Florida presents its 3rd annual Farm to Fuel Summit

The state of Florida is holding its third annual Farm to Fuel Summit later this month (July 30-Aug 1) in Orlando. As in previous years its an agenda packed with discussion about the development in biofuels in Florida, widely considered to have some of the greatest second generation biofuels potential due to its plentiful agricultural waste and forest.

(Register here for the summit)

The summit will include an agronomists workshop dedicated to helping farmers understand what are the best fuel crops to grow in Florida. "For the first time we are developing information for the agricultural community about what crops we can grow here," says Jay Levenstein, deputy commissioner for Agriculture and Consumer Services. "We have a lot of information we can give them."

The summit will be attended by Ed Schafer, the US Under-Secretary for Agriculture, as well as Bob Dineen, head of the US Renewable Fuels Association.

Jack Youngblood, a member of the pro-football Hall of Fame (St Louis Rams) is expected to explain his interest in the biofuels potential of north Florida forestland, along with a group of other professional sports stars, including Ryan Klesko and John Smoltz (baseball) and Bobby Rahal (motor racing).

Panelists will look at the growth of biofuels infrastructure in the state, including pipelines and fuel storage terminals, as  well as  the development of second-generation cellulosic ethanol technology.

Among the panelists will be two names familiar to readers of this blog: Bradley Krohn, president of United States EnviroFuels in Tampa, will give a talk titled 'Construction of a Commercial Sugarto-Ethanol BioRefinery,' while Dr. Jose Sifontes, president of Sigarca in Gainesville will speak on 'Bioenergy and Agricultural Products from Animal Waste.'

- David Adams

UF study: Farmers & foresters can harvest big bucks from the carbon market

Florida’s farmers and foresters can reap hundreds of millions of dollars under proposed climate change legislation now pending in Congress, according to a new study released this week by the University of Florida.

The report, titled "Opportunities for Greenhouse Gas Reduction in Forestry and Agriculture in Florida," contends that farmers  can earn more than $340-million a year by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and selling emission credits under a federal cap and trade program like the one created by the Lieberman-Warner bill now under consideration.

“Our report demonstrates that we can combine the ethical imperative of responding to climate change with power of the market, while protecting Florida’s natural resources,” Dr. Stephen Mulkey, lead author of the report from the University of Florida School of Natural Resources and Environment, said in a press release sent out by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Among the report's findings: Florida farmers can reduce 7.36 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from increased use of wood, energy crops, crop residues and ethanol as biofuels, for an offset value of  $147-million per year.

“We are always looking for new ways to help keep Florida’s agricultural producers profitable,” John Hoblick, president of Florida Farm Bureau Federation, said in the news release. “Giving them access to a voluntary market that will compensate them for their environmentally friendly practices is clearly a good thing and is something we are proud to be promoting.”

For links to both the full report and to an 8-page executive summary, click here. To read the EDF press release, click here.

--Craig Pittman

UF gets grant to work on genetic engineering of sugar cane biomass study

The  U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy handed out up to $18.4 million in grants for biomass research projects this week.

Among the 21 recipients:"University of Florida  - up to $866,576. Grant Purpose: To address genetic engineering of sugarcane for increased fermentable sugar yield from hemicellulosic biomass in Florida."

To read the full press release, click here.

--Craig Pittman

Farm to Fuel announces $25-million awards

The state handed out $25-million in “Farm to Fuel” grants on Tuesday, including $11-million for two biofuel producers that have projects around Tampa Bay. But the money won’t be spent on local projects.

U.S. EnviroFuels received $7-million from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for a $47-million sugar waste-to-ethanol facility in Venus. The company’s plans for an ethanol plant at Port of Tampa has been held up by a legal dispute.

Agri-Source Fuels, which has a biodiesel plant in Dade City, received $4-million for a new, $21-million biodiesel plant in Pensacola.

The state created the Farm to Fuel program to spur investment in biofuel production and research in Florida. The grants included research money for university programs around Florida. Projects include algae-to-biodiesel, citrus-to-ethanol and other emerging biofuel technologies.

-Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer

Progress announces new biomass plant

In an effort to increase its renewable energy portfolio, Progress Energy Florida announced Tuesday another agreement to buy power from a biomass plant.

The new plant will burn yard trimmings and waste wood and have a 75 megawatt capacity, or enough electricity to power about 46,000 homes. It will be built by Biomass Gas & Electric. The Atlanta-based company already has an agreement with Progress Energy Florida for a separate, 75 megawatt plant announced in July.

The new addition will add 75 megawatts of renewable power to Progress Energy Florida’s system. It brings the amount of renewable power Progress has agreed to buy in the last two years to 280 megawatts, or enough to power 170,000 homes.

