The Congressional Budget Office recently completed a study of biofuel tax credits that aimed to determine if existing tax credits favor one type of biofuel over another and estimate the costs of those credits on U.S taxpayers. The study, titled “Using Biofuel Tax Credits to Achieve Energy and Environmental Policy Goals,” was prepared by the CBO at the request of the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure.

Although the $1 per gallon biodiesel tax credit expired in December 2009, the CBO included it in the analysis. According to the report, this was done to provide policymakers with information on the value of the credit, should they choose to reinstate it in the future. In addition to the biodiesel tax credit, the report includes data related to tax credits for corn and cellulosic ethanol.

The CBO’s main findings included the following:

-The incentives provided by the tax credits differ between the three fuels. When adjusted to reflect the different energy contents of the biofuels, as well as the petroleum fuel used to produce them, the CBO found that corn ethanol producers receive 73 cents for each quantity of ethanol that contains the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. On the same basis, the incentives for cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel were a respective $1.62 and $1.08 per volume of energy equivalent fuel.

-The cost to taxpayers to use corn ethanol to reduce gasoline consumption by one gallon is $1.78. The same cost for cellulosic ethanol is $3 and the cost for biodiesel was found to be $2.55. According to the CBO, these cost estimates depend on the size of the tax credit for each fuel, changes in federal revenue streams that result from the difference in excise taxes collected on the sales of gasoline and biofuels, and the amount of each biofuel that would have been produced if the credits had not been available.

Source: Biodiesel Magazine

Dr. Steven Chu, distinguished scientist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997), was appointed by President Obama as the 12th Secretary of Energy and sworn into office on Jan 21, 2009. He is charged with helping implement President Obama’s ambitious agenda to invest in substitute and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs, a very large task indeed.

In 2004, the United States consumed 20.7 million barrels of petroleum products per day (about 7.5 billion barrels per year). A barrel contains 42 gallons, so total petroleum consumption in 2004 was about 318 billion gallons. Roughly 60% (~190 billion gallons) of petroleum consumed was imported, with about 13% (~40 billion gallons) coming from Persian Gulf countries. The United States primarily imports crude oil but also imports petroleum products including completed motor gasoline, aviation fuel, and fuel oil. The United States Says imported about 15 billion gallons of completed motor gasoline and gasoline-blending components in 2004. (Source: Annual Energy Outlook 2006 from the Energy Information Administration).

Biofuels are liquid, solid, or gaseous fuels derived from renewable biological sources. The biomass can be burned directly for thermal energy or converted to other high-value energy sources including ethanol, biodiesel, methanol, hydrogen, or methane. Currently, ethanol from corn grain and biodiesel are the only biofuels produced in the United States on an industrial scale.  Current biodiesel in the United States in prefabricated from used cooking oil, yellow grease, waste vegetable oil and animal fats.

Most of the 4 billion gallons of ethanol produced in 2005 came from 13% of the U.S. corn crops thus igniting the food vs. fuel debate. This was an increase from the 3.4 billion gallons produced in 2004. Ethanol is widely used as a fuel additive. The oxygen contained in ethanol improves gasoline combustibility. E10 & E85 blends are acquirable from gas stations all over the United States Say this fuel is widely acquirable in corn-producing states. E85 can be used as a substitute for gasoline in cars that have been altered to use this biofuel.

Biodiesel is a biologically derived diesel fuel substitute created by chemically reacting vegetable oils or animal fats with alcohol. Most biodiesel in the United States comes from soybean oil or restaurant greases. Biodiesel is readily used by cars with diesel engines. In 2005, about 75 million gallons of biodiesel were produced, tripling the 25 million gallons produced in 2004.

Creating a minimum blend stipulation for the United States the biodiesel biofuels industry will help accomplish the goals of substitute and renewable energy expansion, place a halt on our addiction to foreign oil, reduce the effects of the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.
Substitute energy research does not stop with Algae or Jatropha, other plants such as the cassava and the Honge tree from India are alternatives for renewable green fuel feedstock sources. The research in these areas will help end our addiction to foreign oil, reduce harmful emissions by introducing green renewable fuel alternatives. Jobs will be created for agricultural research, farmers and renewable fuel industries from fuels home grown in the USA.

70CentsaGallon Inc. a Florida Biofuels technology company has started a petition for submittal to the new Secretary of Energy. They hope this petition will help secure America’s future prosperity for our future generations through a biofuel mandate. They only ask for your support of the petition for a minimum blend for bio-diesel in the USA. The petition is being hosted online at GoPetition.com and you can reach this particular petition at this link http://gopetition.com/online/29302.html

Enterprise Holdings, owner of the Alamo Rent-A-Car, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental brand names, made a big announcement in support of biodiesel during day two at the National Biodiesel Conference & Expo in Grapevine, Texas.

