded in late May to e-Chromic llc, a Boulder, colo.-based business, which plans to create a thin film material for windows that reflects sunlight. Vice President Joe Biden visited the national

Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., to make the announcement and highlight the energy innovation program. “Now, more than ever, America’s future competitiveness de-pends on our ability to innovate and our capacity to live up to our rich history of technological advancement,” Biden said. “This kind of public-private partnership fosters extraordinary innovation, allows brilliant ideas to develop, and gives businesses the tools they need to bring technology to the market.”

The patents available through the energy innovator chal-lenge range from alternative fuels, vehicle technology and energy grid storage. Two examples of patents issued to NREL in 2011 include “Methods for degrading lignocellulosic materials” and “Genetically modified yeast species and fermentation processes using genetically modified yeast.” —Holly Jessen

on the web

Check out the 446 technology marketing summaries, 11,860 patents, 3672 patent applications and 27 emerging technologies at: http://tech-portal.eere.energy.gov

First to the Table Vice President Biden announced the first option agreement under the U.S. DOe’s “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator.”


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Ethanol is a global industry, and it takes a company with a worldwide reach to understand it.

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After years of protesting the 54-cent per gallon ethanol import tariff imposed by the U.s. government, it appears Brazil-ian producers may soon get the equal mar-ket opportunity they’ve been yearning for. Whether the tariff is allowed to expire as scheduled at the end of the year or it is re-moved earlier by legislation, support to up-hold the tariff is waning and it is unlikely that a 54-cent tariff will be in place this time next year. Should American ethanol producers be worried about an immediate influx of sug-arcane ethanol into their market? Probably not, according to market analysts. Two years of bad weather and high sugar prices have left Brazil struggling to meet its own de-mands recently and many believe that even if Brazil’s low-carbon sugarcane ethanol can earn a premium price in the corn-dominated U.S. market, there just simply isn’t enough supply right now for an invasion of foreign ethanol.

The USDA Economic Research Ser-vice states in a report released in June that while a growing share of Brazil’s ethanol

No Import tariff, No Worries?Brazilian ethanol not likely to flood U.S. market soon

Brazil’s ethanol plants and anticipated expansion ratePlant location regions/states

Number of plants in

2009

ethanol production in 2009

(million liters)

Plants under construction operational

by 2013

Total projected plants

operational by 2018

Projected 2018 production

(million liters)Southeast 314 17,676 55 27 32,454

Sao Paulo 259 15,041 28 6Minas Gerais 41 2,284 26 16Rio de Janeiro 8 113 4espiritu Santo 6 238 1 1

northeast 71 2,211 2,318Alagoas 20 791.2Pernambuco 21 469.2Other 30 950.1

center-West 63 4,263 46 33 6,957

Goias 33 2,122 23 4Mato Grosso 10 810 1 5Mato Grosso do Sul

20 1331 22 24

South 39 1,901 3 3 4,637Paraná 37 1,899 3 1Rio Grande do Sul

2 2 2

north 5 52 1Total number of distilleries

492 105 63

Total production capacity

26,103 46,366

production is expected to be im-ported over the next decade, the majority of its ethanol will still be used domestically. Brazil is well-positioned to provide low-cost ethanol to meet the world’s grow-ing demand, but its supply de-

pends on a complex set of issues, including domestic demand, world sugar and oil prices, currency rates and its domestic infrastructure capacity for moving ethanol to ports, the re-port’s author stated. Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance said that while they do not expect an influx of Brazilian ethanol into the U.S. market in the next year, an ex-pired import tariff combined with increasing blending requirements for advanced biofuels under the renewable fuel standard could pro-vide enough economic incentive for Brazil to produce ethanol instead of sugar to meet U.S. demand in coming years.

In response to growing domestic de-mand and export opportunities, Brazil has been aggressively working to correct its sup-ply constraints. Petrobras, Brazil’s power-house integrated energy firm, has announced plans to ramp up its ethanol production, for example. According to data compiled by the USDA-ARS, if the country’s expansion plans hold up, Brazil’s ethanol capacity could double by 2018.—Kris Bevill


tor Mark Holtzapple, a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, focuses on en-hancing the enzymatic digestibility

of lignocellulosic biomass for use in a variety of conversion processes for almost any chem-ical or fuel, including ethanol, he tells ePM.

Lime and air has been used for two de-cades to help reduce the lignin and acetyl con-tent of biomass and make it more digestible by enzymes, Holtzapple explains. Although a

shot gun shell is sufficient at laboratory scale, a more cost-effective means will be needed at industrial scale. “The treatment takes literally a second, so a small vessel can process large volumes of biomass; therefore, it is not ex-pensive,” he adds.

The funding is part of $36 million passed out to six projects to advance technology for drop-in advanced biofuels and other biobased chemicals. “Projects such as these are helping us to diversify our energy portfolio and de-crease our dependence on foreign oil,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu says.

The five other projects funded include: Michigan Biotechnology Institute, lan-• sing, Mich., up to $4.3 million for im-provements to a pretreatment process for stable conversion-ready intermediates compatible with long-term storage and ease of transfer. General Atomics, San Diego, Calif., up to • $2 million to reduce energy, capital and operational costs for algal fermentation processes.Genomatica Inc., San Diego, Calif., up • to $5 million for an engineered organism and optimized fermentation process for conversion of cellulosic sugars to 1,4-bu-tanediol.HCL CleanTech Inc., Oxford, N.C., up • to $9 million to demonstrate process im-provements for pretreatment, conversion to sugars and conversion of those sugars to diesel products. Virent, Madison, Wis., up to $13.4 mil-• lion to develop a fully integrated process that can efficiently and cost effectively convert cellulosic biomass to a mix of hydrocarbons for jet fuel. —Holly Jessen

Put an aqueous slurry of biomass in a pipe and literally shoot it with a shot gun shell. What do you get? A shock wave that disrupts the bio-mass and makes it more digestible by enzymes. A project to commercialize the technology was awarded $2.3 million by the U.S. DOE. The three-year project, led by principal investiga-

Ten Paces and Turn Mark Holtzapple, a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, will study biomass pretreatment utilizing a shot gun technique.

•

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Essential Expertise

for Water, Energy and Air

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Shocking MethodsTexas A&M shoots biomass


Pixley Biogas and calgren renewable Fu-els LLC has delayed a project to build a $10 million anaerobic digester.

The 58 MMgy ethanol plant wanted to turn manure from area dairies into biomethane to power the plant. It voluntarily withdrew the project from consideration by the Tulare county Planning commission after area resi-dents and California Dairies Inc., the state’s largest dairy cooperative, objected. Among their concerns were odor, impact to air or water quality and possible contamination by pathogens. “every significant professional or regulatory authority on digesters says the tech-nology improves air and water quality,” Daryl Maas, project manager for Pixley Biogas says. “If the perception is out there that this proj-ect will do the opposite, then we don’t want

to proceed without getting our neighbors’ sup-port.”

Lyle Schlyer, president of Calgren Re-newable Fuels is surprised at the opposition to the digester. Maybe it’s because they didn’t get the word out adequately. Perhaps it’s because they didn’t talk to their neighbors soon enough in the process. Whatever the reason, some just aren’t convinced, as the ethanol producer is, that an anaerobic digester would actually be a positive for the community. “We just got side-ways I think on this one,” he says.

All hope is not lost, however. In early July the California Energy Commission com-

mitted to a $4.68 million matching grant for the project, despite local opposition. Pixley Biogas and calgren will continue to negoti-ate with the county in the next few months. “We’re not giving up, Mass said. If the plant receives local approval to build the anaerobic digester, it will pump liquid manure from a nearby dairy and haul in additional manure sol-ids from other dairies. The resulting biogas will reduce natural gas needs at the ethanol plant and also result in clean fiber bedding for cattle and a pathogen-free liquid fertilizer. —Holly Jessen

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Join the yeast technology leaders in 2nd generation biofuelsDSM BIO�BASED PRODUCTS & SERVICES

DSM has acquired the Dutch C5 Yeast Company B.V. - part of the former Nedalco company. The acquisition will allow DSM to combine C5 Yeast Company’s business with its own advanced yeast and enzyme technologies for 2nd generation biofuels, further increasing its leadership position in this field. Test with our partners in the market have already shown that the yield of DSM’s advanced yeast technology on cellulose derived C5/C6 sugars can exceed 90% conversion rate. C5 Yeast Company will bring additional

know-how to DSM’s portfolio, allowing DSM to further optimize its yeast technology. Do you see opportunities to work with DSM or do you want to learn more about our technologies? Please contact us via email at: [email protected]

Stepping Aside California biogas project delayed after neighbors express concern

Biogas hold Calgren, a 58 MMgy ethanol plant in Pixley, Calif. has proposed a $10 million anaerobic digester planned to displace natural gas use.

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to grow in Indiana, it’s important to continue to assess the industry’s impact on our state’s economy,” says Greg

Noble, ICMC biofuels director. “Hoosier etha-nol producers now have the ability to produce over one million gallons of ethanol each year and are generating $3.2 billion annually in sales and revenues.”

Noble was touting the results of the study

at the International Fuel ethanol Workshop & Expo, held in Indianapolis this year. There are 13 ethanol plants in the state, which produce a total of 1,095 MMgy of ethanol. In 2010, when a similar study was conducted, the state was in sixth place. Since that time construction was completed at the Aventine Renewable Energy plant in Mount Vernon and Poet llc restarted the Cloverdale plant.

In all, 602 people work full-time jobs at the ethanol plants in the state, the 2011 study said. However, for each job at an ethanol plant, 4.8 additional jobs are created. That adds up to a total of nearly 3,500 full-time jobs created in the state.

On the money side, ethanol production created $1.5 billion in direct capital investment since 2006. It’s also responsible for a $497 mil-lion increase in gross state production and a $45 million increase in state taxes.

Ethanol has also made a difference to drivers in Indiana. The wholesale ethanol price in Indianapolis was $1.97, compared to $2.12 for wholesale gasoline, according to the Price Information Service. If applied to retail, the price differential would have saved consum-ers $47 million, according to the U.S. DOE. “As Hoosier corn farmers, we are committed to increasing ethanol production within our state to improve the demand for our product,” says Mike Shuter, ICMC president and farmer from Frankton, Ind. “Our state’s ethanol indus-try is vital to Indiana’s economy, not only for the health and prosperity of Hoosier farmers, but also for consumers who see benefit at the pump with ethanol and the state’s economy as a whole. And this study has shown that the ethanol industry has even more potential for growth in our state, which is good for farmers and consumers alike.”

The study also points out that one-third of every bushel of corn that is used to produce ethanol comes out the back end as distillers grains. “As a corn checkoff (ICMC), we are looking at ways to make sure more of our corn is getting used inside of our state borders,” says shuter. “Both ethanol and livestock production are key markets for our crop, so it’s great that this study shows that even while supplying the ethanol industry, we can still be suppliers to our livestock producers.” —Holly Jessen

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Indiana is now the fifth largest ethanol producing state—representing 7.5 percent of the total U.S. industry, according to a recently released study conducted by Informa Econom-ics and commissioned by Indiana Corn Market-ing Council. “As our ethanol industry continues

Going StrongEthanol industry growing in Indiana, even in times of economic distress

on the web

A copy of the 2011 study is available at http://www.incorn.org.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell plc is en-tering into the ethanol production arena through a joint venture formed with Brazil-ian sugar and ethanol producer Cosan Ltd. The $12 billion venture is named Raízen, a combination of the Portuguese words for root (raíz) and energy (energia), and is now the third largest fuels company in Brazil. The company will produce 2.2 billion gallons of ethanol annually, as well as 4 million tons of sugar and up to 900 MW of electricity from sugarcane bagasse. It will distribute its ethanol internationally to Shell’s nearly 4,500 retail service stations initially and plans to ex-pand its distribution market in coming years to include exports to other key markets.

shell has previously been a significant distributor of ethanol, including cellulosic

ethanol produced at Ottawa-based Iogen Energy’s demonstration facility. Shell has invested heavily in Iogen Energy as part of its strategic biofuels development program and transferred its commercialization rights related to Iogen to Raizen as part of the joint venture. shell ceo Peter Voser says the joint venture with Cosan further advanc-es his company’s plan to play a major role in biofuels production and distribution. “We are building a leadership position in the most efficient ethanol-producing country in the world,” he stated. “Low-carbon, sustainable biofuels will be increasingly important in the global transport fuel mix.”

As part of the joint venture, Shell trans-ferred approximately 5.6 million shares of its stock in Codexis Inc., a California-based

technology firm dedicated to developing bio-catalysts for advanced biofuels, among other applications. As a result, Raízen is now Co-dexis’ largest shareholder. “We look forward to the opportunity to work with Raízen in the development of biofuels,” says Codexis President and ceo Alan shaw. “With access to feedstocks and experience in ethanol pro-duction, Raízen has the potential to acceler-ate future commercialization of renewable fuels.” —Kris Bevill

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Enter ShellShell steps into biofuel production through Brazil joint venture


corn oil prices.” He adds that, based on the corn oil prices in June, Golden Grain was gain-ing $2 for every $1 it spent on the technology.

The back-end corn oil extraction aid comes from Ashland Hercules Water Technol-ogies, a commercial unit of Ashland Inc. The chemical is added to the process after distilla-tion, to the syrup being separated into corn oil and distillers grains and works by improving the release of oil during mechanical extraction, says Mccord Pankonen, global biorefining marketing manager, water technologies. The resulting oil contains less solids and means a reduction of system deposits, adding up to less

downtime for cleaning and main-tenance.

Golden Grain first began testing Ashland’s product in Oc-tober. Though it produced some good results, the 80 MMgy ethanol plant did its due diligence and test-ed other products as well, Kuhlers says. In March, the company set-tled on Ashland’s patent-pending extraction aid. In May, Ashland worked with Golden Grain to smooth out some challenges by providing the ethanol plant with a controller to more accurately dose the chemical. “Since that time it has been basically turned on full time,” he says.

Ethanol production facilities interested in increasing corn oil extraction numbers need to evaluate all potential suppliers. Each technol-ogy is different and will fit in differently with the needs of various plants. Still, Kuhlers can say Golden Grain is pleased with what Ash-land’s corn oil extraction aid has done for that company. “At least for our system, it needed something in order to get the system to per-form more as designed,” he says. Removing more corn oil does push down the protein/fat numbers in the plant’s distillers grains. It’s important that an ethanol plant going for higher corn oil extraction numbers understand its customers’ needs or it will lose business. So far, he says, the company’s increased corn oil yield has had no negative impact on its distill-ers grains sales. —Holly Jessen

A chemical corn oil extraction aid has helped a Mason City, Iowa, ethanol plant in-crease its corn oil yield dramatically. “It’s prob-ably about doubled the amount of corn oil that we get out of the plant on a weekly basis,” says chad kuhler, chief operations officer of Golden Grain Energy LLC. “It’s providing a very good return based upon these current

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Balancing ActGolden Grain finds corn oil yield sweet spot

Where it Fits A schematic diagram shows where the Ashland corn oil extraction aid is used in the ethanol production process.SOURCe: ASHLAND iNC.

Before and After Corn oil on the left was extracted before the extraction aid was used, and is compared to the extraction using the technology on the right.

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Of the various potential cellulosic etha-nol producers working to commercialize their technologies, most are taking a singular biochemical or thermochemical pathway ap-proach. A select few are employing a hybrid approach, using thermochemical processes to extract sugars from biomass feedstocks and biochemical methods to ferment those sugars into saleable products. This hybrid approach deserves more focus, according to researchers at Iowa state University’s Biore-newables Research Laboratory.