Still, that’s just a tenth of the utility’s customers, and underscores the difficulty of finding reliable, cost-effective, renewable power on a large scale. Here’s a list of renewable agreements Progress Energy has signed in the last two years:

- In May 2006, Progress Energy agreed to buy 130 megawatts from a Biomass Investment Group plant powered by “E-grass.” Arundo donax is a fast-growing reedy grass. Considered an invasive species by environmental groups, its growth is tightly restricted in California, which has spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate it. Biomass Investment Group has so far not been able to find 20,000-acres to grow the grass and construct its plant. Originally slated to start producing power in 2009, the date has been pushed back to 2011.

- In July, Progress Energy agreed to buy power from a 75 megawatt biomass plant fueled by wood waste and yard trimmings. Atlanta-based Biomass Gas & Electric expects to have the plant on line in early 2011. The north Florida location has not yet been announced.

- On Tuesday, Progress Energy agreed to buy another 75-megawatts from BG & E. The plant is slated to come on line in June 2011, and will be built in central Florida.

-Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer

Looking for biofuels? Please hold.

Several local biofuel projects have suffered delays ranging from months to years. Quite a few projects have been announced in the past few months, and Florida's Department of Environmental Protection provides a fairly comprehensive list of producers they know of, and the status of those projects.

The list below comes from Sarah Williams, spokeswoman at DEP. The question marks on start dates are DEP's.

-Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer

ETHANOL PRODUCTION

Alico, Inc. (LaBelle, FL)

• Production Capacity: 7.7-14 MGY

• Feedstock: Yard, wood and vegetative wastes

• Operational: 2008-09

Citrus Energy, LLC (Clewiston, FL)

• Production Capacity: 4 MGY

• Feedstock: Citrus processing waste

• Operational: 2008-09

Bartow Ethanol (Bartow, FL)

• Production Capacity: 2-5 MGY

• Feedstock: Citrus waste, sweet sorghum, and nonfood high starch sweet potato

• Operational: 2008-09?

Port Sutton Envirofuels, LLC (Tampa, FL)

• Production Capacity: 50 MGY

• Feedstock: Corn

• Operational: 2008-09?

University of Florida Research and Development Production Plant (Okeelanta, Florida)

• Proposed Production Capacity: 1-2 million gallons per year

• Proposed Feedstock: Sugarcane bagasse

• Operational: 2008-09?

BIODIESEL PRODUCTION

Agri-Source Fuels (Tampa, FL)

• Production Capacity: 20-120 MGY

• Feedstock: Chicken fat, cottonseed and soybean oils

• Operational: Yes

Purada Processing, LLC (Lakeland, FL)

• Production Capacity: 18 MGY (expanding)

• Feedstock: Soybean oil

• Operational: Currently not operating

Xenerga, Inc. (Kissimmee, FL)

• Production Capacity: 5 MGY

• Feedstock: Recycled cooking oil

• Operational: Yes

Renewable Energy Systems, Inc. (Pinellas Park, FL)

• Production Capacity: 1 MGY

• Feedstock: Recycled cooking oil

• Operational: Yes

 

Weeding out a potential biofuels problem?

Growers of plants for use as biofuels are looking for certain qualities in their crops: hardiness, a paucity of pests and diseases and the ability to outcompete other plants.

Unfortunately, according to a new report from the Invasive Species Council released at a global warming conference in Sydney, Australia, those are also hallmarks of invasive weeds, which government and farmers are trying to eradicate.

"It turns out that many potential biofuel species pose a weed risk," the council reported. "Some of the world’s worst weeds may be biofuel prospects for Australia—giant reed and spartina appear in the World Conservation Union’s list of 100 of the World’s Worst Invaders, and Chinese tallow tree is rated as one of the the 12 worst invasive pests in the United States."

"Australia should not try to solve one environmental problem by creating another," warned ISC spokesman and report author, Tim Low. "These plants have no proven value as biofuel crops but bad reputations as weeds."

In February St. Petersburg Times reporter Kris Hundley wrote about a Florida company that wants to grow the giant reed, also known as arundo, for use as a biofuel, despite objections from environmental groups and even from the chairwoman of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, University of Florida assistant professor Alison Fox. "Florida should not accept the risk posed by large acreage plantings of this species," Fox said. "The evidence is piling up that this is not a great idea.

To see the council's press release and find a link to the report itself, click here.

And to read the St. Petersburg Times story about arundo click here.

--Craig Pittman

The potential of biomass waste: organic humus and electricity

A report in today's St Petersburg Times describes how a Florida company, Mother's Organics Humus Farm, is planning to turn yard waste into organic humus to sell to local farmers. The company's founders are renewable energy enthusiasts who believe the nation's current energy crisis is here to stay - unlike the 1970s.

They are surely onto something - perhaps one of the least well understood and developed concepts in the emerging field of renewable energy: the enormous potential of biomass waste.

If you click on the biomass category on the left hand side of this screen you will more information about other projects in this field, including a number of waste-to-energy endeavors, seeking to turn biomass into electricity. Biomass Gas & Electric Co., an Atlanta-based alternative energy producer, is partnering with Progress Energy Florida to build one of the state's first, and possibly the largest, power plant that will convert wood waste into electricity.

