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A key talking point in May was the concerns regarding the EPA’s long awaited proposed rules for the Renewable Fuels Standard 2 (RFS2), which, if implemented, could mean that some biofuels are treated as superior to others. On 5 May the EPA released its suggestions for the second stage of the RFS, which lays out the strategy for increasing the supply of renewable fuels as mandated by the Energy... Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. This requires the production of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. [read more]

By publishing the Renewable Energy Progress Report, the Commission fulfils its reporting obligations under the current biofuels Directive (2003/30/EC) and the Directive on renewable electricity (2001/77/EC).1 In 2007 2.6% of the total transport fuel consumed in the EU was biofuels. Biodiesel is the preferred fuel and represents 75% of total biofuel use. The share of bioethanol amounted to 15% and... the remaining 10% came from pure vegetable oil consumed in Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland and biogas, which is only used in Sweden. No other types of renewable fuel like bio-hydrogen or green electricity2 have been reported. The largest biofuels consumers were Germany, France, Austria, Sweden and the UK, which together consumed 81% of the total biofuels used in the EU. The biofuels self-sufficiency in the EU went down considerably between 2005 and 2007 from initially 109% to 73%.3 In the case of bioethanol 31% of total consumption was imported in 2007. Therefore to reach the 5.75% indicative target by 2010 the use of biofuels would need to more than double over the next two years. [read more]

The Obama administration has now released the likely conditions that renewable fuels must meet in order to qualify as part of the mandate established by the Energy Security and Independence Act (EISA) of 2007 passed in December of that year. The long awaited analysis in how the US Environmental Protection Agency would judge lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, an eleventh hour addition to the... EISA, shows that soya-based biodiesel comes up short. The EISA lifecycle greenhouse gas emission requirement is a ‘cradle-to-grave’ analysis of the carbon release in producing a renewable fuel, which must then demonstrate a sharp reduction in carbon emissions when compared against petroleum-based diesel fuel. Included in the analysis is not just the emission release from producing the biodiesel, but also how redeploying soya beans and its products from the food chain to fuel might impact food exports. In other words, the analysis assumes US soya exports would be reduced by converting the food staple to a fuel feedstock prompting land outside the US to be converted to grow soya. That land transition is also factored into the lifecycle analysis. [read more]

For nearly six years Inbicon, a recent spin-off from Dong Energy, has been testing, perfecting, and patenting its biomass conversion process at its pilot plant in Denmark, and the company is now bringing its cellulosic ethanol technology to industrial scale. The name Inbicon is formed from INtegrated BIomass CONversion – but it could just as well have been formed from INtelligent BIomass... CONversion. Like all other start-ups the company is ambitious – it aims to become the world leader of technology for conversion and refining of soft lignocellulosic biomass into fuel, feed and green chemistry products. The company is now constructing a demonstration plant in Kalundborg, Denmark to show that largescale production of ethanol from straw is possible. This demonstration plant is scheduled for start-up in December 2009 with an annual production of 5.4 million litres of second generation ethanol, which will be sold to oil companies for blending. The plant is using straw because it is the most readily available feedstock in Denmark. Its mother company, Dong Energy also has 20 years experience of collecting and using wheat straw for heat and power plants so Inbicon already has all the systems in place for widespread use of that feedstock. However, the process can use many different soft biomasses such as sugarcane bagasse, corn stover, sorghum, arundo and an asian biomass residue, all of which has been tested with good results. [read more]

Twelve months ago biofuels producers in western Europe were bemoaning the hysterical food versus fuels debate that painted their industry as the cause of world hunger and frantically lobbying the EU for swift action on the so-called splash ‘n’ dash imports from the US that were killing their business. One year on and the EU has imposed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on the vast quantities... of subsidised US biodiesel (B99) flooding the European market. This was around 1.5 million tonnes in 2008, so is a move which should aid struggling producers going forward as the stock overhang of cheap US product is drawn down. What’s more, the food versus fuel debate has lost much of its fury as food prices have come down in the wake of lower oil prices and improved wheat harvests. So are the good times rolling again for Europe’s producers? Far from it. The past year may have resolved the B99 dumping problem in Europe’s eyes and cooled the heated food versus fuel debate but it also brought a whole new set of problems. These have been dominated by ongoing uncertainty about the future legislative framework for the industry and the impact of the global economic and financial meltdown: as one producer put it, the industry is now in survival mode. Survival means some tough decisions are being made across Europe, with many plants running on short time, others paring costs to the bone and some going to the wall. V-Fuels Biodiesel in northeast England is among the recent casualties. The 120,000 tonne capacity plant in Northumberland, one of the largest in Europe, opened in 2007 but was forced to curtail output in 2008 due to poor market conditions. [read more]