A year ago, IsU opened its hybrid Pro-cessing laboratory, located on the first floor of the Biorenewables research laboratory, and researchers have since been actively re-searching and experimenting with different hybrid approaches to renewable fuels and chemicals production. The goal is to use the lab’s incubators, reactors, gas chromatogra-phy instruments and anaerobic chambers to find new and better ways to produce those products.

One of the researchers working in the hybrid lab is Laura Jarboe, assistant profes-sor of chemical and biological engineering. She’s attempting to develop bacteria that can ferment sugars from bio-oil in order to pro-duce biorenewable fuels and chemicals. She says the main advantage of using a hybrid approach to produce biofuels, rather than a singular approach, is that the process is feedstock agnostic. “Some of the traditional processes can be very dependent on the type of biomass you’re using,” she says. “This is a more generic treatment.”

So far, hybrid processes have been cost-comparative with singular approaches, and with additional research can be reduced even further, Jarboe says. A hybrid approach can also produce a suite of products, including liquid, syngas and biochar, rather than a sin-gle liquid stream. “I think the lab is working well,” she says. “Everybody loves the idea of this hybrid approach. It has such a promis-ing future; the challenge is in the collabora-tion.”

Simply housing the hybrid lab within

the biorenewables lab has fostered a collab-orative environment. robert Brown, a leader at the biorenewables lab, says students work-ing in the hybrid lab have easily accepted the concept of using both biochemical and thermochemical production methods. “Just

like children from different cultures often learn to communicate with one another more quickly than do their parents, graduate students seem to pick up cross disciplinary culture and language faster than their faculty advisors.” —Kris Bevill

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2011 few Review

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Advancing the Industry Through Promotion, Policy and Technology

WrIttEN By HOLLy JESSEN, KrIS BEVILL,

rON KOtrBA AND SuSANNE rEtKA SCHILL.

PHOtOS By SHAWN WILLIAMS



The International fuel ethanol workshop & expo is well-known for its top-notch networking opportuni-ties and technically oriented panel sessions, but it also provides an op-portunity for like-minded people to come together and celebrate the in-dustry’s accomplishments in the face of diverse opposition.

This year’s event was no exception to the rule. Once again, the industry has made significant accomplish-ments over the past year and, again, anti-ethanol groups are waging war against what they see as a detriment to their own interests. Presentations both mornings of the FEW addressed different aspects of these accomplish-ments. The first was a keynote conversation between Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis and NASCAR CEO Brian France. The second morning Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Bob Dinneen spoke.


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Uniting to Face OppositionIn Dinneen’s keynote, he offered an

inspiring message to the hundreds of etha-nol plant employees at the conference and the thousands more who were back at their respective plants producing renewable fuel for the nation’s transportation system. “We’re always going to have a pretty strong base of support,” he assured the audience, “but don’t be mistaken—we’re always go-ing to have well-funded, well-heeled, highly motivated opponents.”

The ethanol industry is represented on the policy front by an “ethanol alliance” consisting of the RFA, Growth Energy, the American Coalition for Ethanol and the National Corn Growers Association, but Dinneen made clear that the grassroots support, which established the industry, will continue to be required in order for etha-

nol to remain successful. “Education is all of our jobs,” he said. “We all need to cor-rect the notion that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you get out of it. We need to dispel the notion that somehow we’re driving the price of food while people ignore the skyrocketing prices of oil and ignore the role of speculators in commodity markets. We need to be the re-sponsible ones and do that sort of thing. It will be a challenge for all of us. But we need to do that. We need to show some outrage about the one-sided debate that’s going on in Washington today.”

Complex issues currently facing the industry include federal financial support, lack of infrastructure and flex-fuel vehicles, and the ever-present opposition to midlevel ethanol blends. The ethanol industry also needs to evolve for new feedstocks and

technology in order to continue to displace greater amounts of petroleum, Dinneen said. “That will not happen if we all just sit around our own breakfast tables, venting frustration with what’s going on in Wash-ington,” he said. “I ask for your help, be-cause we certainly need it. Everybody needs to be a part of this fight. I need you to make the magic happen again. You need to help us make it happen in D.C. and awaken them to the growing threat that we face by the failure to immediately address our energy issues.”

Countering the Myth Machine While Dinneen’s remarks covered the

challenges in Washington, the general ses-sions on the first day showcased American Ethanol’s new venture into the world of racing. Several years ago, when NASCAR

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Cellulosic ethanol Ready NowThe commercialization of cellulosic ethanol is one of the

most critical issues facing the entire ethanol industry. A panel of speakers representing various cellulosic projects addressed some of their concerns related to cellulosic advancement, following Dinneen’s presentation. Their comments were especially pertinent considering the U.s. ePA just days before had announced a pro-posal to again drastically reduce the coming year’s cellulosic bio-fuels volume requirement as part of the renewable fuel standard [rFs]. Panelists said they weren’t surprised by the reduction, but stressed that it shouldn’t deter investors from participating in their

industry. “We’re going to miss it again in 2013, 2014, 2015,” said Wes Bolsen, chief marketing officer and vice president of govern-ment affairs at Coskata Inc. “We aren’t building plants today. It takes at least two years to build a plant, so we shouldn’t be shocked that the ePA is going to waive it this year and the next year and the year after. This is about: we need to start building now.” Once plants are built, the industry will prove itself, he said, and the fact that the ePA has had to reduce the cellulosic target should in no way indicate that the overall RFS should be lowered.

Bolsen called on corn ethanol producers to assist in getting cellulosic facilities built. “Some of you in this room may want to

confronting challenges Wes Bolsen, chief marketing officer and vice president of government affairs at Coskata Inc., left, John McCarthy, president and CEO of Qteros Inc., and Tom Corle, marketing representative for Inbicon A/S, discuss issues facing the cellulosic ethanol industry during a special panel session at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo in Indianapolis.

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first started considering using ethanol in its race cars, the myths began flying thick and fast. Ethanol ruins engines. There’s a significant mileage loss. ethanol is to blame for rising food costs. Every piece of misinformation the ethanol industry has ever battled against, NASCAR heard it, said Brian France, chairman and ceo.

In spite of the opposition, NASCAR decided to do its own investigation into ethanol. The result was the partnership of NASCAR and American Ethanol, which involves fueling every racecar with E15 and proudly displaying the American Eth-anol logo on everything from the green race flags to the fuel port of each and ev-ery car. “We can be that [third-party] vali-dator to help you get some of those myths just absolutely squashed,” France told the crowd. “And we can help you from a vis-

ibility standpoint—we race with millions of people watching. Your product, your fuel is in the cars every weekend.”

France’s message was delivered dur-ing a keynote conversation with Buis on the first full day of FeW. Following that, a panel of speakers representing NASCAR as well as the National Corn Growers As-sociation, Poet llc and novozymes, all supporting organizations of American Ethanol, drilled into the details of the part-nership between the two.

E15 hasn’t caused a single problem for NASCAR, France said. In fact, it’s a higher combustion fuel that provides increased horsepower and only a slight decrease in mileage. “This fuel has been a great fuel for NASCAR and we’re happy to be your part-ner,” he said. In turn, NASCAR provides American Ethanol with a very visible, high-

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step up and say, ‘You know what? I think we can tap into some of these UsDA funds.’ Agriculture Secretary [Tom] Vilsack has been a fantastic champion for this industry and there’s going to be a farm bill coming up. He’s going to need to hear that the current producers and the future producers of cellulosic ethanol are going to be there.”

John McCarthy, president and CEO of Qteros Inc., which formed a strategic partnership early this year with India-based ethanol engineering firm Praj Industries Ltd. to accelerate the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol, pointed out that the U.S. is quickly falling behind other countries in the development of cellulosic biofu-els. The market is growing rapidly outside of the U.S. because it is not as politicized, he said, adding, “These aren’t just bucket-shot projects that are getting built. These are very highly qualified, very sophisticated projects with very sophisticated part-ners.” He said the need to continuously reduce the U.S. RFS lies not at the fault of cellulosic technology, but the policy issues surrounding it. “The facilities are getting built, admittedly at a slower pace than any of us would have liked, which is more of a capital markets issue, but the technology is there and ready to go,” he said. “If the requirement is put in place to blend 500 million gallons of advanced biofuels into the fuel stock, yet there’s only 3 or 4 million gallons available, why? It’s not a question of technology; it’s not even a question of balance sheets. The major oil companies, the major ag companies, and others will put their money behind this industry, if they are required to. This ultimately gets into a very straightforward energy policy consideration for the country.”

Panelists unanimously agreed that long-term tax credits will alleviate some of investors’ concerns related to cellulosic ethanol production. Tom Corle, marketing representative for Inbicon A/S, said yearly extensions do not provide the assurance needed to raise capital to fund first-of-a-kind projects. “A short window … we can do maybe a project or two, but Washington should be interested in developing an industry and not just a couple of projects,” he said.—Kris Bevill


impact stage to get its mes-sage out, France said. A lot of work was done by both sides to make the partner-ship possible. “This is a true relationship that’s going to get better,” he said. “It’s go-ing to get bigger.”

Attendance is up at NASCAR races for the 2011 season, Buis pointed out. “Can we say that’s because of ethanol?” he asked.

“We can today—with this group,” France quipped, prompting laugh-ter from the audience.

It all started, more than three years ago, when France mandated that NASCAR start moving in a greener direction, said Eric Nyquist, vice president of strategic devel-opment, NASCAR. Working with corpo-rate sponsors and fans to encourage more environmentally friendly practices was the easy part. What was harder, however, was identifying something NASCAR could do that was directly attached to racing. Using ethanol as a racing fuel came to mind very quickly. However, the risk was initially per-ceived to be way too high, considering that many within nAscAr firmly believed in what they now know to be myths, which is why, at that point, Nyquist saw the chances of NASCAR using ethanol as zero. “This is what our entire business was built around, was performance on the track,” he said. “There was no chance that we were going to introduce something into that vehicle, if in way, shape or form it had any chance of compromising our racing product.”

Despite the perceived difficulties of using ethanol, Nyquist decided to do a lit-tle more research. he flew to sioux Falls, s.D., where he met with Poet llc’s ceo Jeff Broin and Greg Breukelman, senior vice president of communications. That is when, Nyquist said, he learned the truth about ethanol—something he considers somewhat shameful, considering the Min-nesota native “grew up within spitting dis-tance” of an ethanol plant.

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heavy hitters Representatives of NASCAR and American Ethanol drill into the details of their partnership. They are, from left, Mike Lynch, NASCAR, Eric Nyquist, NASCAR, Rick Tolman, NCGA, Greg Breukelman, Poet, Norris Scott, NASCAR, and Poul Ruben Anderson, Novozymes.

That was the beginning of a two- or three-year process of education for NA-SCAR’s team. At the same time NASCAR was vetting the ethanol industry, the ethanol industry was carefully considering whether a partnership with the stock car racing asso-ciation would be a good move. Some were enthusiastic while others were skeptical, said Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association. Although exact terms of the six-year partnership have not been released, Tolman did say the commitment is a “substantial investment financially” on the part of American Ethanol. Though it’s always difficult to “pry open the wallets of farmers,” Tolman considers it a very worth-while partnership. “This could be a game changer,” he said.

Several speakers, including Tolman, talked about the power the partnership has to debunk the myth that ethanol damages engines. “When you can say that the most sophisticated engines in the world—800 horsepower, $100,000 vehicles are running on ethanol and the pit crews and the crew chiefs and the race drivers are saying, ‘This is good stuff, it works, we’re supportive of it,’ that puts that argument to rest,” Tolman said.

Breukelman talked about the power of NASCAR’s use of E15 in validating that specific fuel. Although there are more hoops to jump through to bring E15 to the marketplace, Poet felt it was an ideal time for NASCAR to start using the 15 percent

blend so closely following the U.s. ePA’s ap-proval of the E15 waiver. “We just couldn’t think of any other way to validate E15 as a high performance fuel than NASCAR,” he said.

NASCAR is known for having many commercial sponsors and branding that is very visible on the track. The unique thing about American Ethanol, however, is that it’s truly a partnership rather than just a sponsorship, said Norris Scott, vice presi-dent of partnership marketing and business solutions for NASCAR. In addition, it’s not a partnership with a single ethanol plant or company; it’s a partnership with an entire industry. Key elements of that partnership, besides the fuel in every race car, are the green flags waved at the start and restart of every race and the green circles around the gas tank covers of every car. That puts American Ethanol in the position of being the first to have branding on the flags and one of only a few with logos on every car. “To someone that doesn’t know NASCAR, that might not seem like a big deal,” he said. “But there are hundreds of sponsors in the sport and there are only a handful of spon-sors that literally have branding on every car, so it’s a very unique position, something that we think will, over time, have much more of an impact on our fans.” —Holly Jessen and Kris Bevill


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FEW Scholarships Two women are receiving $2,000 Kathy Bryan Memorial scholarships this year. They are Mary Schrock, left, an employee of Abengoa Bioenergy of Indiana, and Bailee McClellan, the daughter of an employee of Big River United Energy LLC in Dyersville, Iowa. Schrock has worked as a laboratory technician at Abengoa Bioenergy of Indiana in Mount Vernon since July 2009, and is working on a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies to further her advancement at the ethanol facility. McClellan is seeking a degree in environmental policy. She discovered her passion for all things green when taking an Introduction to Environmental Science class. “Ethanol … became a biofuel, a hope for alternative, renewable energy that could sustain the future,” she said in her application.

Award of Excellence Bruce Dale, professor of chemical engineering and associate director of the office of biobased technologies at Michigan State University, was recognized for his extensive research on the production of cellulosic ethanol, developing the pretreatment known as AFEX and for his work in scientifically challenging the indirect land use change (iLUC) concept. in accepting the award, he reminded the audience the U.S. was the first oil country, and the decline of domestic oil is behind the economic slowdown. “We will solve the problem by developing sustainable renewable fuels.” He urged the ethanol industry to wholeheartedly embrace cellulosic ethanol. “I believe we can replace all of our oil with renewable fuels—technically, we can do it.”

high octane Award Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, was recognized for his advocacy for the ethanol industry. He gave credit to NCGA’s staff and leaders at the state and national level for putting “their heart and soul into ethanol promotion” and talked about the benefits of ethanol. The ethanol industry has historically gone through up and down cycles. “Even though it looks like there are a lot of critics and some challenges right now, I think we have to keep a long-term perspective,” he said. “We’ll get back to another growth cycle and things will change, as they always do. This too shall pass. Those strong fundamentals will win out.”


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Ethanol produced from cellulosic materials—once thought to be a con-cept that would never make it out of the lab—has unarguably become the most popular topic among corn ethanol producers and cellulosic project developers alike, as evidenced by the overwhelming turnout of eager speakers and attendees in the cellulosic track at the 27th annual International Fuel ethanol Workshop & Expo in Indianapolis. While it seems to be widely agreed that second-generation biofuel production is the future of ethanol, exactly which feedstocks and tech-nologies will be best used to produce that fuel are still under debate.

For years, cellulosic ethanol was viewed as a portion of the industry that would exist independently from starch-based facilities, but as new technologies become available and corn ethanol producers aggressively seek new ways to di-versify their product streams, a growing number of traditional ethanol producers are warming to the notion of co-locating cellulosic systems with their existing plants. More than 200 conference attendees packed into the conference’s open-ing cellulosic ethanol session to listen as industry experts discussed their views toward integrating cellulosic production at existing corn ethanol facilities. Mark Penshorn, project manager for science Applications International corp.’s renew-able energy group, pointed out that it will eventually become impossible to plant enough corn to meet the U.S. federal government’s steadily increasing renewable fuel standard. “The obvious next step is cellulosic biofuel,” he said.