Early on when we started this blog we featured Dr Jose Sifontes, a biomass to energy pioneer in Gainesville who turns the city's municipal waste into a clean-burning gas. He and others are exploring ways of capturing landfill gases to drive turbines to produce electricity. Florida horse manure is another source of potential energy. Dr Ann Wilkie at the University of Florida is one of the leading researchers in the field of anaerobic digestion for waste treatment. Her current program focuses on biogas generation from bioethanol and biodiesel by-products. As she likes to say; "Fossil fuel is fossil thinking."

 NASA is also funding research at the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) in Cocoa to make hydrogen gas for the space shuttle from local landfill gas.

Click here to read today's story in the St Pete Times.

Click here to visit our biomass page.

- David Adams

Energy-intense bio-fuel: LS9's microbe technology

A new California company, LS9 claims to have developed a technology that vastly improves the energy balance of renewable biofuels using microbe technology.

The company says that its microbial organism can digest biomass and excrete a hydrocarbon fuel without requiring heat intensive distillation required by making ethanol. It calls it 'renewable petroleum.' While the end product emits more CO2 than ethanol-blended gasoline, the company says its overall energy balance is better due to the efficiency of the process (which also uses far less water than making ethanol).

Click here to visit LS9's website.
Click here for a useful interview about LS9 posted on Grist.

I would be interested in hearing from readers, especially you brainy biology buffs at the University of Florida, what to make of this technology. Is this snake oil or penicillin?

- David Adams

Big new biomass-to-energy plant coming to Florida

Biomass Gas & Electric Co., an Atlanta-based alternative energy producer, confirmed Wednesday that it will partner with Progress Energy Florida to build one of the state's first, and possibly the largest, power plant that will convert wood waste into electricity, the St. Petersburg Times reported today.

A spokeswoman for Progress Energy would not comment Wednesday on the wood-waste deal, which is expected to be announced by Gov. Charlie Crist today in Tallahassee, Times reporter Tom Zucco wrote. Neither company would say where the plant would be built - most likely in north Florida near an existing paper mill or waste wood plant - or at what cost.

BG&E officials said the Florida plant will generate about 75 megawatts of electricity a day, or enough to power about 75,000 homes, by 2011. The process takes untreated wood waste, untreated sawmill residue, municipal solid waste (including animal waste) and energy crops - collectively called biomass - and superheats the material. What's left is a synthetic natural gas that can be used as a direct substitute for fossil fuels used to produce energy.

St. Petersburg-based Progress Energy has 14 power plants that produce about 9,000 megawatts of electricity for nearly 1.7-million customers. Most of those plants are fueled by oil, coal, gas and nuclear power. But faced with rising costs for fossil fuels and environmental concerns, the company has begun to look elsewhere for power sources.

They're not the only ones trying to break from fossil fuels. The Wall Street Journal reported today that plans for a new generation of coal-fired power plants are falling by the wayside as states conclude that conventional coal plants are too dirty to build and the cost of cleaner plants is too high.

As recently as May, U.S. power companies had announced intentions to build as many as 150 new generating plants fueled by coal, the Journal reported. But an increasing number are being canceled or development slowed, it reported. "Coal plants have come under fire because coal is a big source of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming, in a time when climate change has become a hot-button political issue," the Journal noted.

Two of the coal plants that were canceled were in Florida: the FPL plant near the Everglades, voted down by the Public Service Commission, and then a consortium planning to build one in Taylor County withdrew their permit application.

To read the St. Petersburg Times story on the new power plant, click here.

To read the WSJ story, click here.

--Craig Pittman

And they're off...

The race for renewables has begun. First, FPL Energy announced this morning plans for their cellulosic ethanol plant, to produce 4-million gallons of the fuel from citrus peels.

Now Progress Energy has an initiative of their own. Progress Energy this afternoon issued a statewide call to producers of renewable energy and fuel, their first push to meet Gov. Charlie Crist’s mandate that all utilities get 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources.

“We are continually looking for newer, cleaner ways to produce energy,” said Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of Progress Energy Florida, in a statement released Thursday.  “The continued development of renewable energy has been part of our balanced approach to meeting growing customer demand for years, and it will play a vital role in Florida’s energy future.”

Progress Energy defined renewable as electricity from hydrogen, biomass, solar, geothermal, wind, ocean energy, hydroelectric power, or waste heat from a commercial or industrial manufacturing process. It also listed the following requirements: the energy must be produced in Florida, operational by 2013, be able to produce at least 1 megawatt of electricity, produce reliable and predictable energy, and sell its electrical output to Progress Energy Florida at a cost equal to or cheaper than the cost of building a new plant.

