The soybean checkoff has been a driving force behind the biodiesel industry from its inception, culminating in 2008, when the industry produced nearly 700 million gallons. In that time, the biodiesel industry became a powerful economic engine. According to a report by consulting firm LECG, LLC, the biodiesel industry supported nearly 52,000 jobs in 2008.

In 2009, however, production declined to 545 million gallons and all but stopped toward the end of the year as the industry awaited announcements of the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) and extension of the federal blenders’ tax credit. This drastic drop in production led to the loss of nearly 29,000 of those jobs, according to the LECG report. Still, the industry added $4.1 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product and generated $828 million in local, state and federal tax revenue in 2009, according to the report.

“The soy biodiesel industry remains vitally important to any community and state where a soy biodiesel plant exists,” says USB Domestic Marketing Chair Jim Schriver, a soybean farmer from Montpelier, IN. “There are large groups of people whose livelihoods either directly or indirectly depend on a profitable soy biodiesel industry. Biodiesel plants represent good, high-paying jobs for thousands of people as well as millions of dollars in tax revenue to our local, state and national economies.”

The federal blenders’ tax credit allows a biodiesel producer or fuel supplier to acquire 1¢ for every percentage of biodiesel blended with petroleum diesel, making soy biodiesel even more cost-competitive. Schriver says the reinstatement of the federal biodiesel tax credit should enable more U.S. biodiesel manufacturers to resume production of large quantities of this homegrown, renewable fuel and to recharge efforts to make biodiesel more available to diesel users on a greater basis.

“Smaller plants can get started back up right away, but larger plants will need more time to get everything back in place,” Schriver says. “I think, in time, more of the biodiesel industry will return to profitability and be able to provide the economic benefits of job creation and tax revenue to our communities.”

Biodiesel became the first domestically produced fuel to qualify as an advanced biofuel under the RFS2 because it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% over petroleum diesel. The RFS2 called for 1.15 billion gallons of biodiesel to be used in the U.S. by the end of 2010 and ensures the domestic use of at least 1 billion gallons of biodiesel annually beginning in 2012. By 2022, when the RFS2 will be fully implemented, the Environmental Protection Agency expects biofuels production to increase U.S. net farm income by $13 billion, or more than 36%.

Soybean oil remains the dominant feedstock for U.S. biodiesel production, and the soybean checkoff funds a large portion of the biodiesel research and promotion conducted by the National Biodiesel Board.

SOURCE: CORNAND SOYBEAN DIGEST/united soybean board.

According to Patrick Dwyer, EIC vice president of communications, the company is shooting for full operation by spring 2011. Locally grown flax seed initially would be the feedstock of choice for the planned facility. Utilizing a hybrid continuous flow/batch system, the company plans to extrude the flax seed into oil for biodiesel production and take the remaining meal for use as animal feed, or have it further milled into flour to be sold in the Ontario food market, according to Dwyer.

“Everyone said you can’t grow flax in Ontario,” Dwyer said, adding that, through a partnership already established with an area farmer, EIC would have access to about 1,200 acres of flax. “We said we don’t think that’s true. Areas not too far from us used to be known as the flax capital of Canada 100 years ago before people started moving out to the prairies and different crops started to replace flax. We’re looking to bring flax back and grow it ourselves or through partnerships.”

In addition to flax, EIC intends to use locally collected coffee grounds as feedstock. “The feedstock has to be viable and it can’t just be a waste feedstock,” Dwyer said. “It has to have value-added market potential.” Potential customers for EIC’s biodiesel are expected to be municipalities, fleet users or waste management companies.

The proposed biodiesel production facility in Toronto will be privately funded and is one of eight similarly-sized projects planned in the next four to five years by EIC, according to Dwyer. He noted that EIC decided to deploy a string of small to mid-sized production facilities rather than building one large production plant because, “we don’t want to run into the economic problems of having a large facility and having to find massive amounts of feedstock to keep it running and profitable,” he said.

According to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, as of November 4, Canada houses 12 operating biodiesel plants with a combined installed capacity of 200.9 MMly. In 2011, the country’s demand will expand to over 650 MMly to meet projections based on the Canadian government’s new regulation requiring diesel fuel and heating oil to contain at least a 2 percent biodiesel blend.