One of the most attractive aspects of co-locating cellulosic facilities with corn facilities is the ready availability of feedstock by way of corn stover. Or

Cellulosic producers present multiple paths forwardBy KrIS BEVILL

Room for DebatePaths AheadProducers and project developers share their perspectives on integrating cellulosic ethanol production systems with existing starch-based facilities during the international Fuel Ethanol Workshop & expo held in indianapolis, June 27-30.

Cellulosic ethanol


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is it? Several presenters said they’re placing their bets on corn stover as the winning feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production, but others disagreed. Speakers representing Inbicon A/S and EdeniQ Inc. said they are exploring stover as one of the first primary cellulosic feedstocks. Inbicon’s project lead-er for north America, Paul kamp, appealed to the ease of obtaining stover suppliers at existing ethanol plants and said that’s one reason it makes sense for corn ethanol fa-cilities to integrate cellulosic capabilities. “Your grain suppliers will also likely be your stover suppliers,” he said, adding, “we do a lot of work on it and we know we can do it.” Tom Griffin, vice president of technol-ogy at edeniQ, said stover is the first feed-stock of focus for his company, followed by switchgrass, bagasse, energy cane and wood sources.

Doug Rivers, director of research and development at ICM Inc., made a case against corn stover as a primary feedstock during his presentation. He displayed a photo taken of the 2009 corn crop that showed unharvested corn nearly buried in snowdrifts after the area received early, heavy snowfalls. Stover can’t be taken off fields until the corn crop is harvested, and if the harvest is delayed due to bad weath-er conditions, it could result in feedstock shortages for stover users, he suggested. “It is our position that we would hate to bank a $200 to $400 million cellulosic plant on a stover supply that doesn’t get there,” he said. “So we see corn stover as an oppor-tunist feedstock, where you may run it part of the year based on availability.”

Others are focusing their efforts on ethanol produced from dedicated energy crops and many favor the Southeast U.S. as an ideal location to establish those facilities. Speakers from Tennessee-based Genera Energy LLC and Ceres Inc. said weather and land availability in the Southeast make it favorable for switchgrass, sorghum and miscanthus projects. Genera is readying a launch into the commercial arena as a feedstock supplier for ventures throughout the southeast, according to Bob randle, the company’s vice president of business development. Frank Hardimon, Ceres’ di-

rector of sales, highlighted his company’s switchgrass and sorghum projects through-out that portion of the country but said miscanthus is not ready for commercializa-tion anywhere yet due to the difficulties of harvesting it.

Financial hurdles continue to be a ma-jor issue for cellulosic ethanol producers. In his presentation, Jeff Passmore, president of Passmore Group Inc., said Wall street investors are currently more willing to in-vest in wind or solar projects than biofu-els because of the inherent uncertainties related to first-of-a-kind cellulosic projects. “The project capital cost and the project operating cost and the project revenue flow are all known for wind. And none of them are known for cellulosic ethanol,” he said. “So, while wind faces cost challenges—yes, it’s more expensive than natural gas—cel-lulosic ethanol faces first-plant commer-cialization challenges.” Passmore’s list of “tools” necessary to encourage investment in cellulosic ethanol projects included a long-term cellulosic producer’s tax credit, expanded infrastructure by way of E85 and blender pumps and more flex-fuel vehicles, and the continuation of the renewable fuel standard.

Considering the multitude of issues facing cellulosic ethanol producers, Phil Madsen, president of Katzen Internation-al Inc., offered an alternative to the next generation of biofuels. His presentation focused heavily on new sugar and starch feedstock sources, such as inedible sweet potatoes, cassava root, and SunSpuds, which could be used with existing technolo-gies and strategies as a bridge between first-generation and second-generation biofuels. His company refers to this as generation 1.5 and believes it will be a necessary filler to move the industry from first- to second-generation biofuels production. “Cellulosic conversion will succeed in special situations and by 2020 we will see less than 500 mil-lion gallons worldwide,” he said. “We be-lieve at Katzen that new sugar and starch sources, by 2030, using fuel-specific agri-culture, will have greater than 50 billion gallons of production using conventional, known technology.”


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Competitive salaries aren’t the only thing people look for in their job choice By HOLLy JESSEN

It’s Not Just About the Money

Managementlistening In Top photo, Jay Beckel, ERI Solutions inc., speaks about safety. Others on the panel included moderator Walt Wendland and speakers Paula emberland, Christianson & Associates, and Rob Southern, Kennedy and Coe LLC.

It’s a good idea for employers to research how their organization’s sal-ary and benefits plan stacks up to the competition. For ethanol plants, that means what other ethanol production facilities, as well as other employers in their geographical region, offer their staff. What is in an individual em-ployee’s paycheck, however, is hardly the end-all be-all of what makes him or her a hard-working and satisfied member of the team.

Two speakers, Rob Southern, a human resources consultant for Kenne-dy and coe llc, and Paula emberland, a business analyst for christianson & Associates PllP, addressed this topic during a panel presentation held June 29 at the FeW. southern characterized it this way. “It’s hiring the right people, getting the right people in the right positions, treating them fairly, developing them and giving them feedback, providing strong leadership and recognizing and rewarding their contributions,” he said.

Southern zeroed in on the importance of proper training for supervi-


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sors and management. That could include at-tending seminars, taking advantage of webi-nars or free online training content and even assigning that person a mentor. “This is really too vital to be left to chance and sometimes it does get left to chance, I think,” he said.

He gave the example of a situation where a stellar employee that has never been a supervisor or manager is promoted from within the ranks. Putting someone with no management experience in a management position without any training can be a recipe for disaster—not to mention the difficulties of someone managing people who used to be their peers. “We put people into posi-tions, being a supervisor or manager, and really don’t equip them … for those roles,” he said.

Beyond that, it’s absolutely critical that the right people are put in management po-sitions in the first place. A good manager needs to be caring, competent and engaged, staying in touch with his or her employees and showing that they value them, South-

ern said. That means showing concern for employee well-being and giving open and honest feedback in a constructive way. That kind of manag-er gets results. “They get commitment,” he said. “That is, the employee wants to commit, versus com-pliance—they have to. As we all know, those are two signifi-

cantly separate situations.”Training isn’t just important for those in

management positions, however. Southern recommended fostering an environment of continuous learning. Employers might want to make career and advancement goals a part of the employee review process. In addition, they should offer all employees training op-portunities on any of the tools they use to

do their job. “They’re going to be more effi-cient, they’re going to be more effective, with less frustration in their job,” he said.

Another important step in retaining em-ployees is taking the time to let them know when they have done a good job. This is something that frequently gets lost in the shuffle of a busy schedule. southern said it could be as simple as a quick comment or an email. He also suggested that the compli-ment be specific, describing what they did that was positive, rather than just a general good job, pat on the back. Expressions of gratitude can also go to teams, rather than just individuals. For example, Southern men-tioned a cookout or a team-building event away from the workplace. “There’s lots of creative things that you can do to help build the team,” he said.

He also talked about giving employees the chance to give their input into what’s happening and help identify areas for im-provement in the workplace. “Give them a say in how things are done,” he said. “It

Be careful What you Wish For Paula emberland of Christianson & Associates said that bonus and incentive programs can actually be counterproductive, if not structured properly.


makes a huge difference.” This could happen during a team meeting or through an anony-mous employee survey, which is a great tool to measure how engaged employees are in the business. “It really gives you a good pulse of what’s going on with your workforce,” he said.

Emberland’s presentation focused on bonus and incentive programs, an area in which christianson & Associates gathers sta-tistics as part of its benchmarking program. Although the two words are often used in-terchangeably, a bonus is extra pay for good performance while an incentive encourages a certain behavior from employees but does not have to be financial. like southern, em-berland mentioned company events either for employees alone or including their fami-lies, tickets to a ball game, happy hour at a bar or any number of ways to recognize and reward employees. “There’s a lot of employ-ees out there that just like a pat on the back,” she said. “You need to figure out what’s go-ing to motivate your team.”

A bonus or incentive program does not have to be complicated, she said. She gave examples of programs used by ethanol plants that participate in the benchmarking program and stressed that each company should find what works for itself. one plant provided a 1 percent bonus for zero lost time hours, 2 percent bonus based on yield, 1 percent based on energy savings and 1 percent based on the plant’s production

level—adding up to 5 percent of a produc-tion team members annual salary. Another way to do it, separately or together with the previous type of bonus program, is to give employees percentage bonuses based on the company’s annual net income. The key is to think through carefully how the program will work, how much money it will cost the company and when the bonuses will be paid out. The next step is to make sure employ-

SOURCe: CHRiSTiANSON & ASSOCiATeS

Benchmarking Labor Survey - Plants Offering Bonuses

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ees understand how it will work. It’s also vital that the goals are actually achievable. “The goals need to be realistic and they need to be measurable,” she said. “There’s nothing worse than feeling like you can ever achieve that goal.”

There are a lot of myths out there about bonus and incentive programs. The first is that it automatically boosts morale. In fact, if it’s not structured correctly, it can have the opposite effect. Often companies turn to bonuses and incentives when they are having trouble with morale, but that move alone won’t fix the problem. “Take a look deeper as to what is going on with your company if you are struggling,” she said. “There’s no employee or bonus incen-

tive program that is going to fix poor hiring or bad management practices.”

Another myth is that bonuses or in-centives will show that the company is generous. That’s not always the case either. “From the employee perspective, what they see is the fact that the company is expecting more from me. I need to work harder in or-der to achieve what they’re expecting from me,” she said.

Others have the mistaken idea that bonuses or incentives will always boost productivity and motivate employees. If employees aren’t provided with the correct resources and tools, it could actually work against productivity. Another thing to be careful of is workplace competition. It’s im-

portant to remember that with competition, there will be winners, yes, but there will also be losers.

That’s not to say that bonus and in-centive programs can’t be a good thing, if structured correctly. A company whose bonus and incentive program isn’t work-ing should scrap it and start over, Ember-land recommended. Once it’s working as it should, a bonus and incentive program can serve to get employees’ attention, help them feel more like a part of the team and align them with the goals of the company.

Jay Beckel, the director of process safety management for ERI Solutions Inc., spoke during the panel discussion about keeping employees safe once they have been hired. The moderator for this panel presentation was Walt Wendland, ceo and President of Golden Grain Energy LLC.

Benchmarking Labor Survey - Plants with Incentives

SOURCe: CHRiSTiANSON & ASSOCiATeS

Good managers get results. ‘They get commitment. That is, the employee wants to commit, versus compliance—they have to. As we all know, those are two significantly separate situations.’

— Rob Southern, human resource consultant, Kennedy and Coe

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The next generation of corn ethanol coproducts is hereBy rON KOtrBA

enhancement & Diversity

COPRODUCTS/PRODUCT DIVeRSIfICATION

Expanding Revenue Streamsethanol producers are keen to learn more about expanding ethanol coproducts beyond DDGS to include corn oil. New synergies with biodiesel are being explored. Some say the next generation of corn oil extraction must focus on oil

quality and quantity, while maximizing DDGS value and consistency. Oth-ers say the time is right for dry fractionation, a capital-intense approach to diversifying ethanol plant product streams. Then there are those who bring to light new Food and Drug Administration regulations that will put extraordinary pressure on ethanol producers, since feed is ultimately food. Even though their agendas and messages were slightly different, one thing all of the speakers in the coproducts/Product Diversification track at the FEW agreed on is that coproduct enhancement and diversity are critical to survival as a low-cost player in today’s trying economical and sociopolitical environments.

Yhanhong Zhang, assistant director with the national corn-to-eth-anol Research Center, presented survey results on DDGS contaminants. “Mycotoxins are unavoidable,” she said, “they are weather related.” Harold Tilstra with land o’lakes Purina Feed, who spoke on the same panel titled Containing Distillers Grains Contaminants, further explained that some mycotoxins such as aflatoxins are associated with drought conditions while others, such as vomitoxins (also called deoxynivalenols) are brought on by wet weather conditions. Zhang said in 2009 predictions of greater vomitox-ins present in corn were on the rise, which initiated interest at NCERC to


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conduct sample surveys of DDGS at vari-ous ethanol plants.

The DDGS survey took place between August 2009 and January 2011, so the corn used came from the 2008-’10 growing sea-son. Eight ethanol plants were surveyed ev-ery other month during the investigation pe-riod. The results showed that aflatoxins were found not to be an issue, but two of the eight plants sampled showed levels of vomitoxins well past the 5 ppm Food and Drug Admin-istration advisory level. The samples show-ing the highest concentration of vomitoxins were taken during spring 2010, dying down after then. Fumonisin levels at three of the eight ethanol plants surpassed the FDA ad-visory level of 5 ppm as well. Zhang noted, however, that “the plants with high vomitox-ins were different than the plants with high fumonisin levels.” None of the eight plants tested bimonthly during that period showed detectable levels of T-2 mycotoxins.

Zhang also shared data from DDGS produced with corn from crop years 2005-

’07. She said 235 samples were taken from 23 dry mill ethanol plants, and the highest aflatoxin levels were at 4 ppb, meaning none were higher than the FDA advisory level. No vomitoxin levels were higher than the advi-sory level either, but the highest fumonisin levels were at around 8.6 ppm, and 10 per-cent sampled showed levels of fumonisin greater than the 5 ppm FDA advisory level.

She explained how mycotoxin levels in corn get concentrated in DDGS. To prove it, she took paired samples from two ethanol plants in 14 consecutive days, and monitored the results. Enrichment of contamination in DDGS from mycotoxin-contaminated corn is roughly 3.5 times, she said, stressing that it is imperative to monitor levels of these con-taminants in the incoming corn.

New RegulationsThe Food Safety Modernization Act is

changing how ethanol producers do business, shifting focus on just being fuel producers that incidentally make a feed coproduct, to being

fuel, and food, producers. “Feed is food,” said Matt Gibson, ICM Inc.’s vice president of feed. Gibson directed anyone in the audience who wishes to learn more about the FSMA to search Public law 111-353. The main points of the new regulation are to improve the ca-pacity of ethanol producers to prevent prob-lems, and to detect and respond to problems. “It’s not just about recalls or inspections,” Gibson said. It’s about a prevention man-date, and those who are noncompliant will be held accountable. Ethanol producers must register under the act beginning in 2012, and every other year thereafter. Having a Hazard Analysis and critical control Point plan “is a big part of this,” he said, and it needs to be implemented by July 4, 2012.

The FDA “shall assess and collect” for re-inspections, he emphasized. The frequen-cy of facility inspections is based on risk, higher or lower, and Gibson noted that feed producers like ethanol plants are considered lower risk, but cooperation with the FDA is paramount.


dience that, just like feedstock, chemicals and yeast, “opera-tions is another input.”

She detailed how design of an ethanol plant’s milling, piping, equipment, automa-tion, cooling, dryer designs and DDG handling all have profound effects on distillers grains quality. Milling is im-portant as it determines par-ticle distribution in the plant and the size of material in DDGS, so a plant needs the right hammers, screens and so forth to optimize particle size. The right piping can mini-

mize chemical inputs, reduce or eliminate sulfur and minimize caustic consumption. “No dead legs,” she said, meaning a plant shouldn’t have any areas in its configuration of piping where mash sits and doesn’t move, for that only leads to a place where bacte-ria and sugar concentrate, which have to be mitigated with chemicals. Also, Vigil pointed out that something as simple as pipe welds can have a big impact on bacteria growth. “Smooth welds give no place for bacteria to grow,” as opposed to jagged welds with pockets for bacteria infiltration. she said heat exchangers should be designed with biology in mind so they can be easily drained. Higher temperature cooking can help kill bacteria that would otherwise get recycled through the backset, and if the bacteria is minimized or eliminated through high-tem-perature cooking, so too is the need for antibiotics. Automa-tion can greatly increase a plant’s consistency.