Progress Energy already gets 5 percent of its power from renewable sources, including energy efficiency, biomass, and landfill gas and waste, said spokeswoman Cherie Jacobs. The utility is also planning to partner with a biomass plant built by Biomass Investment Group. Construction has not yet begun, but Progress Energy plans to have the 130-megawatt plant on line by 2010.

--By Asjylyn Loder

The dance of legislation, this time on energy

Having botched the immigration bill and failed to muster enough votes for a no-confidence vote on the attorney general, the U.S. Senate has now turned its attention to the subject of the nation's energy policy.

"With gasoline prices hovering near all-time highs, the Senate on Monday began debating a sprawling energy bill that has already kicked off an epic lobbying war by huge industries, some of them in conflict with one another: car companies, oil companies, electric utilities, coal producers and corn farmers, to name a few," the New York Times reported today.

"Industry groups have raced to sign up influential lawmakers and are nervously calculating how much regulation they might have to accept from the Democratic majority in Congress," the Times story noted. "Detroit’s automakers are lobbying hard against tough fuel economy standards, but they support increased production of ethanol and other alternative fuels."

According to the Los Angeles Times, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was promising tougher fuel-economy rules, which have been blocked for years by lobbying from Detroit automakers.

"The measure would boost fleetwide average fuel economy standards to 35 mpg by 2020, up from 25 mpg," the LA Times reports. "It would increase standards by 4% a year from 2021 to 2030. If passed, it would be the first increase in standards for passenger cars in about 18 years. The first increase could come in model year 2011."

But there's far more on the table besides fuel-economy standards for cars. The energy bill "would also ramp up domestic production of alternative fuels, from about 7 billion gallons projected this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022," the LA Times reports. "It would authorize funding for projects to capture greenhouse gases emitted by power plants and other polluters. It would promote energy efficiency in such products as light bulbs and big-screen TVs."

Although the Senate has set aside two weeks for debating the issues, the  New York Times reports, some of the most basic questions have yet to be dealt with: "Does 'clean' and 'renewable' energy include nuclear power? Should the government subsidize only 'renewable' fuels, like wind or ethanol, or should it subsidize 'alternative' fuels, including coal-based liquids, that might substitute for oil and reduce dependence on foreign oil?"

Stay tuned. Whatever happens, it's lliable to cost you money.

To read the full NYT story, click here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/washington/12energy.html?ex=1339300800&en=0e77afb0bcc82757&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

For the LA Times story, click here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/la-na-energy12jun12,0,7081558.story?coll=la-home-center

--Craig Pittman

Academics debate the carbon cycle of biofuels

Students and faculty at the University of Florida have been discussing the carbon cycle of biofuelsversus gasoline. Patrick O'Donoughue wrote this interesting synopsis:

The original question was whether plants, specifically biofuel plants, absorb only atmospheric carbon over the course of their life. If plants absorb carbon from the soil in addition to atmospheric carbon, then biofuels would not be carbon neutral. In this case, the combustion of the biofuel would re emit CO2 that was originally absorbed from the atmosphere and emit new CO2 obtained from the soil.

After discussion, the general consensus is that plants do not uptake any carbon from the soil. However, the situation contains a number of complexities.

The first complexity is that the soil bacteria, when converting organic matter into nutrients for the plant, respire carbon dioxide. Thus, the decomposition of organic matter in the soil produces a flux of CO2 to the atmosphere.

However, in mature forests and landscapes, the terrestrial carbon cycle is in equilibrium; the amount of CO2 emitted from decomposition of organic matter in addition to CO2 emitted from fires, is equal to the amount absorbed in photosynthesis by the total landscape.

Therefore, the micro carbon cycle associated with the growth of a biofuel plant, decomposition of organic matter, and combustion of the fuel is essentially carbon neutral.

The big picture, though, is not necessarily carbon neutral. The farming techniques, production of farm tools, inorganic fertilizer, use of fossil fuel in tractors/maintenance equipment, processing of the biofuel, production of digester equipment, transportation, distribution, etc. all account for possible outputs of CO2.

But the biggest consideration is the question of how the landscape changes to become a farm for biofuels. You can consider the vegetation on the land as a store for atmospheric carbon. Some vegetation acts as a larger storage tank. For instance, dense forests store more CO2 than grassy landscapes. Thus, when humans change the landscape to create a farm for biofuels, if the biofuel crops store less CO2 than the original landscape vegetation, then they will not absorb all of the CO2 emitted by the original vegetation (through decomposition, combustion, etc.). The question though, is whether the CO2 from the original vegetation is actually emitted into the atmosphere. For instance if it was a forest, the trees could be used for furniture, preventing the CO2 stored in the trees from being reintroduced into the atmosphere. This could then be considered a carbon negative process, perhaps even a carbon sequestration technique. This is not a viable sequestration technique, since the land would be depleted if the organic matter was not returned to the ground. In the long term though, after the timber has reached the end of its useful life, the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere, by fire or by decomposition in the soil, where the bacteria respire the CO2.