According to Dwyer, “We’re going to be in a weird deficit relationship between Canada and the U.S. in that we’ll be one of the U.S.’s largest exporters of fuel from the oil sands, but we’ll end up in a situation where we’ll have to import our own renewable fuel like biodiesel. One of the impetuses for creating this company was to sort of balance out this trade deficit.”

SOURCE: BIODIESEL MAGAZINE

“Bioleo is an oil extraction plant located in Bahia state, with capacity to process 130,000 tons of grains of several types of oilseeds. The unit has installed capacity to store 30,000 tons of grain and tankage for 10 million liters of oil,” said Petrobras.

“The control of the company will be shared among Petrobras and the other partners, who remain with a 50% stake in Bioleo. The agreement also provides for investments of BRL6 million for operational and HSE (Health, Safety, and Environment) improvements to be disbursed equally by the partners,” it added.

ShareBy Rogerio Jelmayer

 SOURCE: MARKET WATCH

The agreement includes the construction of a plant within 14 months in the province Azua (south) to use oil from native varieties of brush such as jatrofa and higuereta, which haven’t any use so far since the oil they produce is toxic.

The agreement includes the Surfuturo Foundation, which will promote the establishment of plantations in the country’s poorest region, with the guarantee for farmers who raise the crops to be bought by the future plant.

Globasol executive Jose Vicente Galindo said the plant’s maximum production of 100,000 tons per year would require plantations totaling 60,000 hectares.

Attending the signing ceremony were Spain ambassador Diego Bermejo and Asturias region president Vicente Alvarez Areces, who concludes his first official visit to the country today.

 SOURCE: DOMINICAN TODAY

The world’s first commercial-scale seawater-based biofuels project boosts Egypt’s aquaculture profile. (Photo: Global Seawater).

EGYPT, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 00:40 (GMT + 9)

Houston-based energy projects development company Energy Allied International and the Seawater Foundation and Global Seawater, Inc, pioneers in the development of Integrated Seawater Agriculture Systems (ISAS), have signed an MOU to develop the world’s first commercial-scale seawater-based biofuels project in Egypt: “New Nile Co.”

It will be one of the largest biofuels investments thus far in the Middle East or Africa.

ISAS is an advanced biofuels production model that uses effluent from seawater aquaculture as a natural fertilizer to grow large plantations of the halophyte (naturally salt resistant plant) salicornia, which can yield hefty volumes of high-grade vegetable oil for use as a biofuel feedstock.

“Energy Allied International’s expertise in developing large scale energy projects in the Middle East and Africa, tied with the Seawater Foundation’s and Global Seawater’s extensive knowledge of developing and operating ISAS models, is a winning combination to ensure the success of the world’s first, commercial scale, seawater-based biofuels project,” stated Dr Carl Hodges, chairman of The Seawater Foundation and co-chairman of Global Seawater.

Unlike first-generation biofuels producers that menace to displace staple foods like corn due to reliance on freshwater and nutrient-rich soil, New Nile will apply the ISAS model, thereby relying exclusively on untreated seawater and currently unproductive arid, desert and degraded lands.

“New Nile Co is poised to launch a great agricultural revolution in Egypt, by making productive use of the country’s abundant agricultural-skilled labour, unlimited access to seawater and vast desert lands,” said Mike Nassar, chairman of Energy Allied.

New Nile plans to produce tens of millions of lts of biofuels from a 50,000 ha-project site. Jointly with leading architecture design firm and the project’s lead planning advisor, Gensler, the developers are presently considering potential site locations along the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts.

Already having successfully applied the ISAS model in Eritrea after conducting broad research and development in Mexico, the developers are secure of achieving similarly favourable results in Egypt.

Besides automotive markets necessitating the use of blended biofuels, New Nile will target the European civil aviation market. The latter is put through strict European Union (EU) regulations, and aviation will enter the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in 2012.

New Nile’s developers are currently discussing potential project site locations with the Egyptian Government and intend to complete the bankable feasibility study this year and being construction in early 2011.

By Natalia Real

SOURCE: FIS

The method converts both plant oils and carbohydrates into biodiesel in a single process, and should also improve the performance characteristics of biodiesel, especially in cold weather.
A paper describing the method, which has been patented, is online in the journal Energy & Fuels.

Conventional biodiesel production extracts plant oils and then converts them into fatty acid esters that can be used to power engines, said Mark Mascal, professor of chemistry at UC Davis and co-author of the paper with postdoctoral researcher Edward Nikitin. That leaves behind the carbohydrate portion of the plant — the sugars, starches, and cellulose that make up stems, leaves, seed husks and other structures.