Plants also must consider dryer capacity, and a plant may require spare capacity in order to run consistently on a day-to-day basis. “Size matters,” she said, referring to dryer capacity. “Dryers become bottlenecks, so when the drying temperature is raised” to push more product through, this adversely affects lysine levels, dropping the pres-ence of the critical amino acid.

It also increases VOC emissions. Another point to think about, Vigil told the audience, is that improper cooling leads to product bridging. Backset is good because it de-creases the amount of fresh water needed to make ethanol, but it increases viscosity and enzyme usage, and it increases the potential for contamination as well as produces more nonfermentable solids circling around the plant. Vigil cautioned managers to maintain consistent operator schedules. “The impor-tance of shift uniformity is key, especially if the plant is not automated.” Finally, Vigil noted that the very most important thing to monitor in an ethanol plant is fermentation.

Dry Fractionation Integration of front-end fractionation

technologies has long been discussed as an opportunity for ethanol producers to diver-sify their product streams and add to their bottom lines, but years of anticipation have given way to little acceptance from dry mill plants at best. Pete Moss, vice president of marketing for cereal Process Technolo-gies, gives good reasons why this may finally change.

Moss says the 15 billion gallon cap on corn ethanol in RFS2 is one reason fraction-ation will finally come to the dry mill corn ethanol industry. Corn ethanol plant projects not grandfathered into RFS2 will be forced to incorporate advanced technologies to move forward. The U.s. ePA dictates that advanced ethanol technologies that can be

“There is whistleblower protection clearly in the law,” he added. “What does all this mean for me? In my opinion, you and I, and everybody, must be proactive. There’s a big liability associated with this. Compliance must become soP (standard operating pro-cedure).”

He advised ethanol producers to be on the lookout for new rules, and cautioned that all inputs must be feed grade or better. “Assistance is available,” Gibson said.

Good inputs, Good OutputsTara Vigil, a chemical process engineer

with Katzen International, who spoke on the same panel as Gibson, uttered those same words: “Feed is food.” She said “too many chemicals in your plant can destroy your coproduct,” and rallied the audience of ethanol producers to “make a better feed that ultimately ends up on your table.”

“Coproducts make the margin,” she said, meaning a plant’s profitability, or lack thereof, is often determined by the distill-ers grains sales. She highlighted the often-discussed drawbacks of distillers grains: in-consistency in moisture, fiber, grain size, fat content, sulfur and more. “There’s room for improvement,” she said. “The standard de-viation is very great, and it can land on either side of the average, making a huge range.”

What is done upstream affects results downstream. “You get out what you put in,” she said, “or better yet, you don’t get out what you don’t put in.” She also reminded the au-

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ddGS Study Yhanhong Zhang, assistant director with the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center, said mycotoxins are unavoidable, they are weather related.

SoP compliance Matt Gibson, vice president, feed, for ICM, said with whistleblower protection in place, everyone must be proactive and compliance with regulations must become standard operating procedure.

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incorporated at dry mills include both corn oil fractionation and back-end extraction, Moss said, and to be considered advanced, the plant must achieve an annual aver-age rate of 1.33 pounds of oil per bushel of corn. “By 2022, the technology will be there,” he added.

In addition to the 15 billion gallon cap, Moss said the other driving factor that will finally enable ethanol plants to move to-ward the capital-intense fractionation pro-cess involves consolidation in the industry. “What we’re seeing today is more capable [companies] with bigger balance sheets,” he said. Companies with deeper pockets can either absorb the higher capital expenses to outfit a plant with front-end fractionation capacity or finagle investors to shell out the money.

“We are moving from being a subsidy-driven industry to being an RFS2-driven in-dustry,” Moss said. He added that in order to make this work, some plants will have to “team up with others” in order to take

full advantage of the value, which he said can lead to four times the net income of an ethanol plant producing just fuel, carbon dioxide and distillers grains. Instead, the plant can produce industrial- or food-grade corn oil with low free fatty acids, de-oiled germ, bran, white fiber, fuel, high-protein feed and more.

Oil extraction, Biodiesel ICM announced at the FEW it has ob-

tained signed contracts for installation of its patent-pending Advanced Oil System at four plants. The company is calling AOS the next-generation oil extraction system. “Most oil extraction providers use a combi-nation of centrifugation and chemical addi-tives to extract corn oil; however, extraction rates can be limited by emulsification,” the company stated. AOS uses an emulsion-breaking approach to deliver a much higher conversion rate than is currently possible with first-generation oil recovery technol-ogy, and consists of separate skid-mounted

units that can be installed at plants without oil extraction technology, or a modified ver-sion of the technology can be installed at plants that have already invested in ICM’s first-generation oil separation equipment.

Despite ongoing patent infringement litigation, Greenshift Corp.’s Chief Tech-nology officer David Winsness shared the stage with Brock Beach, capital sales man-ager for oil separation solutions for ICM Inc., one of several litigants in the lawsuit, where the two answered audience questions about their companies’ differing oil extrac-tion methods. “I believe we have the pio-neering patent on the extraction process,” Winsness said. “We don’t use a tricanter, we use a disc stack centrifuge. There’s more G-force there while consuming less horse-power.” Beach responded, saying that IcM uses a tricanter made by Flottweg, another litigant in the patent infringement case, be-cause “tricanters are designed for heavy sol-ids,” and the material will ultimately “spend less time in a tricanter” than in a disc stack


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centrifuge. on the unit’s power, Beach said, “We don’t see the need for more G-force.”

Winsness said at 30 cents a pound, ex-tracting a half pound a bushel, a 110 MMgy ethanol plant that processes 20 million bush-els can add $6 million to its bottom line. The capital costs for extracting a half-pound per bushel is about $500,000, Winsness said, adding there’s a one-year return on that in-vestment.

He acknowledged that removing too much oil from distillers grains can have negative impacts on the quality of the feed supplement and its going rate. “If you keep taking out the fat, it will impact the feed,” he said, adding to keep the protein-to-fat ratio in mind. “For every 3 percent of the oil you remove, you increase the protein by 1 per-cent.”

Joe Riley, general manager of FEC So-lutions, said there should be a premium for high-fat distillers grains, so if the demand for inedible corn oil from the biodiesel industry goes away, the markets won’t crash and etha-nol producers will still be able to retain some of that value. “Today there’s not much price difference” between high-fat and de-oiled DDGS, Riley said. Soybean meal goes for $330 a ton and “we should shoot for that,” he said, admitting, “Yes, the amino acid pro-file is different.”

“Find diverse homes for your oil,” Riley said. “The last thing you want to do is have a load of corn oil come back into your plant.” He said the low-hanging fruit at an ethanol plant is still from beer column on, and that the next generation of corn oil extraction will need to focus on oil quality, quantity and, finally, maximizing DDGs quality.

Riley was asked by an audience member if the oil extracted from the backend of eth-anol plants is “good enough for the biodiesel industry.” He responded, “There are a num-ber of different biodiesel technologies out there” to handle the material. “Good enough is difficult to say.”

Biodiesel producers found the oil to be “good enough” to make up slightly less than 10 percent of the U.S. feedstock supply in 2010, according to Dave Elsenbast, vice president of supply chain management for Renewable Energy Group Inc. The National Biodiesel Board reports only 315 million gal-lons of biodiesel was produced in the U.S. last year, so roughly 31 million gallons of U.S. biodiesel manufactured in 2010 were de-rived from corn oil. He said about 35 percent of U.S. ethanol plants implement corn oil ex-traction, adding that he expects that number to double within a couple of years.

While use of 31 million gallons of corn oil for biodiesel production is encouraging,

Winsness said the U.s. ePA projects 680 million gallons of corn oil will be needed to meet the RFS2’s biomass-based diesel targets. He mentioned the 2011 diesel requirement of 800 million gallons, next year’s 1 billion gallon mandate, and ePA’s proposed volume for 2013, 1.28 billion gallons. “We’ve got 500 million gallons to make up in three years,” Winsness said.

Talk of co-locating biodiesel pro-cessing units with ethanol plants has been around since these oil extraction technolo-gies emerged, but the model of selling the oil to offsite users through marketers has dominated the scene. Now Winsness says he thinks a number of ethanol companies will finally come around to processing their corn oil into biodiesel onsite. One big reason is, as he said, “There’s plenty of opportunity to sell 100 percent of the biodiesel locally.” The combined on- and off-road local demand would soak up locally available biodiesel. He said Greenshift has a pending patent applica-tion for a blender pump so ethanol produc-ers with biodiesel manufacturing onsite could maximize sales of biodiesel locally, and with the high price of biomass-based diesel RINs and the $1 per gallon federal blenders tax credit in play, they can pass the higher blend savings to the customer locally. “The first movers have the advantage here,” he said.


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Production

The well-attended production track at the 2011 International Fuel Ethanol Work-shop got into the nitty gritty of optimiz-ing ethanol plants, addressing topics from yeasts and enzymes to the proper grind, ef-ficient distillation, maximized water use and well-tuned software controls.

Christopher Richards, global sales man-ager, Lallemand Ethanol Technolgy, point-ed out there are four steps to optimizing plants. The first is to achieve consistency. “Seventy percent of any gains come from reducing variability,” he said. A consistent plant, even one that is running poorly, is easier to optimize than a variable one. The second stage involves standard operating procedures. “Are they right? Do they need to be updated?” he asked, adding that writ-ing, reviewing and continually updating standard operating procedures “can be an effective way of getting buy-in from shifts.” The third stage, this fermentation expert said, is making sure there is effective dosing and that fermentation is consistent and ef-ficient. only when those three are in place, he said, can new ideas, products and tech-

nologies be examined. “Most people want to jump to step four,” he added.

Reducing variability was the main focus of the software experts who discussed process control. Representatives from ICM Inc., Rockwell Software and Expertune Inc. described the conceptual frameworks be-hind their software solutions. John Gerry, president of Expertune, explained that better base layer control in individual control loops is needed before an overall advanced process control system can be put in place. “In typical plants, 40 to 60 percent of the control loops are turned to manual mode,” he said.

Before comprehensive computerized control systems are put in place, ethanol op-erators are typically reacting to laboratory test results, said Maina Macharia, industry manager-biofuels for Rockwell Software. Adapted from the oil industry, multivariable predictive control (MPc) systems are used to build computer models capable of doing vir-tual online analysis that can then make adjust-ments from real-time tests. In the plant-wide MPc systems installed to date by rockwell, the average production rate increased 9.7 percent, the average yield increase was 3.6 percent, the average natural gas used per gal-lon reduced 5.72 percent, for an overall mar-gin improvement ranging from 5 to 11 cents per gallon.

MPc is useful where there are measure-ment that can be taken and valves can be manipulated, explained Bob Wilson, capital sales manager at IcM Inc. “Yeast and en-

zymes don’t have valves,” he added. ICM’s team for total optimization has developed advanced process control models to work synergistically with MPc. Advanced process control implementation at one 115 MMgy plant brought its capacity up to 120 MMgy, he said.

Other speakers during the panels in the production track addressed many other areas of plant operations, with several introduc-ing their companies’ ideas for innovation. “The drying operation for DDGS is respon-sible for 30 percent of the total energy use in the plant,” said Vivek Sharma, Genencor senior applications scientist. Genencor is de-veloping a dewatering enzyme that reduces the water-holding capacity of whole stillage, allowing 10 to 14 percent more liquid to be sent to the evaporator and reducing the liq-uids in the wet cake, thus reducing the wet cake load on the dryers.

Thin stillage is the target of another technology using anaerobic digestion com-bined with ultrafiltration membranes devel-oped by Biothane llc. Timur Dunaev, pro-cess engineer, said anaerobic digestion can provide flexibility between using thin stillage for energy production, or sending it on the evaporators and dryers for distillers grains in favorable feed markets. Thin stillage produc-es 4 to 7 cubic feet of biogas for every gallon and in the process removes 98 percent of the chemical oxygen demand and 99.9 percent of total solids, making any consequent water treatment much easier.

Multi-pronged approaches to optimizationBy SuSANNE rEtKA SCHILL

Tuning it Up


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AuThoRS: Holly JessenAssociate editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine. (701) 738-4946 [email protected]

Kris BevillAssociate editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine. (701) 540-6846 [email protected]

Ron Kotrbaeditor, Biodiesel Magazine(701) [email protected]

Susanne Retka Schilleditor, Ethanol Producer Magazine. (701) 738-4922 [email protected]


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networking PlusSolid content draws attendees, but so do the opportunities to network and socialize. Held in Indianapolis, the 2011 International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo developed the racing theme, offering insights into American ethanol’s partnership with NASCAR and updates on policy and technology advancements. The Wednesday evening Brickyard Bash was held at the site of the Indy 500.

PHOTO: KRiS BeViLL


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One plant’s success story in an ever-evolving industryBy KrIS BEVILL

A

TimesConstantinChanging

In three decades of industrial ethanol production in the u.S., there is really only one summation that can be made with total accuracy—nothing ever stays the same. Policies change, prices skyrocket and drop, some technologies advance while others be-come obsolete, new competitors emerge. The volatility and thin margins of the industry have taken their toll on a number of companies through bankruptcies, mergers and reorganizations. But other members of the ethanol industry have had the good fortune to travel down a different production path.

Near Hastings, a community of about 25,000 people nestled amid the seem-ingly endless corn fields of south-central nebraska, chief ethanol Fuels Inc. has been steadily churning out ethanol since late 1984. The oldest dry-mill ethanol facility in Nebraska, Chief Ethanol celebrated a milestone earlier this year when it produced and sold its billionth gallon of ethanol in February. For a plant that began operations with just 10 million gallons of capacity, reaching the billion-gallon mark is quite a feat. So, considering its humble beginnings, and the wild swings of the industry, we just had to know: What’s their secret?

“We expect times to change,” says Duane Kristensen, Chief Ethanol’s general manager. “We’ve been through the markets enough to know that when things are at their darkest it’ll get better and when things look bright there’s probably some-thing that’s lurking out there that’s going to come back.” Kristensen joined Chief Ethanol in its early years of operation (he’ll celebrate his 25th employment anni-versary later this year) and has served as general manager of the plant since 2004. He’s seen the plant through multiple technology and capacity upgrades, ramping from the initial 10 MMgy to its current capacity of 70 MMgy, and says the con-


stant effort to strive for improved produc-tion plays a large role in the plant’s success. “We run an efficient plant,” he says. “We’re a continuous-flow Vogelbusch-designed plant. I think we know what our capabilities are, or have a good idea of them, and that enables us to have some flexibility.”

nebraska’s first ethanol plant opened its doors in December 1984 under the own-ership of American Diversified co. The 10 MMgy plant would be a small mom-and-pop shop in today’s industry, but back then it was a large facility, kristensen says. Because it was the first ethanol plant to establish itself in Nebraska, would-be customers were un-familiar with the products it produced, and those in charge of marketing found them-selves in uncharted territory. “When we first started, there were no distillers grains here,” kristensen says. “We were the first facility in nebraska, and one of the first west of the

Mississippi, as far as dry mill ethanol facili-ties, so we had to go out and develop our own feeding relationships and also our own alcohol markets. The ethanol board in Ne-braska has been very supportive of our in-dustry and helped us out a lot, but we got out there in some of the terminal sites and had a presence much greater than what it would reflect today because now, ethanol is a legiti-mate product in the fuel supply. Twenty-five years ago it was a struggle sometimes just to get it included in the gasoline.”