The changing landscape accounts for another output of C02 that makes the production of biofuels carbon positive.

The total positive flux of C02 associated with biofuels is miniscule in comparison to that of fossil fuels.

- Patrick O'Donoughue

(Patrick adds that he has "no concrete data to support the statement that biofuels emit less carbon than fossil fuels when considering the total life of the two fuels. The only way to do this is through a life cycle assessment. I am unaware of any sources of an assessment. I will do some more research to try and come up with numbers, and perhaps come up with my own number."

Now, what can we do with all the gravy?

A Minnesota TV station reports today that the nation's first power plant fueled by, ahem, "poultry litter," will go on-line next month, with others scheduled to follow in "other major poultry states."

Minnesota, the TV report notes, is the largest turkey-producing state in the union -- hence the interest in burning "poultry litter" for fuel. The plant will consume about 40 percent of the turkey litter that Minnesota produces, turning about 500,000 tons of it per year into electricity.

"The 55-megawatt Fibrominn LLC plant will be the first poultry litter-fired power plant in the United States, tapping a novel source of renewable energy to produce enough power for 50,000 homes," WCCO-TV reports. "Poultry litter -- a combination of droppings, wood chips, seed hulls, shed feathers and spilled feed -- has long been spread on fields as a fertilizer. That's cheap and effective, but it can cause nitrates and phosphates to build up in soil, groundwater and runoff. So poultry producers across the country have been looking for another way to get rid of it."

To read the full report, click on:

http://wcco.com/local/local_story_143131123.html

--Craig Pittman

The end of garbage

Recycling has been around for decades, of course. Most municipalities now do it with newspapers, cans and bottles. Cities are getting better at is (San Francisco is tops), but so nowadays so are many large companies, such as Wal-Mart, Toyota, Nike and Xerox.

Click here to read an article in Fortune magazine looking at this new drive for "zero waste." Some are calling it the 'Next Industrial Revolution.'

"To achieve zero waste, everything that's no longer wanted will have to be made into something else. Sounds hard, but the idea is as old as nature, where one organism's detritus becomes another's food," the article points out.

Another angle not covered in this article is turning waste into fuel? That is increasingly being done at landfull sites, or with leftover farm waste, by various processes, including treatment with bacteria and heat, or with hydrolysis. 'Waste to energy' is the least well known form of alternative energy sources being experimented with around the world. But I predict we will be hearing a lot more about it.

Click here to visit the anaerobic digester project at The University of Florida.

- David Adams

The Fueling Station interview: Vinod Kholsa

I sat down at last week's Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) conference in Orlando with Vinod Khosla, reputedly the “best venture capitalist in the world” to discuss America's alternative energy future.
(Photo courtesy of Marc Auster/BIO)

Khosla’s company, Khosla Ventures is investing heavily in new energy technology companies in the United States, as well as places like Brazil and India.
Bush administration officials recognize Khosla’s influence in helping steer the president’s new alternative energy policy. Khosla believes ethanol can entirely replace oil as our main transportation fuel in the future, while other renewable energy technologies can produce a large share of our electricity needs.

David Adams: President Bush says we are “addicted to foreign oil,” and Al Gore told Congress that the environment faces “a planetary emergency.” So what are our future energy options?

Vinod Khosla: We need alternative energy sources for lots of reasons. Whether you care about energy security or whether you care about the environment, or whether you care about rural development - and I care about all of them - we need alternatives to oil.

The only large scale source in the short term, the next 20 years, appears to be biofuels. It’s a technology we know, it has a relatively easy adoption compared to all the other options for the infrastructure, and the planets seems to be reasonably politically well-aligned, so all that makes for a pragmatic choice for making it happen.

DA: Pessimists say there’s no real substitute for oil, and society is doomed. Can biofuels realistically replace gasoline and diesel?

VK: The question is in what time frame? President Bush has proposed 35 billion gallons in ten years, or 20 per cent of our gasoline. I think it’s an aggressive number, but doable. It will start to make a difference in worldwide markets. More importantly it will be a good role model to other countries. If every country in the world reduced their gasoline consumption by 20 per cent you would see a huge difference. And I think that’s what will happen.
After we do it other countries will start to follow.

DA: Where does the United States stand today in the global picture of alternative energy use? Are other countries ahead?

VK: Because of a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the Iraq war and the high oil prices, it’s a particularly opportune time. The United States has a constituency that wants to push this internally. So I think the politics in America are just right for this to happen, and politics have to be right for things to happen. It turns out politics coincides with what is the right thing to do, both for America and the planet. And it’s true whether you are an energy security hawk or if you are an environmental hawk.

What has happened in the last year since President Bush mentioned cellulosic ethanol, [making ethanol from any plant material, not just corn or sugar cane] is a lot of the scientific, technical and entrepreneurial brains in the country have gotten involved. So, we are starting to see technical breakthroughs.
Nobody in an organization like BIO would have thought about this two or three years ago, of having a talk focused on it. So, it encourages more people to get involved and more people to solve what is clearly an important problem. People like working on important problems. So I think we will see a lot more activity, and more importantly a lot more R&D money applied to the problem and that’s always good news.