The new process converts those carbohydrates into chemicals called levulinic acid esters — at the same time and in the same vessel that the oils are converted to fatty acid esters — resulting in a fuel cocktail that performs better at low temperatures than conventional biodiesel.

The fuel cocktail has a similar boiling range to conventional biodiesel, but is thinner; it becomes waxy at a lower temperature. Performance at low temperatures is a significant problem with B100 (conventional biodiesel), Mascal said.

“Our hope is that this blend of levulinate esters and biodiesel would perform better over a wider range of temperatures than biodiesel,” Mascal said.

Levulinate esters are nontoxic and are used as food additives, Mascal said.

Costs of the new process may be somewhat higher than for conventional biodiesel production, but should be offset by improved fuel yields and performance, he said.

The researchers are partnering with Bently Biofuels of Minden, Nev., to test the performance of levulinate/B100 blends.

Source:  Scitech News

BA says the plant will reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

British Airways has struck a deal to build the first plant in Europe to produce jet fuel from waste matter.

Some 500,000 tonnes of waste will be used by the UK facility each year to produce 16 million gallons of fuel.

Construction of the plant in east London will start within two years. It is set to produce fuel from 2014, creating up to 1,200 jobs.

BA said the plant would produce twice the amount of fuel needed to power all its flights from London City Airport.

It would only account for about 2% of flights from Heathrow, however.

Greenhouse gas

BA argues the plant will cut the amount of waste that is sent to landfill, reducing the amount of methane that is produced.

Methane is thought to be a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The plant will be built by a US company Solena Group, with BA committing to buy all of its output.

It will be another four years before it starts producing fuel, and it is unlikely to work at full capacity straight away.

The ideal source material for the plant is waste matter that has a high carbon content.

Biofuel creation

The waste is fed into a high temperature “gasifier” to produce BioSynGas.

A chemical process called Fischer Tropsch is then used to convert the gas into biofuel.

Waste products from the process can be used to power the plant as well as supply 20MW of electricity to the national grid.

A solid waste product can be used as an aggregate in construction.

The fuel produced by the plant is certified for use in other countries, but not currently in the UK.

BA says it is confident of getting the certification by the time the plant starts producing fuel, either for use in a blend with traditional kerosene or on its own.

By Richard Scott

Source: BBC

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell plans to form an ethanol and fuel distribution joint venture worth up to $12 billion with Brazilian sugar and biofuel giant Cosan, becoming the latest global energy company to buy into one of Brazil’s fastest-growing industries.

The deal, announced on Monday, marks Shell’s first foray into ethanol production and follows moves by British oil company BP, which in 2008 took a stake in a big Brazilian biofuel project and unveiled $1 billion in investments.

Cosan shares jumped 12 percent in Sao Paulo, compared with a 1.1 percent gain by the benchmark Bovespa index. Shell shares rose 1.1 percent in London, outperforming a 0.3 percent rise in the Dow Jones European oil and gas index.

“It’s a vote of confidence from an oil major for the Brazilian ethanol industry,” said Jonathan Kingsman, managing director of the Lausanne-based Kingsman SA ethanol and sugar consultancy. “I expect more interest from the oil companies in Brazilian ethanol, both in production and distribution.”

The 50-50 joint venture will be the third-largest fuel distributor in Latin America’s largest country, with almost 4,500 filling stations nationwide. By joining forces, Cosan and Shell will be better positioned to compete with the two top players in the market, state oil giant Petrobras and Ipiranga, a unit of Brazil’s Grupo Ultra.

Cosan first branched out into the fuel distribution business in 2008 when it acquired U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp’s Esso chain of service stations for nearly $1 billion. Cosan also agreed in December to buy a local chain of filling stations called Petrosul for an undisclosed sum.

While the deal will not immediately add to Cosan’s existing cane crushing capacity of about 60 million tonnes a year, it will give it a deep-pocketed partner at a time when some of its smaller rivals are vulnerable to takeovers.

The companies hope to more than double ethanol output to up to 5 billion liters a year from about 2 billion now, Shell’s downstream director, Mark Williams, said in London, without giving a time frame. The increase would come from takeovers and organic growth, he added.