Keeping on Top of Technology rough markets made the first five years

or so of the plant’s existence a bit of a strug-gle, Kristensen admits. “It was pretty dark and dismal there for a little bit in the late ‘80s when fuel prices were cheap,” he says. “Oil prices were cheap and fuel was cheap and ethanol was just a gasoline additive—used

as a replacement for lead and as an octane enhancer. Ethanol was a pretty small, almost niche industry at that point in time.”

All that soon changed. In 1990, chief Ethanol, a wholly owned, independent sub-sidiary of Chief Industries Inc., stepped in to purchase the plant. Shortly after plant owner-ship changed hands, the U.S. entered into the first Gulf War and chief ethanol soon be-gan work to increase its capacity in response to spiked interest in ethanol stemming from concern over oil supplies. “That had a major impact because oil prices shot higher. It was very good returns almost immediately when Chief stepped in,” Kristensen says.

The first major expansion, complete in 1993, increased the capacity to 28 MMgy and included the installation of molecular sieves. This was a marked improvement over the previous process, making production easier and enabling the industry to move forward, kristensen says. other significant expan-sions were carried out in 1996, 1999, and about every three years thereafter as various technologies became available to improve the production process. “It’s easy enough to add some of the better technology as we move forward,” Kristensen says, dispelling any claims that older plants can’t compete with newly built facilities. “If the technol-ogy’s available the older plants can certainly incorporate it, and that’s more or less what we did. You find out what your bottleneck is and then you work on that to achieve some better efficiencies and that type of thing. You stair-step it through.”

Chief Ethanol has been able to accom-plish what every ethanol producer knows should be done—implementing technology innovations as they become available in or-der to stay on the cutting edge of production and remain economically competitive, says Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol. Chief Ethanol has been a member of ACE since 2005 and Kristensen has served on its board of directors since 2007. “Duane, like many of the ethanol producer general managers I visit with, is constantly examining oppor-tunities to innovate through technology im-provements,” Jennings says. “Part of the suc-cess of this plant is that they’ve had a group

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of long-term employees with a commitment to long-term success, and they’ve worked as a unit to identify how and when to innovate.”

Making Cents Count“Chief Ethanol offers an example of

success and longevity that are, in part, tied to the stability of the company, sound manage-ment, adoption of technology and innova-tion, development of solid business relation-ships and astute financial management,” says Todd Sneller, administrator of the Nebraska ethanol Board. “state and federal public policies that encouraged the production and use of ethanol helped to provide an environ-ment in which Chief Ethanol could invest capital. The increased capital investment cre-ated additional capacity, additional jobs and expanded the economic impact of the etha-nol plant.”

Nebraska is home to two dozen ethanol facilities producing a combined 2 billion gal-lons of ethanol annually, placing the Corn-husker State second only to Iowa in terms of production capacity. The industry as a whole plays a significant role in the state’s economy, with each plant noticeably impact-ing its home area. Chief Ethanol is one of the state’s major grain buyers, according to the nebraska ethanol Board, taking in 25 million bushels of corn annually—about 80 percent of the crop grown in the county in which the plant is located. It also markets all of its own ethanol and distillers grains. As a result, the company has developed close relationships with many of its customers, in-cluding the surrounding cattle yards, where kristensen says it would be unusual to find any cattle producer not using distillers grains as feed.

The plant also supplies 60 full-time, well-paying jobs. According to Kristensen, the workforce at Chief Ethanol may be a little inflated compared to other similar-sized plants, but he attributes that to the fact that the company does everything in-house and says that is one of the reasons for the compa-ny’s longevity. “We make all of our decisions, so it’s very easy for us to sit down and have quick conversations about what the market is doing, what our options are and where it leaves us economically,” he says. “So we

can probably adapt quickly and make some snap decisions because we’re not burdened by extreme levels of management or have to contact outside people to find out what the market is doing. Also, because we’ve been around for a long time, we have very good and loyal customers. To a certain degree, we feel we have a stake in what they’re doing and they feel they have a stake in what we’re do-ing.”

The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit played a very helpful role when the plant was first establishing itself and other state and federal incentives, particularly the Clean Air Act, have been vital to the plant and industry’s success, Kristensen says. In-creased market share through the removal of MTBe was a milestone for the industry and led it to become what it is today, he says. These factors all contributed to Chief Etha-nol’s longevity, but they have affected other

facilities equally and so can’t be considered underlying reasons for the plant’s success. One quality that does set Chief Ethanol apart from many other producers is its lack of debt. Kristensen says the plant has never really been burdened with a high debt load and has been able to finance all of its expan-sions internally with its own equity. It’s also a private company, so isn’t hampered by the reporting duties required of public firms.

Financial stability will surely play a role in Chief Ethanol’s future activities, which are likely to include continued diversification through technology upgrades. Kristensen “absolutely” sees a future for cellulosic etha-nol production at corn-ethanol sites because of the infrastructure and feedstock compat-ibilities. He also has his eye on a number of other value-added product additions, such as corn oil and biogas, but isn’t ready to say yet which direction Chief Ethanol will go. “I


profile

don’t know if there’s anything in today’s mar-ket that’s a slam dunk. But there are things coming down the road that can assist in spreading out your risk and giving you more revenue streams and I think that’s something everyone will want to look at doing,” he says. “It’s not going to be everybody doing the same thing. It will depend on your location and what works for you.”

In the coming decade of ethanol produc-tion, expansion of the marketplace through blender pumps will be vital to the industry’s success, Kristensen says. He sees it not only as a way to expand ethanol’s market share, but also to gain a closer connection to the consumer and pass along a greater share of ethanol’s economic advantages. “Frequently what we’ve seen with ethanol is when it’s valued below gasoline neither the customer

nor the ethanol plant really benefits,” he says. “By having blender pumps, when ethanol’s cheaper the consumer can get more of a direct benefit. It’s also difficult sometimes when we’re selling to a blender who doesn’t necessarily want to buy our product because it cuts into their refining capacity. You’re sell-ing to a reluctant customer. I think there’s better ways to get us to the final consumer which would benefit both the ethanol indus-try and the consumers themselves.”

Policy will continue to play a role in shaping the industry, Kristensen says, just as it has for the plant’s entire history. However, as he looks ahead to compare the next two decades of ethanol production to the past 20 years, he believes the policy of the future that could be most significant for the indus-try and his plant will be emissions related.

“Carbon is a big one that I don’t think we have the answer to right now,” he says. “You can say we’re starting down the road to low-ering everybody’s carbon footprint, but what sort of economic incentives or disincentives are out there? That’s something that’s going to be in play. Do we need to be looking at biogas systems to help get away from fossil fuel use for energy, or do we grow algae off our carbon dioxide? What are the things we need to be doing as an industry?”

Author: Kris Bevill

Associate editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine(701) 540-6846

[email protected]

1984 Chief ethanol Fuels inc. began operations as a 10 MMgy plant.

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Not content to let Brazil hog all the glory, three development-stage companies eye sugar-based ethanol feedstocksBy HOLLy JESSEN

Wave

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Brazil has the sugar-to-ethanol process down pat. And why not? The country’s super hot climate makes it a per-fect place to grow sugarcane. The U.S., on the other hand, has spent the past several decades focused on ethanol production from corn—which grows abundantly in the Midwest. Now, with the intense focus on advanced biofuels, U.S. companies are working to catch the sugar wave.

Catchingthe Sugar


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Brazilian Money for a U.S. Project

If successful, california ethanol & Power llc will be the first ethanol produc-tion company bankrolled partially by Brazil-ian money, but built in the U.S. The company wants to construct, own and operate a 66 MMgy advanced ethanol plant, the first of a series of plants in California’s Imperial and Palo Verde valleys, says Dave rubenstein, chief operating officer. To finance the first plant ce&P applied for a U.s. Doe loan guarantee, but later withdrew that applica-tion due to a mutual agreement with the DOE. Now, the company is working with Uni-systems do Brazil lTDA, a Brazilian en-gineering and technology company, to secure funding from the Bank of Brazil.

ce&P has been working toward ethanol production in California for about four years, Rubenstein says. The company plans to grow about 40,000 acres of sugarcane year-round and 30,000 acres of sweet sorghum season-ally. The crops would displace forage crops, much of which are currently exported today. “We think that we can build maybe five in the southern California region,” he said. “The reason we say five is there would be enough farmland to support it, without starting to use farmland that is used to grow food.”

The sugarcane and sweet sorghum will be converted into 66 MMgy low-carbon eth-anol, 50 megawatts renewable electricity and 880 million cubic feet of biomethane. The company has secured a letter of agreement with an unnamed major international energy company that will purchase all ce&P etha-nol under a five-year contract at premium pricing. The same energy company will pur-chase all the electricity and biomethane from an on-site anaerobic digester under 20-year fixed price contracts.

To get that first $450 million plant built, the company is hoping for financial closing by the first quarter of 2012 and groundbreak-ing by the second or third quarter of 2012. Fagen Inc. will be the lead construction com-pany, integrating that company’s extensive ethanol know-how with the technology and equipment from Uni-Systems, which has en-gineered and installed numerous sugarcane ethanol plants in Brazil.

Sugar Powerhouse California ethanol & Power plans to grow about 40,000 acres of sugarcane year round and 30,000 acres of sweet sorghum seasonally to produce 66 MMgy ethanol in California.

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The Imperial and Palo Verde val-leys, both located in southern California, include cropland with priority rights to ample irriga-tion water from the Colorado River. The area is well-suited for sugarcane with lots of sunlight, no rainy season and no inclement weather. Although the first

question many ask is about water, Ruben-stein says sugarcane will use only slightly more water than the crops already being grown in that area.

ce&P has partnerships with a group of third-generation farmers that have been growing sugarcane in the Imperial Valley for more than seven years. The company will own the sugarcane and sweet sorghum, and

plant and harvest the crops itself. The land will be leased from the farmers at market rates and the company will contract with the farmers on a cost-plus, guaranteed profit ba-sis. That will help the company mitigate risk in varying feedstock costs and offers farmers guaranteed income. Once sugarcane is estab-lished it can be harvested or cut five times over a five-year period. The plant will switch to sweet sorghum as a feedstock in the 100-plus degree summer when the “sugarcane is growing like crazy,” he adds.

The benefits to sugarcane ethanol are many, rubenstein tells ePM. First, it will have 85 percent lower carbon intensity than gasoline and corn ethanol and about 70 per-cent lower carbon intensity than imported Brazilian ethanol. The company expects it to command a premium under California’s new Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Sugarcane also produces substantially more ethanol per acre than corn. An early analysis, which looked at 60,000 acres of sugarcane, and no sweet sor-ghum, showed the company would produce

22.19 gallons of ethanol from every ton of sugar cane, adding up to 860 gallons of etha-nol per acre of sugarcane.

There’s also the transportation factor. Midwest plants use local crops to produce a fuel that is typically transported long distanc-es. companies like Pacific ethanol Inc. bring feedstocks to California from the Midwest so it can produce a fuel used close by. ce&P, on the other hand, will use locally grown crops to produce a fuel that will be sold at blending racks in the area. “It’s no rail, strictly truck,” he says, adding that all deliveries will be with-in three hours of the plant.

Sweet Bacteria Development-stage Proterro Inc. is

working toward a day when the company can sell ethanol producers a fermentation-ready sugar feedstock dubbed Protose. The nonagriculture-based sugar is secreted from a modified cyanobacteria. In nature, if the organism is subjected to a high salt concen-tration it produces an equal amount of sugar

no Food vs. Fuel Dave Rubenstein, chief operating officer for Ce&P, says sugarcane and sorghum will be grown on land currently used for forage crops and won’t displace food production.

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to counteract the salt and keep itself from drying up, explains Kef Kasdin, CEO. Proterro has leveraged that natural re-sponse by identifying and genetically engi-neering those genes so that the organism no longer needs salt stress to make sugar. “It’s a very productive little machine,” she says.

Cyanobacteria, like algae, are pho-tosynthetic microorganisms needing sunlight and CO2 to thrive. Unlike algae, Proterro’s genetically modified organism simply secretes sugar and does not have to be harvested or further separated. While both algae and cyanobacteria are grown in photobioreactors, the Proterro system is significantly different from the algae sys-tems used today. “We have a different idea of how to grow these bugs,” Kasdin says.

Algae is typically grown in a liquid photobioreactor, or a submerged culture. It can be quite a challenge to get light and CO2 to the algae in what is essentially a big vat of water, she says. The algae on the surface tend to thrive, while what’s on the inside is getting starved unless it’s cir-culated. To get around that, Proterro took a page from nature, mimicking the struc-ture of a leaf. Basically the company has developed a solid-phase photobioreactor with layers of fabric to grow the organism and to transport water and nutrients to the photosynthetic cells. The design puts the cells on the surface, exposed to light and CO2, and producing efficiently.

Proterro has demonstrated it can grow its organisms on a fabric surface, which the company has scaled up from a Petri dish to a square foot and then again

to a square meter. Using gravity, the verti-cal fabric panels transport small amounts of water and nutrients to the sugar-secret-ing organisms. “On one path you give the bugs what they need, and sugar and the fermentation-ready solution comes out the bottom,” she says. “There’s still more work to be done to prove out this bioreactor at a real industrial scale, but we have proven the basic concept that you can grow the organ-isms on this substrate, very productively, and they can make sugar.”

The feedstock could be used to pro-duce ethanol at a dedicated facility or as an add-on technology at an existing corn-ethanol plant. The patent-pending process could boost an existing ethanol plant’s ca-pacity by 20 to 25 percent using the CO2 produced by its own fermentation pro-cess.

Founded in 2008, the company is backed by Battelle Ventures and Braemar Energy Ventures. The cyanobacteria project has its roots in Battelle Memorial Institute, which manages or co-manages six of the U.s. Doe’s national laboratories. Battelle Ventures was formed to act as an indepen-dent venture capital firm, which primarily but not exclusively, helps commercialize the scientific breakthroughs developed in the national laboratories. Biotechnologist John Aikens was the instigator for the compel-ling idea that sparked Proterro. “[he told me] ‘Maybe people are going about it the wrong way,’” Kasdin recalls. “‘If we could come up with a way to make sugar directly from a process that uses sunlight, CO2 and water and take out a lot of the steps that are being used to grow up sugarcane

Green design inspired by nature, Proterro’s leaf mimetic bioreactor does not immerse the cyanobacteria in water, but instead grows them on fabric moistened with water using a drip-feed system. The company has scaled a one square foot breadboard reactor up to a square meter.

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or corn or energy crops and then break them back down again into sugar, we should be able to get to a much cheaper sugar, which can then be used for a feedstock for a number of differ-ent biofuels pro-cesses.’”

The trick will be determining what total surface area the system will be able to support and connecting all the puzzle pieces. Scale-up, on the other hand, isn’t expected to be as significant an issue because the bio-reactors are modular. And, though more funding is certainly needed, Proterro’s technology isn’t expected to be as capital intensive as many other novel technolo-gies. Because it’s produced using only water, CO2 sunlight and nutrients, the sugar feedstock is projected to cost sig-nificantly less than other feedstocks, in-cluding Brazilian sugarcane. “overall, we believe this could be a much more capital efficient way to get to a much lower cost sugar for ethanol production than the al-ternatives people have been exploring,” she said.

