Midwest pennycress harvest enhances biodiesel diversity

Biodiesel Magazine
By the National Biodiesel Board
May 29, 2012
It's called pennycress because it's shaped like pennies. As Illinois farmer Brad Glenn finishes harvesting it from his farm this week, pennies are exactly what he hopes he will earn from turning this old plant into a new cash crop.

Glenn is an early adopter in the movement to bring pennycress into the corn and soybean rotation as a promising biodiesel feedstock. It has been on the fast track to becoming a sustainable biodiesel resource since 2008, and this year, he's one of a group of entrepreneurs that believes it has hit the right combination. It could mean another viable, sustainable source of oil for our nation's energy supply while adding income to farm operations.

Read more

Bioenergy research focusing on oil-rich pennycress

pjstar.com (Peoria Journal Star)
By STEVE TARTER (starter@pjstar.com) of the Journal Star
Posted Apr 30, 2012 @ 09:15 PM

Public can get a look at alternative energy crop at WIU Field Day.

MACOMB — Win Phippen doesn't spend as much time researching milkweed as he used to. The director of the Alternative Crops Research program at Western Illinois University is focused on another crop these days.

"Bioenergy - that's where the (research) money is," he said.
While he still fields inquiries about the virtues of milkweed for the cosmetics industry and as a fiber for pillows, Phippen said that it's pennycress that's been his focus for the last several years.
Pennycress is a weed that's building a following in central Illinois because of its rich oil content, twice what is contained in a soybean plant.

Read more

Pennycress? Yep, It’s the Next Big Biofuel

CleanTechnica.com
April 19, 2012 By Tina Casey

Get ready to hear a lot about pennycress biofuel this year. Pennycress sounds like a name that belongs to an unassuming little weed commonly found along roadsides – and it does – but a while back the U.S. Department of Agriculture started to investigate the use of pennycress seeds in biofuel production and this year promises to be a breakout one, with farmers in the Midwest getting to rake in a bumper crop.

Biofuel from pennycress seeds
At first glance, pennycress seeds don’t seem to have enough oomph for biofuel. For one thing, they are tiny – they can be measured in less than a couple of millimeters. However, field pennycress is part of the same oilseed family that includes camelina, another weedy plant that has been proving itself to be a big time biofuel player.

Read more

Pennycress closer to commercialization

WJBC
By: Carrie Muehling 3-15-2012

Most Central Illinois farmers are getting ready to plant this year’s crop, but a few are monitoring one that is already in the ground.

Lexington farmer Bruce Klein hosted a field day Tuesday to give others a chance to see his 80-acre field of pennycress, which he will double crop with soybeans this year.

Klein said he has been interested in any kind of crop that can be used for biofuels.

“I saw it as a way to begin growing a biofuel that wasn’t going to cause us to short the food supply, so that’s what really sparked my interest,” said Klein.

Klein is working with Pennycress Partners, a group dedicated to seeing the crop commercialized for biodiesel production.

Read more

Pennycress energy crop developments show real progress

Biorefining Magazine
By Luke Geiver March 15, 2011

As a dedicated energy crop, some might describe field pennycress as that old, clichéd saying, “too good to be true,” but companies such as Arvens Technology and Alion Science and Technology assert they have proof to show that such a nontraditional crop, planted during harvest time and harvested during the planting season, can provide real benefits.

During the 2011 International Biomass Conference & Expo, May 2-5 in St. Louis, the two companies will explain exactly why underutilized crops such as field pennycress can provide a tried and true advantage to farmers and alternative fuel producers. Peter Johnsen, CTO for Arvens, and Eric Hixson of Alion Science and Technology, spoke with Biorefining Magazine on the topic in advance of the conference.

Read more

Pennycress, french weed, fanweed: by any name, a biofuel rose

BiofuelsDigest
November 24, 2010 Jim Lane

We haven’t heard of anyone making biofuels out of chickens, or eggs, but we hear a lot about the chicken-and-egg problem.

“How do get growers to grow if there’s no market? How do you get a market if there are no growers?” Arvent CEO Sudhir Seth summed up the problem. A few years back, along with a group of Indian investors, he had formed BMI as a biodiesel project, with a goal of constructing a 15 Mgy plant in Peoria.

“It was a $45M project that went all the way through permitting with the Illinois EPA,” Seth recalled, “when suddenly one fine morning the biodiesel tax credit disappeared. Whatever relationships we had formed, started to fall apart. Eventually, we had no other options put that project on hold.”

Read more

Pennycress Could Go from Nuisance Weed to New Source of Biofuel

USDA ARS
By Ann Perry
November 4, 2010

A common roadside plant could have the right stuff to become a new source of biofuel, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) studies. Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, have found that field pennycress yields impressive quantities of seeds whose oil could be used in biodiesel production.

Field pennycress belongs to the Brassicaceae family, along with canola, camelina and mustard-other prolific producers of oil-rich seeds. The ARS studies help support USDA's efforts to develop new sources of bioenergy.

Read more

Field pennycress shows feedstock potential

Biodiesel Magazine
November 2010
By Erin Voegele
Posted Nov. 10, 2010

Research conducted by the UDSA’s Agricultural Research Service has identified a promising new feedstock for biodiesel production, Thlaspi arvense. More commonly known as field pennycress, the plant is a member of Brassicaceae family, which includes canola and camelina.

The project is being completed at the Peoria-Ill.-based ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. According Bryan Moser, an ARS research chemist, the research team has been studying field pennycress for approximately seven years, while the biodiesel component of the project has been ongoing for the past four years.

“The work that we do in our unit, the Bio-Oils Research Unit, spans basically everything from agronomic development and oil process, all the way to the production of biodiesel and evaluation of the properties of methyl esters that result from field pennycress oil,” Moser said.