The deal is another feather in the cap of Cosan Chairman Rubens Ometto, whose family has been in the sugar business since 1936. On Ometto’s watch, Cosan went on an acquisition spree and expanded into fuel distribution and port terminals.

Ometto hopes to capitalize on Shell’s global clout to make ethanol a widely traded commodity.

“Brazil’s aim is to become an ethanol exporter. Shell has distribution facilities throughout the world that we could use in a much more integrated way,” Ometto said in Sao Paulo.

“This step will be very important to consolidate ethanol as a clean and renewable fuel … and help it become a global commodity.”

Oil companies and major global investors have been searching for partnerships in Brazil’s promising ethanol sector, which is still largely dominated by family companies with complex ownership structures.

Shell has been looking for opportunities in Brazil’s ethanol industry for years. About 90 percent of all new cars in Brazil are flex-fuel, running on any mix of ethanol and gasoline, making the country a huge market for biofuels.

Other foreign companies have also been delving into Brazil. U.S. agribusiness giant Bunge Ltd struck a deal in December to buy sugar and ethanol producer Moema for $452 million, while French commodities company Louis Dreyfus said in October it would take over the Santelisa Vale mill for an undisclosed sum.

COSAN EYES OVERSEAS MARKETS, TECHNOLOGY

The combined entity will have about 40 billion reais ($21.4 billion) in annual sales, Cosan Chief Financial Officer Marcelo Martins said on a conference call with analysts and investors.

For Cosan, the world’s largest sugar and ethanol producer, teaming up with Shell could give it access to a vast overseas distribution network and new technologies in ethanol production, an area where Shell has been investing. Shell’s network may help Cosan export more ethanol as output grows.

“We’ll have a partner with an absolutely huge international presence in fuels sales,” Martins said.

The so-called second-generation in ethanol production has yet to reach commercial scale, but some companies are betting on the use of cellulosic material such as bagasse or cane stalks and grasses to make biofuels, in part to move away from making fuel from foodstuffs.

Cosan, which recently obtained a court injunction to remove its name from a government black list of companies with workers in slave-like conditions, said it had 180 days to discuss the nonbinding memorandum of understanding exclusively with Shell International Petroleum Co Ltd.

As part of the transaction, Cosan will transfer its sugar, ethanol, fuel distribution and energy generation business to the merged entity, with assets valued at $4.93 billion and debt of $2.52 billion.

Shell will contribute its retail fuel and aviation distribution business, valued at up to $3 billion, and inject $1.63 billion into the merged company in up to two years.

Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual advised Cosan on the transaction, while JPMorgan Chase advised Shell.

Cosan and Shell will have the option of buying each other’s stake in the venture after 10 years, with the price to be determined at the time of purchase.

Earlier on Monday, Cosan released its quarterly earnings for the three months ended December 31. It posted net income of 167.1 million reais, up sharply from 5.2 million reais a year earlier. ($1=1.87 reais)

Reporting by Elzio Barreto and Inae Riveras; additional reporting by Reese Ewing in Sao Paulo and David Brough, Nigel Hunt and Tom Bergin in London; editing by Todd Benson, Dave Zimmerman and John Wallace.

Source:  Reuters

State-run oil giant Petrobras (PETR4.SA)(PBR.N) and General Electric Co (GE.N), which helped design the plant, are betting that increased use of ethanol generation by green-conscious countries will boost demand for the product.

Brazil, the top global ethanol exporter, is already in talks with Japan to develop biofuels power generation there.

“We have great expectations to show the viability and economy of generating electricity from … an alternative feedstock to fossil fuels,” Maria das Gracas Foster, head of Petrobras’ natural gas division, said.

Petrobras with the help of GE upgraded the 87-megawatt power plant to switch between running on natural gas or ethanol instantaneously. Brazil primarily relies on hydroelectric power but needs backup thermoelectric generation during the dry season.

John Ingham, Latin America Products Director for GE, said tests showed switching the plant to ethanol reduced carbon dioxide emissions without lowering energy output.

GE has around 770 turbines like those used in the Juiz de Fora plant, including many in Japan, that could be converted to run on ethanol, he said.

“A plant like that consumes a lot of ethanol, so it has to be in a place that makes sense (such as) places that have no access to gas, like Japan, some islands, or places that depend heavily on diesel like the Amazon region,” he said.

Brazil is expected to produce a record 27.8 billion liters of ethanol in the 2009/2010 season. It began its biofuels program 30 years ago and now mandates a minimum 20 percent of ethanol in gasoline.