Detour to Sorghum In 2008, Great Valley Energy

wrapped up the permitting process for a corn-ethanol plant in California. Then the “bottom fell out of the U.S. econo-my” and the original plan was scrapped, says Brian Pellens, president. In the af-termath, the group began considering all kinds of feedstocks—just not corn. “We went back to the drawing board.” Eventually, the group zeroed in on sweet sorghum as the feedstock with the most potential in California. It has some great attributes, including low water require-ments. In fact, it’s commonly said that sweet sorghum requires 50 percent less water than corn, he says. In addition, since it’s not a food crop, the crop can be

Will Work for Sugar Kef Kasdin, CeO of Proterro inc, calls the cyanobacteria the company has engineered to secrete sugar a “very productive little machine.”

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irrigated with water that’s not suitable for other uses. Finally, much like sugarcane, ethanol produced from sweet sorghum has a great greenhouse gas footprint.

The puzzler was that the econom-ics aren’t much different than corn, on average. Just crushing the stalks for juice to make ethanol and burning the stalks, sometimes called the crush-and-burn model, would leave a business open to feedstock risk. On top of that, it would mean risk without the promise of eco-nomic reward. “That doesn’t make much sense,” he says.

After some head scratching, Great Valley learned of a technology to split sugarcane stalks radially, resulting in chemically and physically distinct frac-tions. A Canadian company, KTC Tilby Ltd., designs and manufactures the cane separation system that is used on sugar-cane but also works on sweet sorghum in trial runs.

The separation system produces sweet sorghum sugar juice, which can be used to produce ethanol, and plant material that could be used as inputs for building materials, pellet fuel or even cel-lulosic ethanol production. Another pos-sible product is phenolic antioxidants, or other food-grade additives, using a sepa-rate food-separation technology. “We’ve got fuels and maybe a cure for cancer, we don’t know,” he says. While crushing re-sults in just sugar and biomass, the KTC Tilby design offers other possibilities. “Having that up-front separation process is really the key to being able to extract those bioactive compounds economical-ly,” he says.

The company is currently working on a feasibility study to determine exactly what those products might be. As part of that, three tons of California sweet sor-ghum were harvested last fall, separated using the KTC equipment and sent for testing to Great Valley’s partners, Lang Technologies in Australia. Although the company has identified bioactive com-pounds of interest in sweet sorghum testing in the past, it’s important to test with the specific variety of sweet sorghum

Great Valley plans to work with in Cali-fornia due to possible differences in the crop. The results of that testing were still pending in late June.

Rather than build and operate its own sweet sorghum biorefineries, as was once the plan, Great Valley is aiming to be a mid-stream company, providing sugar juice and other sweet sorghum products for ethanol production and other indus-tries. Another possibility is working with corn-ethanol plants to provide bolt-on or modular units for added ethanol produc-tion from sweet sorghum, he says.

Great Valley’s current goal is to build a pilot plant where it hopes to process sweet sorghum at the rate of one ton per hour. Part of the funding for that is com-ing from a nearly $2 million grant from the California Energy Commission, the same money it is using to conduct the feasibility study, says Ed Stahl, director of business development for Great Valley, which will also leverage funds from private backers and matching contributions from various development and technology stakehold-ers.

The pilot plant will be located near Hanford, Calif., the site of the originally planned corn-to-ethanol plant, Pellens says. Great Valley is working to get the pi-lot plant up and running in time for this year’s sweet sorghum harvest, in late sum-mer. A year later, the company should be able to wrap up most of its data collection efforts. The next step would be to build a larger plant, which could process 10 to 50 tons of sweet sorghum an hour.

Great Valley is also working to in-crease the storage time of sweet sorghum, which currently has a short post-harvest shelf life. In California, that would extend the processing cycle beyond the current six-month harvest season.

Author: Holly JessenAssociate editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine

(701) [email protected]

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Reviewing the basics of fermentation from a lab analyst’s point of viewBy SABrINA truPIA

troubleshootinG

Troubleshooting–How the Lab Can Help

While today the trend is to get online instru-mentation for fast problem solving on issues that occur at an ethanol plant, in the majority of etha-nol plants it is still up to the laboratory to correctly quantify the problem and identify the issues, espe-cially when it comes to fermentation. The lab is often the first line of defense when a problem is suspected, as it is the laboratory’s task to correctly identify what really is going on in the fermentor. Naturally, the lab plays a role in quality control for every aspect of the process (front end and back end included), but its most crucial task is to control the quality of the fermentation.


troubleshootinG

Troubleshooting–How the Lab Can Help

yeast check Marisa Tarpinian, at NCERC, prepares a mash sample to do yeast cell counts and viability by staining the solution with methylene blue.

PHOTO: NCeRC


troubleshootinG

Lab Analyst, Troubleshoot Thyself

Correctly identifying that there is, in fact, real trouble is the first step in trouble-shooting. Laboratory analysts should be able to troubleshoot themselves before de-ciding whether there is a production issue. This is possible because the lab keeps a log of previous fermentation data, and can de-cide whether things are within the normal range. The two most important issues that may lead to an incorrect diagnosis—trou-ble when there is no trouble or perhaps worse, no trouble when there is trouble—are issues in the quality control process such as calibration, sample preparation or measurement errors, or communications with plant operators that may lead to sam-pling errors or other issues.

so, for the first step of troubleshoot-ing, two things are essential: that the lab communicate effectively with the plant and that the lab follow appropriate quality control guidelines. That way the lab is in a good position to provide valuable informa-tion for plant troubleshooting. To commu-nicate effectively with plant operators, the lab analyst needs to understand the process. For quality control guidelines, a couple of basic things need to be kept in mind. First, it is important to calibrate the high perfor-mance liquid chromatography (hPlc) and gas chromatography (GC) instruments on a curve using at least three points. Second,

the lab analyst needs to run “check” stan-dards every five to 10 samples, and before and after a questionable data point. While it may seem these steps are not needed in an ethanol-plant laboratory or that they may be time consuming, they do save time and resources in the long run. (Incidentally, for both these points, the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center has a proven record of providing effective hands-on laboratory training on best ethanol-lab practices.)

Once the trouble in fermentation has been spotted unequivocally, in a corn- or starch-based fermentation there are gener-ally three areas of troubleshooting—the enzymes, the yeast and the nutrients.

The Enzyme Alpha AmylaseWe are working under the assump-

tion that the correct dosage of all additions are known by the plant operators, but that either some amount of alpha did not get to the slurry tank or that liquefaction tar-gets are not being reached for whatever reason. If there are questions whether the dosage of alpha used routinely is correct, the ethanol plant needs to contact the en-zyme manufacturer to learn more about optimization of dosage. We are omitting from this discussion of troubleshooting of other, more specialized enzymes such as beta glucanase.

Alpha amylase is used to break down

lactic Acid Bacteria Lactobacillus Plantarum is a common yeast suppressor as it competes for yeast during fermentation. In this image we only see concentrated bacteria, about 800 million per milliliter. Magnification 100x.

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troubleshootinG

the starch and reduce viscosity. In general, issues with alpha amylase are solved rela-tively easily. They just require monitoring and adjusting the dose to improve lique-faction. If identified in time, alpha dosing issues usually do not stall a fermentation. The thing that needs to be checked when troubleshooting this part of the process is the dextrose equivalent (DE) levels.

Dextrose equivalent is a measure of the total amount of reducing sugars in a solution, calculated as dextrose and ex-pressed as a percentage of the total solids in a solution. DE measurements are there-fore affected by the total solids in solution, so those have to be accounted for. In liq-uefaction, starch is converted to soluble dextrins with chains of 1 to 50 dextrose units. In the liquefied mixture, only the ter-minal dextrose unit has reducing capacities, so the reducing capacity of a solution is a measure of the extent of the starch con-version to glucose. The higher the DE, the shorter the average chain length, and the more efficient the liquefaction.

In the case of ethanol plants using a jet cooker (hydro heater), usually dosing of alpha will occur both in the slurry tank (generally one-third of the total dose) and in the liquefaction tank (the remaining two-thirds of the dose, applied after jet cook-ing). At NCERC, the target DE levels in the liquefaction tank, at a total solids level of about 32 percent, are 11 to 13, while in

the slurry tank they are lower, between 5 and 7, because there is less alpha to convert the starch into dextrins. While DE is the most common measurement performed on slurry and mash, there are other meth-ods (hPlc, starch analyzers, etc.) that can give a picture of the state of the liquefac-tion. These other analyses will also have normal ranges that depend on the instru-ment’s specific calibrations. If there should be an anomaly in the alpha dosage, howev-er, it would be clear from the lab results, no matter what the method of detection is.

There are several things to check if the DE readings/liquefaction levels are outside the acceptable range, including

Has the temperature changed?• Has the pH changed?• Has the concentration of solids in-• creased or decreased? Is the particle size of the corn differ-• ent?

The above are all parameters affect-ing the liquefaction and dosage of alpha amylase, with liquefaction temperature and pH being the most crucial ones. If none of the above questions has been an-swered with a “yes,” it is possible that the batch of alpha being used has lost activity (troubleshooting tip: check enzyme stor-age tank temperature), or that there is an issue with dosing (troubleshooting tip: is

yeast in Mash The small circles are yeast cells shown in fermentation broth, diluted at 1:25. The big blue particles are corn. Magnification is 40x.

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the pump working, is it set at a correct rate, are there blockages in the delivery system?). If loss of enzyme activity is suspected, there are commercially available test kits to test the alpha amylase in the lab, although most require the use of an ultraviolet spectrophotom-eter. It is possible that the enzyme manufacturer can provide either the testing or a small batch for compara-tive purposes.

Glucoamylase: Troubleshooting Saccharification

Glucoamylase will convert dextrins to simple sugars, making them available to the yeast that will ferment them, producing etha-nol. Problems with sugar can be caused by having either too little or too much sugar during fermentation. In either case, we talk about a “stuck” fermentation. In the first scenario, the glucoamylase level is too low, so that there isn’t enough sugar for the yeast to metabolize and the yeast will not produce ethanol because there isn’t enough “food” around. In the second scenario, too much sugar is liberated by the glucoamylase and it will overwhelm the yeast, stressing it and reducing the ethanol production.

What does the lab analyst see when glucoamylase is incorrectly dosed? In the chromatogram (hPlc), low-glucoamylase dosing will result in a higher concentration of oligosaccharides (especially DP4+) per-sisting late in the course of the fermentation instead of being broken down into glucose, resulting in lowered ethanol production. In the second scenario, we would notice an ab-normally high glucose concentration early in the fermentation as well as a plateauing out of the ethanol concentration. In both low- and high-dosing scenarios then, etha-nol production would be stalled, but for dif-ferent reasons.

When troubleshooting a fermentation with high sugars/low ethanol, it is some-times possible to re-start a fermentation

that is “stuck” because of low glucoamy-lase by adding more enzyme to the fermen-tor. If there is too much sugar and the yeast gets overwhelmed, it is also possible that waiting it out might help the fermentation. Another, more common way of handling too much sugar in the fermentation broth would be to add fresh yeast in appropriate concentrations (usually higher than the ini-tial dose) to consume it.

Yeast HappinessThe availability of adequate amounts

of fermentable sugars is only one aspect of troubleshooting a “stuck” fermentation. Other signs can let us know if the yeast is thriving or not. Yeast “happiness” is also a function of nutrient availability, lack of contamination, adequate temperature and pH control.

Most of the parameters that need con-trolling during a fermentation for optimum yeast performance can be checked by look-ing at chromatograms (hPlc data) dur-ing the fermentation. There are two major things to watch in fermentation data: signs of nutrient limitation and contamination.

In monitoring nutrient limitation, look at the total sugars concentration over time (hPlc data). If the concentration of sugars does not decrease and we are sure there is sufficient glucoamylase in the system, then the yeast may be nutrient limited. Another

Fermentation Trends This chart shows trends during a corn-to-ethanol fermentation that NCeRC did for one of the many baseline trials conducted for the USDA. The HPLC concentrations may vary a little from trial to trial, but the trends are the same. Oligo indicates oligosaccharides (higher sugars DP4+ DP3 and DP2).

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sign is given by the levels of glycerol, which increase during times of yeast stress. If it can be determined that it is not the glucoamylase that is too low, adding urea or other yeast nu-trients could help the yeast, if it is early in the fermentation. Re-inoculating is another solu-tion, as the yeast that is stressed cannot eas-ily recover. If this is a persistent problem, it might be worth analyzing the corn, the water/backset used in the preparation of the slurry, and also the fermentation broth for levels of nutrients or perhaps presence of compounds that could inhibit nutrient availability to the yeast.

Mining data Keeping good records of tests provides the history needed to spot when problems in the fermentor are developing.

Bacterial contamination is indicated when the levels of lactic and acetic acid are high (hPlc data), the ethanol level is low, as bacteria compete with yeast for the sugar substrate, and glycerol is high. Normally, in a clean fermentation the lactic acid should be below 0.1 percent (by weight), and the acetic acid below 0.05 percent. If they are not, the fermenta-tion is contaminated. Usually, in addition to the high organic acids levels, glycerol levels are also higher than normal, indi-cating a stressful environment

for the yeast. Bacterial contamination can also be indicated by pH measurements below 4 and by looking at the broth under a mi-croscope. The yeast viability and cell counts will likely decrease under contamination con-ditions. Lactic acid bacteria can be detected under the microscope in an oil immersion—they are rod-shaped and much smaller than yeast, but still visible.

What can be done when there is bacte-rial contamination? The only way to fight a bacterial contamination is using more antimi-crobial agents. After introducing more anti-microbial, it is possible that the yeast may still

be stressed and not able to come back to pro-duce, so more inoculum—more yeast—may be needed. Now, if the infection has been going for a long time, the bacteria will have consumed a measurable amount of the sugar that would otherwise be converted into etha-nol. The ethanol yield will be reduced even if the fermentor can be recovered. That is why preventive introduction of the right amounts of antimicrobial agents is preferred, as well as thorough sanitation procedures to keep a clean system.

The fermentation troubleshooting is-sues discussed here are the primary ones that can present themselves in any ethanol plant. Each ethanol plant is different, however, with its own particular set of enzymes, nu-trients, type of yeast and mode of operation. In general, if none of these items in trouble-shooting seems to help, or if specific issues arise, it is helpful to contact the experts at the enzyme or yeast companies or the provider of antimicrobials. They usually can help. Be-cause it is part of our mission, the NCERC is also always available for questions and to help with specific troubleshooting.

Author: Sabrina Trupia, Ph.D.Asstistant Director of Biological Research, National Corn to ethanol Research Center

(618) 659-6737 [email protected]

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Time for dialogue Discussion over juice at Copacabana beach in Rio. From left: Nathanael Greene, Joe Ludowese, Ben Lilliston (IATP), Perry Meyer (Minnesota farmer), Jeremy Martin (Union of Concerned Scientists), and Karen Hansen-Kuhn (iATP)

PHOTO: iATP


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Traveling together to Brazil, Americans representing a range of perspectives on ethanol and environmentalism attempt to forge a shared path toward ethanol sustainabilityBy JuLIA OLMStEAD

Seeking CommonGround

For 10 days in March, a group of farmers, etha-nol producers, environmental advocates and univer-sity professors traveled with staff from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy to Brazil to learn about the effects of u.S. biofuels policy on Brazil-ian agriculture. The divisiveness of the indirect land use change (ILUC) debate—the theory that corn ethanol production in the U.S. leads to deforestation in countries like Brazil—has accelerated an al-ready widening divide between many environmental groups and bio-fuel proponents. But IATP believes that the two sides of the debate have similar goals regarding the sustainability of biofuels, goals that can only be recognized and jointly acted upon through dialogue. To


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that end, the Minneapolis-based IATP invited open-minded participants with diverse opinions on the politics around IlUc to join a tour of Brazil.