DA: You have been at this for a while and at first you may have thought you were bashing your head against a brick wall. Are you surprised how far America has come?

VK: I am surprised at the pace of adoption. It has come from nowhere in the last 18 months. I think the key was President Bush’s advocacy in the Department of Energy that lent a different kind of voice to what was traditionally just the corn lobby and some small self-interested group advocating it. It lent a credibility to it. I think it also helped that between 2003-2006 Brazil made a lot of progress. And role models are always important because otherwise it’s easy for the naysayers to say it cannot be done.

DA: President Bush says he is “passionate” about biofuels. How did he get to where he is today.

VK: My guess is he's finally bought into this as a real alternative. People tend to go almost instantly from denial to despair - denial that oil is a problem to despair that you can’t do anything about it.
I think it’s extremely valuable that people look at solutions because you know, hearing an Al Gore [global warming] pitch is great but the next step is what can you do about it, and solutions are important. I suspect that president Bush saw a solution which he wasn’t expecting to see. I think most people are surprised at the new opportunities out there.

DA: Brazil as shown the world what it can do making ethanol from sugar cane. What kind of future do you think biofuels have in Florida?

VK: Florida has a strong agriculture industry and biomass grows well in Florida. That makes it a natural. We just started a project in Georgia, not too far from here. That technology could produce two billions gallons of ethanol in Georgia, about 40 percent of the fuel they consume from what’s left as forest waste today. That’s not even cultivating any new crops. It’s just taking what’s there already, left as waste. Some combination of greater efficiency in cars and using these kind of fuels, and why would Georgia need oil?
Florida is in a much better position that Georgia when it comes to generating biomass. So, my view is there’s a huge opportunity and I think you will see other states jump in.
That’s important because traditionally this has been considered a corn belt state activity and self-interest. It is in fact something Florida can do, Carolina can do, Georgia can do, Tennessee can do, the Northeast can do and the Northwest can do, in addition to the Midwest [corn belt].
Essentially most states have some form of agricultural potential for biofuels. In the end large scale production of ethanol will happen to the point where it makes a dent in our oil consumption and it will come from biomass I believe.
Sugar cane can be used for sugar and the bagasse [leftover cane leaves] can be used for ethanol. Switchgrass and myscanthus, are often cited. Then there’s forest waste. I think that’s where we will start. Eventually we will go to other forms of waste. For instance municipal waste can be used to make biofuels.

DA: You travel a lot. In your opinion which country is the best model that we should study?

VK: It depends on what you are trying to achieve. California on the environment front is taking an aggressive posture and I think countries should follow that model. On ethanol adoption Brazil has been a great model. In the western world Sweden is doing a good job on reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
We clearly need to do more in this country. We need more [alternative energy] vehicle fleets, we need more ethanol pumps and distribution. And of course we need to ramp up production from these new technology sources like cellulosic ethanol.

DA: You are a venture capitalist. The Bush administration believes in letting the markets drive this. Do you think the government needs to intervene more?

VK: Transitions don’t happen without policy, and policy has traditionally been biased towards encouraging oil. Why do we spend $50 billion just to defend more sea lanes? Embedded in the infrastructure are all kinds of things that favor an industry. The oil industry has all kinds of tax breaks, far greater tax breaks than ethanol.
The dollar volumes are amazingly large. So we need policy to create this new market, the right policy. But I’m not a big fan of longterm subsidies. I don’t think we’ll need those.

DA: As a venture capitalist people will say your business is all about taking big risks with other people’s money. Some people have compared what is happening today with dotcom bust. Is there are difference?

VK: Well first people should go back and look back at the dotcom bust.
A Google was created after the bust. A YouTube was created after the bust.
If you look at internet traffic, it never stopped. Since 2001 when the bust happened internet traffic and usage has steadily been going up. So we ought to differentiate stock prices from what is actually happening on the ground in the industry. Stock prices for ethanol prices may go up and down, and that is the nature of capital markets and stock trading.  But I suspect ethanol as a fundamental resource will keep growing as an industry.

DA: What guides the risks you take?

VK: Our focus is almost entirely on breakthrough technologies.
You have to take the risk of adopting new technologies to get the quantum leaps in the technology to make all this, to scale it where it can really compete with oil both on the scale of availability as well as cost.
If it’s not going to compete on cost then we are not going to need scale. If it does compete on cost then we are going to need scale.
 
DA: What might the future look like in 25 years?