Petrobras itself is only starting to enter the ethanol market. Brazil’s ethanol production comes from sugar cane milled by companies such as Cosan (CZZ.N) or commodities giants including Cargill Inc [CARG.UL], Bunge (BG.N) and ADM Co (ADM.N).

Domestic demand for ethanol is being driven by the popularity of the flex-fuel car technology that was launched in 2003 and now makes up around 90 percent of new vehicle sales. (Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Marguerita Choy).

By Denise Luna

Source: Reuters

Soybean, one of the most important global sources of protein and oil, is now the first legume species with a published complete draft genome sequence. The sequence and its analysis appear in the January 14 edition of the journal Nature.

The research team comprised 18 institutions, including the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Purdue University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The DOE, National Science Foundation, USDA and United Soybean Board supported the research.

“The soybean genome’s billion-plus nucleotides afford us a better understanding of the plant’s capacity to turn sunlight, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water, into concentrated energy, protein, and nutrients for human and animal use,” said Anna Palmisano, DOE Associate Director of Science for Biological and Environmental Research. “This opens the door to crop improvements that are sorely needed for energy production, sustainable human and animal food production, and a healthy environmental balance in agriculture worldwide.”

With the soybean genetic code now determined, the research community has access to a key reference for more than 20,000 legume species and can explore the extraordinary evolutionary innovation of nitrogen-fixing symbiosis that is so critically important to successful agricultural crop rotation strategies.

Jeremy Schmutz, the study’s first author and a DOE JGI scientist at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Alabama, said that the soybean sequencing was the largest plant project done to date at the DOE Joint Genome Institute. “It also happens to be the largest plant that’s ever been sequenced by the whole genome shotgun strategy—where we break it apart and reassemble it like a huge puzzle,” he said. Of the more than 20 other plant genomes taken on by the DOE JGI, those already sequenced include the black cottonwood (poplar) tree and the grain sorghum, both targeted because of their promise as biomass feedstocks for biofuels production.

“This is a milestone for soybean research and promises to usher in a new era in soybean agronomic improvement,” said co-author Gary Stacey, Director, Center for Sustainable Energy and Associate Director and National Center for Soybean Biotechnology, University of Missouri. “The genome provides a parts list of what it takes to make a soybean plant and, more importantly, helps to identify those genes that are essential for such important agronomic traits as protein and oil content.”

Soybean, one of the most important global sources of protein and oil, is now the first legume species with a published complete draft genome sequence.

From the sequence analysis, Stacey said that he and his colleagues have identified more than 46,000 genes of which 1,110 are involved in lipid metabolism. “These genes and their associated pathways are the building blocks for soybean oil content and represent targets that can be modified to bolster output and lead to the increase of the use of soybean oil for biodiesel production.”

While biodiesel from soybean oil represents a cleaner, renewable alternative to fossil fuels with desirable properties as a liquid transportation fuel, there simply is not enough oil produced by the plant to be a competitive gasoline on a gallons-of-fuel yield per acre. The availability of the soybean genome may provide some key solutions. “We can now zero in on the control points governing carbon flow towards protein and oil,” said Tom Clemente, Professor, Center for Biotechnology, Center for Plant Science Innovation at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. “With the combination of informatics, biochemistry and genetics we can target the development of a soybean with greater than 40 percent oil content.”

The availability of the soybean genome sequence has accelerated other soybean trait discovery efforts as well. For example, researchers have used the sequence to zero in on a mutation that can be used to select for a line that has lower levels of the sugar stachyose, which will improve the ability of animals and humans to digest soybeans.

In another effort, by comparing the genomes of soybean and corn, a single-base pair mutation was found that causes a reduction in phytate production in soybean. Phytate is the form in which phosphorous is stored in plant tissue. Because phytate is not absorbed by the animals that eat the feed, the unabsorbed phytate passes through the gastrointestinal tract, elevating the amount of phosphorus in the manure. Limiting phytate production in the soybean could reduce a major environmental runoff contaminant from swine and poultry waste.

Of additional importance for soybean farmers is that the genome sequence has provided access to the first resistance gene for the devastating disease Asian Soybean Rust (ASR). In countries where ASR is well established, soybean yield losses due to the disease can be as high as 80 percent.

Provided by DOE/Joint Genome Institute

Source: Physorg