The results of the trip were rich. As we traveled from the sprawling metropo-lis of Rio de Janiero to the small town of Lucas do Rio Verde, Mato Grosso, in the heart of Brazil’s cerrado—a grassland ecosystem where most of that country’s soybeans are grown, participants learned as much about each other as they did Bra-zilian agriculture. During six-hour bus rides through the Brazilian countryside, over tropical juices alongside Rio’s Copa-cabana beach, or while swatting mosqui-toes in the Pantanal—the world’s largest wetland—group members dug into the issues surrounding ethanol’s real or per-ceived impacts on land use in Brazil and elsewhere. And while the discussions were always civil— “Minnesota nice” ruled the day—the group never shied away from asking tough questions of each other.

Following are excerpts from inter-views with three trip participants: Natha-nael Greene, director of renewable energy policy at the Natural Resources Defense council; Bill lee, ceo of Frontline Bio-energy; and Joe Ludowese, Minnesota farmer and board member of Heartland corn Products ethanol cooperative in Winthrop, Minn.

Environmentalist ViewNathanael G r e e n e ,

what was your opinion about ILUC before the trip, and did it change at all from what you saw there? A: I don’t think it changed in any big sweeping way. Folks who don’t like the concept tell me ILUC isn’t going to stop deforestation.

They say: “If you like the forest, work to protect it head-on.” Well, the pressure is on the Amazon and the Cerrado to be cleared and developed. I got a more profound sense of how strong those pressures are. There is no doubt in my mind that biofuels policy alone is not going to save the Cerrado—even if it’s done perfectly. So there is something to that argument. On the other hand —ILUC is not about saving the Cerrado, it’s about developing biofuels without exacerbating the challenges to the Cerrado.

What surprised you most from the trip?

A: I knew Brazil was an agriculture powerhouse, but I assumed it would be more unique, more obviously Brazilian in its approach to agriculture. It looks like commodity production here in the U.S., or like what I’ve seen in Europe. There were differences, but they were more about scale, less about equipment, or economics, or people.

What lessons could U.S. ethanol producers learn from Brazil?

A: We learned an interesting lesson in marketing from the sugar cane industry. I don’t think we really learned or saw enough to validate their claims of dramatically improved sustainability. But they spent a lot of time talking about it—accepting and embracing major policy changes, zoning, the whole concept of ILUC. I’m not sure they love [ILUC], but they have modelers working on it and they don’t dispute the basic concept of it. The U.S. corn ethanol industry is losing the marketing challenge by not embracing the steps it could take to reduce their environmental impacts, things like shifting to biomass for process energy, shifting to cover crops and other steps.

Is there a path forward on in-direct land use change that would satisfy ethanol produc-

ers and environmentalists?A: What seemed more important to

Iluc Accepted Brazilians are embracing sustainability, giving them an advantage over their U.S. counterparts, says Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy, Natural Resources Defense Council.

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me after talking to corn farmers and other trip members is the urgency of having work-ing models of biofuels that avoid ILUC. Not in theory on paper, but out in the world. Until we have those models, and there are people getting rich on those models, I think it’s going to be hard to forge agreement on ILUC in a broad way. The path forward is via the economic development of low-ILUC feedstocks and technologies. There will con-tinue to be a debate and science will continue to drive the policy, but there won’t be broad consensus. Policies will reward me more if I go that way. I heard loud and clear that the farmers think of this as a penalty and don’t see any way they can avoid it, and it doesn’t feel fair to them. I get that, but if we want to do biofuels we have to figure out how to avoid this. The way is to commercialize those models that can avoid putting more pressure on land.

Producer ViewBill Lee, Brazilian agriculture and ethanol production are por-

trayed in the U.S. as threats to U.S. agri-culture—from what you saw in Brazil, do you think that’s true?

A: We were in Mato Grosso and clearly they have a lot of acres and they want to grow more crops on those acres. When they complete the railroad, they will be the dominant soybean producer in world. Is that a threat? Not necessarily. We still have infrastruc-ture advantages, and there will be a growing

market for commodities regardless. In terms of cane ethanol—the competition between cane ethanol and U.S. biofuels is potentially very healthy and mutually supportive. It sup-

ports the notion that biofuels are important and have the potential to displace fossil fu-els.

What could Brazilian producers learn from the U.S.?

A: They need to concentrate on improv-ing sugar yield per acre. In lots of ways the U.S. is doing a better job on land use than Brazil, but that’s not the perception. UnIcA [the Brazilian sugarcane association] produc-ers are somewhat disjointed and technically unsophisticated. U.S. corn ethanol produc-tion, by comparison, is probably better man-aged, more technically adept, but the percep-tion is that Brazil is more “advanced.” I’m going to lay a lot of the blame for that at the feet of the NCGA [National Corn Growers Association] and its lack of willingness to en-gage with environmental communities. They say, “I don’t even want to dignify your posi-tion by asking you to look at me in a positive light.” Corn ethanol and the NCGA are so married, that corn ethanol’s bad rap is inher-ited. But I put this on Daddy corn.

compromise needed Finding a solution to the iLUC debate requires finding a number nobody likes, says Bill Lee, CeO of Frontline Bioenergy LLC. Leadership of Chippewa Valley ethanol Company and SGC Energia have ownership shares in the privately held Frontline. Lee previously served as general manager of CVeC and as chair of the Renewable Fuels Association.

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Why do you think biofuels are such a focus for the environmen-

tal movement?A: This was the subject of many dis-

cussions during the trip. Historically, the environmentalists have fought the fossil fuel industry, a very powerful foe that’s been around a long time and is entrenched in our lives—it’s a tough battle. But then here comes a new kid on the block, one that’s highly dependent on public policy and is a lot easier to fight than oil companies. And if someone like [Princeton researcher] search-inger convinces you biofuels are worse than petroleum, you have all the moral reasoning you need to go after them. But if you peel back the assumptions, and see that biofuels are really better than fossil fuels, you think—are they crazy? Shouldn’t they be advocating for the best environmental outcomes? The ILUC debate is an opportunity for the envi-ronmental community to kick the new kids in the shins and take away their money, all for the wrong reasons.

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Iluc Group IATP invited a diverse group to tour Brazil and learn about each other. From left: John Sheehan, University of Minnesota; Julia Olmstead, IATP; Jeremy Martin, Union of Concerned Scientists; Ben Lilliston, IATP; Karen Hansen-Kuhn, IATP; Jim Kleinschmit, IATP; Gene Fynboh, CVEC; Chris Deisinger, Energy Foundation; Bill Lee, Frontline Bioenergy; Joe Ludowese, Heartland Corn; Nathanael Greene, NRDC; Larry Novakoske, Central Minnesota Ethanol Co-op; and Perry Meyer, Heartland Corn. (On the tour, but not pictured were Bruce Babcock, Iowa State University, and, Jamie Dean, Packard Foundation.)

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Is there a path forward on indi-rect land use change that would

satisfy ethanol producers and environ-mentalists?

A: Each side has a range of perspec-tives. People on the extremes will never be satisfied with a compromised solution. But for the rest of us, pick ILUC values that no-body likes and agree on them, numbers the ethanol guys think are too high, and the envi-ronmentalists think are too low. I think it’s an illusion to think you can get a working model that has a high level of complexity. By tak-ing this approach—the compromise— you are reflecting that this is a real issue and that you have accounted for it. I think reps from both sides have to say—this is important, this is real, then decide on some numbers and move on.

Farmer View Joe Ludowese, what was the

most interesting thing you learned?

A: You always hear that Brazil really struggles with infra-structure, and it’s true. In Mato Grosso they have neither a vast ru-ral infrastructure nor a rural railroad system to support agriculture. Until you actually see that, it’s really kind of hard to comprehend. It was fascinating to see the volume of trucks on the road as it is the only means of getting agricultural prod-ucts to and from the export locations. They really have a primitive infrastructure for the volume that they’re doing. In the cities there was infrastructure everywhere, but in rural areas it is very limited.

Were there any big differences in land use issues between Brazil

and the U.S.?A: [Brazilian farmers’] ability to double

crop corn and soybeans is amazing. In the part of Mato Grosso we visited, they’re not

exporting any corn, it’s all being used in the area to feed livestock. If they get transporta-tion infrastructure into that part of the coun-try, who knows where they’ll go? My under-standing is that there is more groundwater in Mato Grosso than in any place in the U.S., so their ability to irrigate crops in the dry season and increase yield seems untapped.

What lessons could U.S. ethanol producers learn from Brazil?

A: To be more approachable and to do a better job presenting and promoting the in-dustry. That’s been a huge failure on the part of the U.S. ethanol industry. The reality is that the ethanol industry is very “young” and has had a lot of growing pains just as every other industry has over the course of history. We have a story to tell about progress and evolution, and at some point the industry needs to grow up and promote itself.

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Promotion needed The U.S. ethanol industry needs to grow up and tell its story, says Joe Ludowese. He raises corn and soybeans on a farm near Stewart, Minn., and serves as a board member of the Heartland Corn Products ethanol cooperative in Winthrop, Minn.

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Is there a path forward on in-direct land use change that

would satisfy ethanol producers and environmentalists?

A: Environmentalists need to have a broader view of how one thing impacts another. I think ILUC has such a narrow focus and is an inexact science because of all of the variables, some of which are subjective. I don’t know how you get to a compromise between people who believe in ILUC models and those who don’t. I’m somewhere in between, but I don’t think ILUC models are ready to be used for policy. If there is some kind of a compromise, that same formula needs to be applied to all other energy sources. Ev-erything has to be painted with the same brush, not just U.S. biofuels.

Author: Julia Olmstead

Senior Associate, Rural Communities Programinstitute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

(612) 870-3431 [email protected]

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on the web

Visit iATP’s website, www.iatp.org, to view the Brazil tour itinerary, see more photos, listen to audio interviews with many of the participants, and get information about an upcoming iLUC conference IATP and the University of Minne-sota will host in September.

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

Helping Ethanol Producers Operate in the ‘Sweet Spot’Novozymes describes the process behind finding innovative solutionsBy GuILLErMO COWArD-KELLy

Part of being successful in business—or virtually any en-deavor—is knowing when to keep to conventional wisdom and when to go out on the proverbial limb and challenge “the way we’ve always done it.” It is indisputable that the ethanol industry could have never moved

from its infancy to where it is today without a healthy dose of unconventional thinking and ingenuity. At Novozymes, a major com-ponent of our “Rethink Tomorrow” strategy involves moving the industry forward with innovative products and services, as well as testing new ideas and sharing what we’ve learned.

Such has been the case with a new ana-lytical method developed by Novozymes sci-entists that can change the way ethanol pro-ducers monitor their processes to optimize performance. Born in the lab, nurtured in a week-long creative exercise, and brought to fruition by initiative and determination, this new take on a long-standing concept is al-ready driving process improvements at etha-nol plants.

One of the most commonly used indica-tors of fermentation performance in an eth-


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anol plant is the measurement of the DP4+ peak. Abnormal concentrations are often presumed to mean potential yield loss. New information on DP4+ and residual starch is available to assist plants with measuring process efficiency and data-based decision making.

Previous studies have shown that the DP4+ peak contains ions, proteins, dextrins and other soluble compounds from corn, yeast, enzymes, salts and acids that come from the fermentation or are added during sample handling. The peak composition is complex and ever-changing. Plants that use the DP4+ peak as an indicator of incom-plete hydrolysis and fermentation need to understand that a sudden change in DP4+ peak concentration may not be indicative of incomplete hydrolysis and fermentation, but can actually be a result of changes in backset, feedstock handling or other pro-cesses. Misinterpretation of these readings

may lead to a cascade of decisions that can significantly impact plant operations.

Based on these findings, a new pre-treatment method has been developed that combines a simple and robust preparative chromatography step with the high-per-formance liquid chromatography (hPlc) method commonly used by the ethanol industry to analyze total residual sugars, fermentation health, yeast stress and etha-nol concentration. All of these measures are needed to calculate ethanol yield, and

hPlc was adopted as the industry standard long ago.

This pretreatment method is based on ion exchange—a well-known technique that has been used in the starch and brewing in-dustries for many years to clean up wet mill streams. In its new application for the etha-nol industry, this preparative step removes ion contaminants from the fermentation drop sample that contribute to, and possi-bly distort, the DP4+ peak. The resulting DP4+ measurement more accurately repre-sents the amount of residual sugars remain-ing in the sample. This information enables ethanol producers to make better decisions as they work to investigate abnormal DP4+ readings and maximize yield.

In our testing, hPlc data obtained af-ter this ion exchange process typically shows a reduction in the size of the DP4+ peak, suggesting that the contribution of ferment-able dextrins to the total residual sugars measurement is significantly less than might be expected. In a standard sample study, our scientists found that the DP4+ peak at fermentation drop was composed of 70 percent ions, 20 percent proteins and other solubles, and only 10 percent dextrins.

Innovation to Real-World Application

Novozymes scientists are always en-couraged to think outside the box, but that’s not always easy to do when dealing with the workload of a typical day. That’s why Cham-pagne Week is so important. This yearly event, when customer solutions and r&D staff are allowed to venture away from their standard duties to work on a new idea that

constituent liquefact Fermentation dropions Minor MajorDextrins Major MinorProteins, cell mass, and other organic and inorganic compounds

Minor Minor

constituent Shift The table demonstrates the dynamic composition of the DP4+ peak in the dry grind ethanol process.

What is in the DP4+ peak?

Dextrins Proteins

Fats/Lipids

Yeast

Salts/Ions

Peak contributions Within the DP4+ peak there is a mixture of components that do not interact with the column (called “flow through peak” or “void volume”). Each of these components contributes differently to the DP4+ measurement.

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they haven’t had time to explore, is a unique way to promote creativity. It was during one of these events that the concept of applying ion exchange to hPlc analysis was finally able to be investi-gated.

The idea was the brainchild of Billy Whitlock, a scientist at the Novozymes Midwest Customer Solutions Center in Ames, Iowa. Whitlock, along with colleague Susan Johnson, a senior research associate based in Franklinton, N.C., took advan-tage of their time during Champagne Week to delve into the possibilities that this new trouble-shooting tool might hold.

According to Whitlock, “The fact that the hPlc’s DP4+ peak was a catchall for soluble components present in fermentation was already well-known. We saw this technology as an oppor-tunity to remove a major chunk of that “catch all” and get closer to what customers really want to measure—how much sugar am I leaving behind? As it turns out, there’s usually more salt (ions) than sugar left over in well-run industrial fermen-tations.”

At the end of Champagne Week, senior sci-entist rogerio Prata was asked to evaluate Whit-lock and Johnson’s work and come up with a customer-friendly approach for implementation. It was Prata who took the original idea to the next level and developed the new application tool for

Testing new Test A Novozymes research associate prepares a fermentation sample using the ion exchange method for HPLC analysis.

