New Web Site has Information on Ethanol

The Farmer
By: Compiled by staff
Published: Aug 31, 2009

Online resource helps consumers learn about ethanol benefits.

Growth Energy has announced the launch of a new online resource to help consumers learn more about the tremendous benefits of ethanol for America's environment, economy and national security. The site includes answers to many frequently asked questions about the ethanol industry, as well as retail information.

Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis calls DrivingEthanol.org a one-stop shop to learn more about the remarkable benefits of high-tech, homegrown ethanol. Buis says ethanol is affordable and available now to grow the economy, green the environment and enhance national security. Buis invites consumers and retailers to visit DrivingEthanol.org to learn more about the promise of ethanol.

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Sue Leschine fuels biomass-to-ethanol advancement

Boston Herald
By Helen Graves / Feature
Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Patience pays off – at least in the case of Sue Leschine and the Q Microbe™.

Leschine is the UMass Amherst microbiologist who, during her 20-plus years of research, discovered the microscopic but mighty organism.

She’s also a founder and chief scientist of Qteros, the Marlborough-based company turning the prospect of biomass-to-biofuel into commercial reality.

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Microbe Metabolism Harnessed to Produce Fuel

LiveScience.com

By Irene Chang , National Science Foundation
posted: 28 August 2009 11:49 am ET

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Microbes such as the yeast we commonly use in baking bread and fermenting beer are now being engineered to produce the next generation of biofuels. Jay Keasling, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, is leading a team of scientists in an effort to manipulate the chemistry within bacteria so they will produce fuel from sugar.

At the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), one of three research centers set up by the Department of Energy for the research and development of biofuels, Keasling is utilizing synthetic biology techniques involving chemistry, genetic engineering and molecular biology. Foundational work being done at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), where Keasling is director, will underpin the research at JBEI. SynBERC is funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Indirect Land Use Concerns for Ethanol

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Cindy Zimmerman – August 27th, 2009

A conference on land use and carbon impacts of corn ethanol held this week in St. Louis offered a broad view of a significant topic as Washington braces to continue debates on climate change legislation and the future of ethanol.

Geoff Cooper with the Renewable Fuels Association moderated the first panel at the conference sponsored by the National Corn Growers Association. That panel focused on the modeling used to determine land use change and Cooper says the panel participants pointed out how difficult this can be. “It’s a new area of study and certainly new to a regulatory framework,” Cooper said. “Using these models for these purposes involves lots of subjective decisions and judgement calls and when you put that in the context of a regulation, that’s problematic.”

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LanzaTech develops waste gas-to-ethanol technology

Ethanol Producer Magazine September 2009
By Erin Voegele
Report posted Aug. 27, 2009, at 2:00 p.m. CST

New Zealand-based LanzaTech NZ Ltd. recently announced it has developed a proprietary fermentation technology that can be used to produce ethanol using the carbon monoxide and hydrogen components of industrial waste gases and biomass-based syngas.

According to LanzaTech’s co-founder Sean Simpson, industrial waste gases, such as those that result from steel processing, contain high concentrations of carbon monoxide. “The LanzaTech Process captures [this] gas and uses it as a resource,” he said. LanzaTech’s technology can also utilize the carbon monoxide and hydrogen components of syngas created using any biomass resource, including municipal waste, organic industrial waste and waste wood. “The gasification process breaks down the chemical bonds in the biomass, making up to 80 percent of the energy available for fermentation,” Simpson said.

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'Maize-based ethanol can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 50%'

Engineering News
By: Leandi Cameron
28th August 2009

Newer maize ethanol facilities show that using this fuel instead of petrol can reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by about 50%, according to the Renewable Fuels Association of the US.

“To understand the climate benefits of renewable fuels relative to fossil fuels, it is necessary to compare the life-cycle GHG emissions associated with the production and use of each type of fuel. “The total quantity of cradle-to-grave GHG emissions associated with a fuel’s production and combustion for each unit of energy delivered is often referred to as the fuel’s ‘carbon score’,” the association states in a recent report, titled ‘What Do Biofuels Displace and Why Does it Matter?’

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Ethanol fight bubbling up

Detroit Free Press

Posted: 3:46 a.m. Aug. 28, 2009
By SARAH A. WEBSTERFREE PRESS AUTOMOTIVE EDITOR

Complaints from the ethanol industry keep getting louder.

Earlier this month, Free Press Washington correspondent Justin Hyde wrote about the brewing trouble.

Struggling ethanol makers want federal regulators to allow more ethanol to be mixed into regular gasoline. The current limit is 10% and they’re hoping for 15%.

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Come visit us at the Farm Progress Show

Sept. 1

The Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research will be exhibiting at the Farm Progress Show on Sept. 1, 2, and 3. We will be located in the Energy Grass Education Area, which is on the north side of the grounds near the field demonstration shuttle area, off of Central Ave.

Hope to see you there!

Postings to the blog might be irregular this week. Stay tuned as we catch up on Friday and next week.

Natalie

HTI installs world’s first biomass-powered turbine at Michigan feed mill

Biomass Magazine September 2009
By Anna Austin
Posted August 27, 2009, at 2:37 p.m. CST

Heat Transfer International has nearly completed the installation of a biomass energy plant at a feed mill in Howard City, Mich., which will become the state’s first gasification plant and the world’s first hot air turbine powered by biomass, according to Pat Dickinson, HTI business developer. The plant will convert turkey litter at Sietsema Farm Feeds into a syngas that will be used to provide the heat and electricity needed to produce turkey feed.

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Lessons to be learnt: Bioenergy developments in Scandinavia and China

http://www.ecogeneration.com.au/
EcoGeneration — September / October 2009

World Bioenergy Association board member Andrew Lang’s recent travels through Scandinavia and China provided him with some clear insights into the potential for bioenergy in the growing energy market. Examples, he argues, that should be taken on board in forming Australian energy policy.

At the world’s biggest forestry equipment fair, Sweden’s Elmia Wood Expo held in June this year, it was clear that growing demand for bioenergy machinery is providing work for many forestry machinery manufacturers in northern Europe.

Most manufacturers are developing new machinery to more cost-effectively harvest thinnings, forward thinnings or harvest residues including stumps, convert these to chipped or ground material, and truck this material to be turned into energy.

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