Read more

Fuel vs. food: Could pennycress be the answer?

Galesburg.com (The Register-Mail)
By JILLIAN STAMBAUGH
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jul 21, 2009 @ 04:02 PM

Weed becomes a crop at WIU


Macomb — Always in search of ways to make land more productive, the Alternative Crops Research Program at Western Illinois University has been hard at work developing a breed of field pennycress in hopes of establishing it as an off-season, biodiesel-producing crop.

During Western’s Alternative Crops Field Day, program director Dr. Win Phippen said he had 32 different lines collected from around the world planted on the WIU Agricultural Field Laboratory — currently, he is the only breeder of pennycress in the country.

Read the full story

Biodiesel could be made from invasive weed

Canadian Driver
June 14, 2009

Peoria County, Illinois - A biofuels company is examining the possibility of making biodiesel from an invasive weed whose seed contains about twice as much oil as soybeans.

Biofuels Manufacturers of Illinois (BMI) is targeting the use of field pennycress, also known as stinkweed. The plant is a member of the mustard family and contains sufficient quantities of glucosinolates to be toxic to cattle in large quantities. Unlike corn and soybeans, pennycress is planted in the fall and grows the following spring, giving farmers the opportunity to grow two crops on the same land each year. BMI grew the crop on 70 acres in 12 test sites in central Illinois this year.

Read the full story

Oil-producing weed harvested at Mapleton

ChicagoTribune.com
Associated Press
7:10 AM CDT, June 13, 2009

MAPLETON, Ill. - The first commercial harvest of a plant once called "stinkweed" took place Friday in a field near the Peoria County town of Mapleton.

The weed in question is now called pennycress. It's a member of the mustard family with seeds that contain 36 percent oil -- twice as much as soybeans.

Read the full story

Experimental Plots of Pennycress Tested for Biodiesel Potential

USDA - ARS
By Jan Suszkiw
November 26, 2008

Field pennycress may go from weed to "wonderfuel," thanks to studies by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Peoria, Ill.

There, a team of ARS scientists led by Terry Isbell has been researching the annual winter weed's potential to yield a bumper crop of oil-rich seed for use in making biodiesel and other products, including an organic fertilizer and natural fumigant. Historically, pennycress has been a bane to farmers. But now, with America's quest for "homegrown" alternatives to petroleum, the plant is getting a second look.

In July, Peoria-based Biofuels Manufacturers of Illinois, LLC (BMI) entered into a two-year cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with ARS to conduct laboratory and field trials aimed at teasing out pennycress's production characteristics as both a cultivated crop and biodiesel feedstock.

Read the full story

Biodiesel plant may grow like a weed

Peoria Journal Star
By STEVE TARTER
Posted Nov 03, 2008 @ 07:59 PM

Facility near Mapleton would blend pennycress oil with petroleum

PEORIA — A new plant may grow soon in Peoria, a biodiesel plant that will make use of a whole new energy source: a weed called pennycress.

Biodiesel Manufacturers of Illinois plans to build a $40 million manufacturing plant near Mapleton, 10 miles southwest of Peoria, that would produce 45 million gallons of fuel annually. That's the equivalent of 10 percent of all the biodiesel fuel produced in the United States last year.

Biodiesel is specially treated vegetable oil - traditionally, soybean oil - blended with petroleum diesel to make a more environmentally friendly diesel fuel with reduced emissions.

The Peoria plant would take advantage of a new source for biodiesel: pennycress.
What excites Sudhir Seth, BMI's president and CEO, is that using pennycress, an oil-rich plant with up to 36 percent oil content, would sidestep the entire fuel-versus-food debate.

Read the full story

Innovation Fuels to Conduct Pilot Pennycress Cultivation Program in New York State for Biodiesel Production

GrainNet.com
Date Posted: October 8, 2008

Albany, NY—Innovation Fuels, the rapidly emerging, New York-based renewable fuel company that manufactures, markets, and distributes biodiesel fuel to customers around the world, has announced that it is conducting a pilot program across New York State to plant the oilseed crop pennycress with the intent of producing biodiesel.

The initial planting will take place on four acres in Hampton, NY, located in northern New York State's Washington County.

This marks the first effort in United States history where non-edible pennycress has been planted to produce an alternative energy fuel such as sustainable biodiesel.

Read the full story

ARS Scientists Produce Oil From Multiple Crops for Potential Biofuel Production at Pilot Plant in Peoria, IL

GrainNet.com
Date Posted: October 10, 2008

Scientists also Study Rotation Plans to Include Grasses for Cellulosic Ethanol Production

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Peoria, IL, have produced oils of camelina, canola, Cuphea, lesquerella, milkweed and pennycress by the barrelful in their commercial-scale pilot plant.

These alternative crops may be able to provide alternative domestic sources of industrial products ranging from soap to biofuels for cars, trucks and--in the case of Cuphea--even jet fuel.

Plant physiologist Russ Gesch and colleagues at the ARS North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory in Morris, MN, have studied Cuphea since 1999.

Read the full story

Weed Could Feed Biodiesel

syracuse.com

Morrisville State, Albany company study pennycress as source of oil for alternative fuel

Sunday, August 24, 2008
By Tim Knauss Staff writer

For generations, farmers have done everything they could to get rid of pennycress, a fast-growing weed no more welcome than a plague of locusts.

But makers of biodiesel may ask farmers to give the weed a second look.

Researchers from Morrisville State College have teamed up with a private biodiesel company to study whether pennycress, which produces seeds rich in oil, could be grown in Central New York as a feedstock for biodiesel.

Read the full story