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an old solid phase ex-traction technique—a special cartridge to process the sample through. “Once man-agement made the decision to revisit this topic, we employed a variety of laboratory techniques to evalu-ate methodologies and ensure the integrity of the results,” Prata explains. “Our overall goal was to develop a

simple, user-friendly method to give our cus-tomers a better estimation of the contribu-tion of dextrins to the DP4+ peak.“

Preliminary results in real-world ethanol plants have been very encouraging. One of our customers used the pretreatment method at multiple plant locations and consistently measured lower readings of real soluble sub-strate. The data has continued to show that only about one-third of the DP4+ value at fermentation drop is actual remaining soluble substrate. The benefit to the plants has been immediately helpful. Their ability to monitor residual sugars at multiple locations has re-sulted in improved standardization and con-sistency, and serves as a helpful benchmark-ing tool.

Management BenefitsLearning more about the composi-

tion of a plant’s normal DP4+ peak makes it easier to investigate reasons for abnormal variations in DP4+ concentrations. This in-sight leads to improved decision making by the plant management team and assists in their efforts to maximize ethanol yield. Fur-ther, this knowledge tells ethanol producers where they should focus their attention. For example, do they need to add more glucoam-ylase to their sample? When should they add enzymes?

This pretreatment tool has many benefi-cial applications for ethanol producers. As re-sults of each assay answer relevant questions about their process operation, they are able

to effectively troubleshoot ways to achieve maximum feedstock conversion and ethanol yield. A better understanding of the DP4+ peak serves to eliminate a lot of guesswork about factors such as dosing strategy.

We are still in the early stages of incor-porating this tool with our customers, but we are excited about its potential to bring knowledge and innovation to the ethanol in-

dustry. We know that when our industry wins, everyone benefits. knowledge is power and this new analytical method will enable our customers to better understand and manage their ethanol production.

Author: Guillermo Coward-KellyStaff Scientist/Team Leader

Novozymes Biofuels R&[email protected]

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creative Innovation Guillermo Coward-Kelly, staff scientist and team leader,Novozymes Biofuels R&D, describes a new way of evaluating fermentation performance.


legislating environmental policy is not new, but rarely is it the case that advancing an en-vironmental strategy to protect environmental resources is also good for business and the con-sumer. In recent years, Louisiana has ranked dead last in 27 states reported by the

Renewable Fuels Association. Still suffering from the economic impacts of Hurricane Katrina, a few legislators recognized that the advanced biofuel industry could provide the opportunity needed to help Louisiana right itself economically and environmentally.

In 2008, the State of Louisiana hit the trifecta of environmental legislation when

then-rep. and now-sen. Jonathan Perry (r-District 47), Sen. Nick Gautreaux (D-Dis-trict 26) and 25 other legislators co-authored what was coined the “most comprehensive biofuels development and production legis-lation in the country.” The Advanced Biofuel Industry Development Initiative (Act 382) represents a complete strategy to not only address the aggressive federal mandates for ethanol production and use in the nation’s fuel supplies, but also positions Louisiana to become one of the top noncorn-feedstock-

conTRIBuTIon

state


Louisiana Biofuels Plan Would Decentralize Production How the 2008 Recession Halted the Progress of Louisiana’s Advanced Biofuel Industry Development InitiativeBy MICHAEL K. BuLLArD

Biofuels Strategy Sugarcane and sweet sorghum for ethanol production distributed across the state are part of a Louisiana strategy to recover from hurricane-induced economic distress. Pictured is one of many fields of sugarcane in Vermillion Parish, La., that were flooded after Hurricane Rita in 2005.

PHOTO: LSU AGCeNTeR


state

based advanced biofuel producer in the country, while creating jobs and improving the local economy along the way. Louisiana is the first state to enact alternative transporta-tion fuel legislation that moves fuel ethanol beyond being just a blending component in gasoline by including a mandatory blender pump pilot program and a hydrous ethanol pilot program.

The overall strategy relies on decentraliz-ing the biofuel manufacturing process by cre-ating numerous small manufacturing facilities across the state. These facilities will rely on lo-cally grown, noncorn-based feedstocks, such as sweet sorghum and sugarcane, which, in turn, benefit local growers and the local rural economy. Multiple suppliers reduce local wa-ter demands and reduce the risk of feedstock supply shortages. Costs savings realized by utilizing locally available raw materials should be passed onto the consumers.

What is the State Kicking in? To give this initiative a jump start,

hB1270 provides for several financial incen-tives. First, grants have been authorized to complete pilot programs for blender pumps offering E10, E20, E30 and E85. Ethanol is typically splash blended in the delivery trucks at the bulk terminal and due to storage limita-tions, gas stations generally only offer E10. By blending ethanol with gasoline at the gas station, blender pumps offer the consumer a wider variety of ethanol blends than currently available and at a lower cost. Grantees are also required to develop guidelines for the instal-lation and use of advanced biofuel variable blending pumps by complying with appli-cable national Type evaluation Program and National Institute of Standards and Technol-ogy requirements and ASTM standards

Working in conjunction with the office of Agro-Consumer Services, Division of Weights and Measures within the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, small, advanced biofuel facilities can pur-chase vehicles to evaluate the performance of various hydrous fuel blends. This division of Agro-Consumer services will be working with the biofuel facilities on the introduction

of the field-to-pump, ethanol-blending strat-egy on an experimental basis until 2012. The Agro-Consumer services will monitor the equipment used by those advanced biofuel facilities that qualify for dispensing the etha-nol blends.

The legislation also requires the state to only purchase or lease motor vehicles that are capable of and equipped for using an alter-native fuel, which increases the demand and market for ethanol fuel blends.

The overarching goal of the legislation is outlined in section 3761 of The Advanced Biofuel Industry Development Initiative which states, “The legislature hereby finds and declares that the development of an ad-vanced biofuel industry in Louisiana is a mat-ter of grave public necessity and is vital to the economy of Louisiana. The use of ad-vanced biofuel will expand United States and Louisiana fuel supplies without increasing dependency on foreign oil. The development of an advanced biofuel industry will help re-build the local and regional economies dev-astated as a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita by providing: 1) Increased value added to the feedstock crops, which will benefit the producers and provide more revenue to the local community; 2) Increased investments in plants and equipment, which would stimulate the local economy by providing construc-tion jobs initially and the chance for full-time employment after the plant is completed; 3) Secondary employment as associated indus-tries develop due to plant coproducts becom-ing available at a competitive price; and 4) Increased local and state revenues collected from plant operations would stimulate local and state tax revenues and provide funds for improvements to the community and to the region … Therefore, an advanced biofuel in-dustry development initiative in Louisiana is vital to ensuring the broad-based rural eco-nomic development of Louisiana and is a matter of public policy.”

Is it Working?The governor signed the bill into law

on June 21, 2008. Since that time, progress in the development and implementation of

the small advanced biofuel facilities has been almost nonexistent. According to the De-partment of Agriculture’s Division of Agro Consumer Services, charged with monitoring the program, no company has expressed any interest in over a year or stepped forward to pursue these opportunities. The 2008 reces-sion as well as budget cutbacks have clearly hampered the development of these plants as well as the availability of state-funded grants and implementation of this promising legisla-tion.

The obstacle that has seemed to slow progress on the Advanced Biofuels Initiative on all fronts is clearly funding. The legislation is indeed ambitious, however, lack of funding on the production front has stalled the imple-mentation of its goals. The recession that hit across America in 2008 no doubt has had its effect on the schedule and goals of many of these projects.

Feedstock concerns have also risen. The potential use of sweet sorghum in the pro-duction of ethanol has some worrying about the rise in the relatively low prices of food us-ing Louisiana sugarcane syrup and molasses. Although somewhat easier to grow than corn, some believe that the repeated growing of sorghum year after year will require increased fertilizer inputs and crop rotation. The sor-ghum crop must be handled quickly in order for the juice to be successfully processed, re-sulting in a small harvesting window in order to optimize the best quantity and quality of the crop. This crop will also most likely be harvested in the summer months, just when hurricane season begins in the Gulf Coast. The goal of creating an ethanol supply from a decentralized network of plants, however, could help ease the concern of a hurricane substantially halting production efforts, if certain areas are hit harder than others.

The troubles that Louisiana Green Fu-els has run into the past few years illustrate many of these concerns. Both the economic downturn and sporadic weather conditions have hampered the efforts of the company in its goal of getting a 25 MMgy sucrose-based ethanol plant up and running. The availability of feedstock also depends on the

farmers’ willingness to invest. At this point, the lack of funding and the shakiness of dif-ferent projects implementation seem to have made many farmers reluctant.

Is Louisiana on the Right Track?Any new industry has its growing pains,

learning curves, and bumps in the road and the promising goals set forth in the 2008 leg-

islation have yet to even begin taking shape. However, by taking steps legislatively, Loui-siana has committed to support and help build that industry rather than taking a back seat and just reaping the benefits. Progress may be slow, but it is still progress.

The nation’s dependency on foreign oil cannot be solved with one panacea ap-proach using corn- or grain-based ethanol production that relies on megafarms. Loui-siana’s decentralized approach, if success-ful, could result in a sustainable and reliable alternative fuel source that will serve as a model for all other states.

Author: Michael K. BullardSecretary, Environmental Law Society

Loyola University New Orleans College of Law [email protected]

state

SM

*Hayes, Dermot J., Du, Xiaodong (April 2011) The Impact of Ethanol Production on US and Regional Gasoline Markets: An Update to May 2009. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD).

www.EthanolRFA.org

Over 200 plants nationwide. 13 billion gallons of clean, renewable American energy, a year.

Fueling the economy with over 400,000 jobs. Turning everyday abundant, renewable ingredients into clean sustainable energy.

Ethanol reduced the average American household’s gasoline bill by more than $800.If ethanol disappeared, gas prices could rise by as much as 92%.*


conTRIBuTIon

feedstock


Sweet Sorghum Boosts Ethanol’s EfficiencyEthanol has some distinct advantages as a fuel, and sweet sorghum promises even better input/output ratiosBy BENJAMIN BurrOuGHS

Traditionally agriculture has been in food/feed stock produc-tion for humans and livestock,

but as we move farther into this new century, fuel crops have be-come part of the equation. There

are crops that can be used for ethanol pro-duction that have better input/output ratios than corn. According to university studies, the ratio of input to output using corn is 1-1.25. When looking at ethanol production, the output ratio should be substantially high-er than the input for a crop to be deemed ef-


feedstock

ficient. one such crop that has a higher ratio is sweet sorghum at 1-8.

In addition to having a higher ratio, the cost of production for sweet sorghum is lower than for corn. For every bushel of corn produced, there must be a pound of nitrogen put out for fertilization. Distrib-uting 130 to 250 pounds of nitrogen per acre, sometimes more, can consume a large portion of the funds for production. Sweet sorghum requires only 40 to 60 pounds of nitrogen per acre, which can be accomplished by using a simple crop rotation that includes a winter cover crop that fixates nitrogen into the soil.

For every bushel of corn around 2.7 to 2.8 gallons of ethanol are produced. Another consideration is that corn is harvested only once a year and has a long growing season, of-ten more than 140 days. If a farmer were only growing corn for ethanol production and had 150 bushels an acre, he would help produce 405 to 420 gallons of ethanol per acre. This may seem like a good number, but sweet sorghum has the potential of producing up to 800 gallons of ethanol per acre. Another advantage is sweet sorghum can be harvested twice and, in some regions, three times a year. If there were year-round opera-tions, they could achieve over 1,000 gallons of ethanol per acre. That is at least twice that of corn production, and it has lower input costs resulting in higher profit margins for producers.

Some farmers/ranchers think that land has to be taken out of one particular pro-duction scheme and put into this one. The best practice is to have enough acreage to help offset your own fuel cost. The next time you are at the gas pump filling your vehicle, preferably from empty for this calculation, multiply the total by 26. This number should

give you a rough estimate of how much you spend a year on fuel. This number will not be exact since everyone’s driving habits differ; it is only for a quick calculation based on filling your vehicle completely every two weeks. If you fill your vehicle each week multiply by 52 fill ups a year.

There are more than six million new vehicles sold each year in the United States alone. With the current ethanol demand based on 10 percent blend, that is an addi-

tional 600,000 gallons of ethanol that is go-ing to be needed. (The 600,000 gallons of fuel is based on the assumption that a car was not traded in for the purchase of the new car.) With the ever-increasing price of fuel, a cheaper source has to be put online for consumers. The people of the United States have not had to pay for such high gas prices since the spike in the summer of 2008. When the prices spiked between $5 and $6

per gallon of diesel or gasoline, the working class was made to choose between eating or filling up their gas tank to get back and forth to work. It was a dark couple of weeks that oPec countries pushed the barrier to see where the American people would break at the pump, and how much we will pay in or-der to keep our mobility.

There is no reason for this to happen ever again, but there must be local support of growing crops for fuel production. Help-

ing to stabilize the fuel economy is vital to not only national se-curity, but to the infrastructure of the society we live in. Every American wants to own their own vehicle and drive from place to place. It is our freedom to choose when and where we want to travel. Having fuel pric-es at the current level of $3.65 to $4 per gallon is going to hit tourist towns and economies the hardest, not to mention the trucking industry, which ships most of our goods from ware-house to storefront. Each per-son that touches the goods adds a penny here or a penny there, and that is partly why we have seen increases at the grocery store.

The next topic is one that stirs up controversy every time it is discussed: reduction of green-house gas (GhG) emissions. By using ethanol in the fuel today, we have only scratched the sur-face on cutting GHG emissions. Many people would think that

the majority of pollution comes from indus-try. This is due to the stacks billowing with clouds of what is perceived to be smoke, but is actually steam, in most cases. Most of the pollution comes from everyone driving their own personal vehicle anywhere they travel. Having ethanol in the fuel has helped to re-duce GHG emissions, but there needs to be a larger effort for significant changes to oc-cur. Using E85 has helped to reduce GHG,

crop Advantage In some regions, three sweet sorghum crops can be harvested in a year’s time. Another positive is its low nitrogen requirement. Sweet sorghum ethanol would thus have favorable greenhouse gas impacts.


carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (co) emissions in flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) by as much as 70 percent. With a 70 percent reduction, smog-encased cities like Los An-

geles could help to make a better environ-ment for all of their inhabitants. By using E85 in larger quantities, our fuel can help the environment, and decrease our dependence

on foreign oil for fuel. The carbon cycle il-lustration shows how growing our own fuel will benefit the environment.

Understanding how carbon travels in our atmosphere is crucial to understanding that the more fuel produced from petro-leum the higher the levels of CO2, CO and GHGs in our atmosphere. To help decrease current levels in our atmosphere, alterna-tives are needed that have lower carbon con-tent, plus a source that can absorb carbon and take it out of circulation. Plants are the best at this process through photosynthesis and respiration. They take in CO2 and re-lease oxygen.

Ethanol production helps to ensure our fuel independence, decrease our depen-dence on foreign oil sources, decrease pol-lution and greenhouse gas emissions, have a healthier environment for children, in-creased economic activity that creates jobs, a strong industry and a step toward a cleaner future. Learning how to use what the earth has provided is vital to the future. Success is

dependent upon on a willingness to change our habits and move away from petroleum-based fuels.

Author: Benjamin BurroughsRenewable Fuel Research, Angelina College

(936) [email protected]

crops like corn

that isreaborbed

by theoriginal crops

which releaescarbon dioxide

are �nely ground

which can be used asan alternative fuel

and separated intotheir component sugars

the sugars are distilledto make ethanol

CO2

Recycling carbon In this view of the carbon cycle, ethanol production does not introduce new carbon into the atmosphere, but rather recycles the carbon existing in the atmosphere.

feedstock

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Documents

August 2011 Ethanol Producer Magazine