The fi rst quarter of 2009 was not kind to the European biodiesel industry. The region has seen plants shutting down or severely curtailing production blaming the continued low price for crude oil and the preference for cheaper subsidised biodiesel imports, mainly from the US, for wiping out their profi t margins. This led to pressure on the EU to protect its biodiesel producers. UK chemicals... group Ineos’ decision to shelve its plans to build four new biodiesel plants in Europe has shown us that plant construction is not immune to the credit crisis, as projects are continuing to be postponed due to investment in biofuels being considered a risk in the current climate. Worrying reports in Spain emerged indicating that their biodiesel plants were operating at a mere 9% of total capacity and even in Germany, the region’s leading producer of biodiesel, reports claimed that the biodiesel industry was working at less than 60% of capacity. The EU’s response of imposing anti-dumping and antisubsidy duties on US biodiesel imports should not only go some way to restarting demand within the dwindling industry, but it also reaffi rms the EU’s position that increasing production and imports of ethanol and biodiesel are still a priority. [read more]

‘Iceberg right ahead!’ is one of the most widely-recognised phrases in twentiethcentury maritime history, claiming one of the most well-known victims of its day. At 175 feet high, the RMS Titanic was a spectacular vessel full of promise and hope; a next generation ship before her time. During her maiden voyage the conditions at sea level were calm, but underwater was a different scenario. The... temperature dropped in the Atlantic and the sea in which she sailed was littered with icebergs, sinking any prospects of a second journey. At up to 12 feet tall, miscanthus is the titanic next generation feedstock of its age. What can be seen above surface, however, is less important that what is beneath – the conditions under the soil must be right for the underground stem, the rhizome, or it will die and sink the potential propagation of a next generation fuel crop. Growing patterns Miscanthus is traditionally an Asian ornamental plant. As the renewable energy industry gathered pace it has found its way to North America and Europe, featuring in the latter as an energy crop for the last 20 years. The rhizomes are planted in spring and in the fi rst year there is no commercial harvest. The crop is usually ‘topped’, the cane left on the ground to create a mulch that suppresses weeds. Miscanthus is a perennial grass so it re-grows each year reaching its full yield level after three or four years. Herbicides such as glyphosate and other products to control broad leaved weeds are usually required in the fi rst two seasons of establishing crops. Mature crops can produce up to 18 tonnes/hectare in the UK but a reliable yield for budgeting would be closer to 14t/ha, UK-based miscanthus developer Bical says. [read more]

A diverse range of gasification techniques are available, using a wide variety of biomass resources including dried wood chips, wood residues, chicken manure, agricultural residues or other wastes as gasifiers. But few have reached commercial scale yet. Gasifiers come in many forms including fixed bed gasifiers (for small scale operations), circulating fluidised bed (medium and large scale),... entrained flow gasifiers (large scale), atmospheric pressure gasifiers, or pressurised gasifiers (up to 20bar) and other systems. All have their own characteristics and produce a variety of producer gas – often termed syngas – and by-products. The difficulty is that the producer gas requires special conditioning, i.e. cooling and cleaning, to make it usable for gas engines, gas turbines or synthesis gas production. Once cleaned and treated, the syngas can be used to burn and produce power or upgraded to methanol or Fischer-Tropsch diesel. Wet and dry cleaning devices have been developed. Wet gas cleaning removes most of the impurities, but contaminated waste water needs to be treated before disposal. With dry gas cleaning, usually only particulates are trapped. [read more]

Transesterification is not a one way reaction. FAME can be tranesterified with glycerol to make triglyceride and methanol, but in order to make the reaction proceed in the direction most producers want – towards FAME – an excess of methanol is required in the reactor. The UK’s biggest producer Greenergy uses in excess of four times that which is consumed in the reaction. Greenergy operate two... plants at Immingham in the northeast of England, each with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes. This requires 30 tonnes of methanol from stock, but the methanol loading is around 150 tonnes, 120 of which have to be recovered and re-used. With figures like that a small improvement in efficiency can yield a significant return. Most methanol is derived from natural gas and its price rises and falls along with other petroleum products. When petroleum prices are high and biofuels more profitable methanol is more expensive and when times are harder, like now, methanol may be cheaper but margins are squeezed, so either way it cannot be wasted. [read more]