VK: In 25 years we could easily have replaced the bulk of our petroleum, not all of it, but more than 50 per cent of it worldwide. And we could be generating 30-40 per cent of our electricity from solar thermal [using the suns’ rays to super-heat water creating steam to drive turbines], 20 per cent from geo-thermal [naturally-occurring underground heat] , and the rest from other renewable sources. Then there’s the legacy plants; coal and nuclear.
Wind energy has one fundamental issue, you can’t store it. Storing electricity is not very viable. Wind is good for 10-15 per cent of your supply, but you need to get to 50 per cent for the new technology to have a material impact. For electricity generation you have to have storage. With solar thermal you can store steam which is something we know how to do from old technology.
 
DA: What about solar energy from rooftop panels?

VK: Each energy option has its specific niches. We are still investing in PV [solar rooftop panels, known as Photo-Voltaic systems], so don’t get me wrong. It’s still a large market, but it won’t meet utility needs the way solar thermal will. On home and commercial rooftop installations PV will do well, but the bulk of the power in the world is generated by utilities so that’s the problem you have to solve.

- David Adams
 

Cool stuff from BIO's World Congress, and Orlando's alternative energy innovators

Despite finding myself hopelessly out of my depth at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology in Orlando this week, I was able to pick up some useful data on the state of play in what conference participants like to call the biofuels "space." By this they mean the industrial application of biotechnology to biofuels, rather than other areas such as drugs, plastics, detergents and food flavorings.

Among the highlights of the meeting:

- it was great to see microbiologist, Dr Lonnie Ingram, from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Dr Ingram is sort of the grandfather of cellulosic ethanol (I hope he doesn't mind me calling him that!) He invented a patent in the late 1970s (see my story in the St Pete Times) which is now licensed to one of several companies - Celunol - in the race to commercially produce cellulosic ethanol.
The last time I saw Dr Ingram was in 2005 when I was just beginning to look into biofuels. He graciously gave several hours of his time to me in his lab to help me relearn my high school photosynthesis and understand how bacteria and enzymes are used to convert starch and cellulose from plants into ethanol.
Dr Ingram looked a but weary after three decades trying to convince anyone who would listen about the ethanol excretion of his ecoli bacteria strain! I am happy to report that Dr Ingram looks today like a rejuvenated man, one of those lucky scientists who was ahead of his time but eventually got to see his day come. Not surprisingly, he is a lot more enthusiastic about the future.

- I finally got to meet the famed venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla. If Dr Ingram is the grandfather of ethanol, then Khosla is perhaps its godfather. A visionary with an entrepreneurial approach to venture capital, he is one of ethanol's most articulate advocates, as well as being highly influential in government circles. I have spoken to him on several occasions, and we have exchanged emails. This week he was was generous enough to give me a 20 minute one-on-interview which I will be posting on The Fueling Station on Monday. In the interview Khosla talks about his vision of a world where oil is entirely displaced by ethanol, and solar thermal energy provides a large amount of our electricity.

- I also got to meet my fellow blogger, C Scott Miller of the Bioconversion blog. I have come to respect Scott's blog for its level-headed and well-informed analysis which makes his writing stand out form the crowd of sometimes headstrong opinions in the blogosphere. (click here to read his report on the conference)

Scott introduced me to Jim Stewart of Bioengineering Resources Inc, who hopes to build the country's first waste to energy biofuels plant (in Florida). I'll be writing more about this company soon.

- last, but by no means least I got to hang out with my buddy James Culp, Energy Programs Manager at the Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) and drive around Orlando in his new little fuel-economy Scion. For anyone with a bright energy innovation in Florida, James is the go-to guy for contacts and help in writing grant applications.

- then, or course, there is all interesting new stuff I learned! Such as:

    * Honda is working with  a research institute in Japan to build a super-efficient ethanol plant;
    * a company in New Zealand, LanzaTech is making ethanol from the captured carbon-monoxide flu gas exhaust of a steel mill;
    * a company called LS9 is working on a green, non-fossil based petroleum or biopetroleum;
    * cellulosic ethanol could be commercially viable in the United States by 2009;
    * Brazil believes cellulosic ethanol is already commercially viable in that country;
     * by 2020 the world will likely be producing 80 billion gallons of ethanol (or 10% of transportation fuel consumption);
     * there is enough biofuel feedstock in the world to produce at least 50% of our transportation fuel needs (approx. 360 billion gallons) without hurting rainforests or affecting our food and animal feed requirements;
    * Europe is looking at African countries for sources of ethanol, such as Mozambique, Cameroon and Madagasgar;
     * the current spike in corn prices may be partly driven by a drought in Australia which has caused animal farmers there to switch from using wheat to corn as a feed.

While at the conference I also got to meet a bunch of fascinating innovators in the Orlando area whom I will be featuring on the blog shortly. They include:

* Mike Brown at Hydromatic Technologies Corp, a delightful AC repairman and inventor who has developed the world's most efficient 'Hydronic' Clothes Dryer.
Mike and his team are about to unveil their product to the world and are in talks with a major appliance company about a joint development agreement. Mike, who is from a poor, working class family, is hopefully about to become a very successful and wealthy man. I wish him all the best as you'd be hard put to find a more good-natured and deserving person.

 

* Jim Robertson and Jim DeMask, two enterprising biofuels brokers with Biofuels Connect. These guys set up in a small office just north of Orlando a few months ago and now trade between two to six million gallons of futures in ethanol and biodiesel per day.  They  basically find buyers and sellers for biofuels and handle bids via the internet. It's fun to watch them fielding competing bids. They are now looking to expand into South and Central America.

* Sampuran Khalsa, the earth-conscious president of Nanak's Landscaping, who recently installed $160,000 worth of solar roof panels on the roof of his business near Altamont Springs. Khalsa got a state rebate for half the cost (he showed me the copy of the check for $80,500 signed by Alex Sink!) as well as a 30% federal tax credit.

He's one of only a few Florida residents and businessmen who have taken up these solar incentives that most people don't realize are out there. If you visit his website you can see how the system works in a real time monitoring of energy output from the panels.   

* Corey Lamb, the 'Head Honcho' at O-Cartz, an electric vehicle cab service in downtown Orlando. Lamb came up with this idea the other day when he realized that the new luxury condo boom in downtown orlando had created a market for transporting  upwardly-mobile professionals to their business meetings, or for evening dining. He charges $3 a ride in his fleet of GEM six-seater electric cars.

- David Adams

World Congress on Biotechnology and Bioprocessing meets in Orlando

Vinod Khosla, reputed to be America's top venture capitalist, was the keynote speaker Thursday at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Orlando.

I am attending the conference and will be bringing you a full report at the weekend, including an interview with Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

Meanwhile, here are the highlights from today's plenary session, featuring Khosla and Dr Jens Riese, a top biotech consultant with McKinsey & Co (and certainly one of the most handsome biotech experts you are ever likely to meet - see photo below. My observation here is that they are not the most glamouress bunch! - but super smart and very friendly thye certainly are!)

Khosla told the meeting that the biofuels industry is poised for exceptional growth and that ethanol from cellulose appears to be the most promising alternative fuel over the long-term.

Khosla also highlighted the significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achievable with ethanol from cellulose.

Khosla said that the U.S. Department of Energy’s recent $375 million grant to fund six biorefineries that produce ethanol from cellulose is an acknowledgment that the technology is moving faster than expected. He said that a 100 percent replacement of petroleum transportation fuels with biofuels is attainable, and predicted that ethanol from cellulose technology will be cost competitive with current ethanol production by 2009.

Khosla stated that ethanol from cellulose can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, even achieving a net gain in greenhouse gas reduction. Khosla is the head of Khosla Ventures, a company that actively invests in breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas, such as biorefineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, and other environmentally friendly technologies.

Riese also told the World Congress plenary session that global annual biofuel capacity would double to 25 billion gallons over the next five years and could reach 80 billion gallons – meeting 10 percent of world transportation fuel demand, enough to replace the annual oil production for fuel of Saudi Arabia – by 2020.

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, biofuels can economically replace 25 percent of transportation fuel with crude oil above $50 per barrel. He concluded that the race is on to build a biofuels industry and that companies should invest now.

Further, Riese pointed out that ethanol from cellulose is the most cost-effective way of achieving greenhouse gas reductions. Riese is a partner at McKinsey & Co., a leading global management consulting firm and is a top expert in industrial biotechnology.

The World Congress is hosted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the American Chemical Society, the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council, the European Federation of Biotechnology, BIOTECanada and EuropaBIO.

 BIO represents more than 1,100 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and 31 other nations.

- David Adams

Energy independence: small town goes green.

 In another sign of our times, the mayor of a town outside Washington DC says he plans to make his rural community of 8,000 residents energy independent before he leaves office in 2010.

Warrenton mayor, George Fitch, plans to build a $30 million recycling plant at the county dump, which will convert waste "biomass" into electricity and ethanol.

His idea isn't so preposterous either. In fact, I have heard numerous stories recently of small communities exploring these kinds of ideas. Experts also note that biomass is one of the most underexploited alternative fuel sources in America today.

Fitch reckons that his plant would generate 10 million gallons of ethanol a year and enough electricity to power every house in town with minimal greenhouse gas emissions and no use of fossil fuels.

"You don't have to be a big fan of Al Gore to realize that this is critical to our community and our national security," Fitch, 59, told the Washington Post.

A self-described fiscal conservative who ran for governor on the Republican ticket, his "Green Warrenton initiative," includes instituting environmentally friendly building standards and using solar power and other technologies on government buildings.

The Post quotes an energy specialist who says Virginia's countryside "is the perfect launching point for the nation's renewable energy revolution." It could also help revive East Coast farms, which have been struggling to stay economically viable.

The Post also points out that this kind of decentralization of the electrical grid leaves it less susceptible to terrorist attacks.

Click here to read Fitch's plan as reported in the Washington Post.

- David Adams