Big Business Goes Green

The company announced its commitment to move its entire fleet of more than 600 shuttle buses to B20 within the next 5 years, beginning with incorporating at least B5 in all its buses this year.

Nine Enterprise Holdings markets will convert to using B20 in its shuttle buses immediately, said Lee Broughton, director of corporate identity and sustainability for Enterprise Holdings, and by the end of next year, 50 percent of Enterprise Holdings’ shuttle buses will be running on B20.

Broughton said the company will have reduced its petroleum consumption by 420,000 gallons in the first year alone.

Also announced was the appointment of Richard Sayre as director of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

Sayre, former cellular plant and molecular biology professor at Ohio State University, and his team of 10 researchers will work to develop algae for biofuels, and will focus efforts in ways such as utilizing CO2 from coal-fired power plants to help grow algae, which would act as a carbon sink. Sayre said nutrients could be provided to the algae with water from sewage treatment facilities.

“We can use the contaminants as fertilizer,” he said. “Algae doubles it biomass in 24 hours, and it can be harvested daily,” he added—which captured the attention of the Department of Defense.

Sayre said algae’s energy balance today is only about 2:1, but theoretically this can increase four to six times with research and development.

The next few months could be “make or break time” for the soy biodiesel industry in the U.S.

Biodiesel faces several challenges right now, including the high cost of the feedstock and the loss of the one dollar biodiesel blenders’ tax credit, which Congress allowed to expire on December 31^st.  Indications are that most biodiesel plants have ceased production as they await Congressional action on the tax credit, which may not happen until March.

In Iowa, the state’s Renewable Fuels Association has launched a campaign to highlight the importance of biodiesel—and renewable fuels, in general—to Iowa’s economy.  Monte Shaw is the executive director ofIRFA. “We’ve got a lot of exciting thing coming down the road for this industry—things that are going to really redefine renewable fuels for the future,” says Shaw. “Whether it’s exciting feedstock projects like the algae project at Shenandoah, or maybe it’s the biorefinery  project that’s scheduled to go into Newton.”

Good reasons, Shaw says, to keep Iowa’s biodiesel industry viable.

“If we let the current biodiesel industry wither away and lose the jobs we have today, it also means we’re not going to be the place—we’re not going to be the state—where those next generation investments and next generation jobs come either,” he says.  “So we’re really at a turning point, not just for the investors and jobs of today, but for making Iowa the place to be for the future of this industry as well.”

In addition to the federal tax credit extension, Shaw says IRFA will also be lobbying for a five percent biodiesel mandate in the Iowa legislature.

“We really do need a B5 fuel quality standard to create a low level of demand,” says Shaw. “It’s constant, it’s year-around, it’s predictable—and that’s what can help these plants cash flow during the good times and the bad times.”

A bill creating a B5 fuel quality standard passed the Iowa Senate in 2009, but time ran out before the Iowa House could consider the legislation.

The new ASTM D6751 Cold Soak Filtration test left many biodiesel producers and consumers out in the cold. In response, Schroeder Biofuels brought Cold Clear to the market, a new proprietary multi-stage separation technology designed specifically to ensure that biodiesel products conform to the new ASTM standard for cold flow properties.

Well here is the latest update on product use. WVO Feedstock is now being cleaned with the Cold Clear system. That’s right! it is also used to filter waste vegetable oil before biodiesel processing begins.

-          Degumming

-          Free Fatty Acid Treatment

Instead of Acid Esterification the Cold Clear units are a suitable alternative to acid Esterification & FFA Treatment. This filtration system is saving time and money for biodiesel biofuel producers.

The Cold Clear TM system consists of a three-stage bank of housings using a combination of filtration and adsorption principles to capture compounds that could cause plugging or crystallization in biodiesel fluids and also yellow grease. Notably, Cold Clear TM is the premiere multi-stage treatment system for cold soak filtration & now waste vegetable oil feedstock for biodiesel production.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Energy announced almost $600 million in funding for advanced biofuel projects.     This money is intended to push forward next generation biofuels, since corn based ethanol plants have come under fire for increasing food costs.   One of the beneficiaries of the funding is Sapphire Energy, who received $50 million from the DoE and another $54.5 million load guarantee from the Department of Agriculture, under the Biorefinery Assistance Program (part of the 2008 Farm Bill).

Sapphire Energy has developed a process  to produce oil from algae and then turn this oil into gasoline that is virtually identical to the gasoline that is used in cars.   Sapphire calls its gasoline a “drop-in” replacement since its fuel can be used in existing engines without any modification to the vehicle.    Sapphire is currently ramping up production of its biofuel and is looking to produce 1 million gallons of algae based fuel per year by 2011, and 100 million gallons per year by 2018.

Nathonal Ethanol Conference is being held in Orlando 15-17 in Orlando. Promises to be packed full of information. Even though biodiesel has not reached the heights of success as Ethanol “YET” these type of events are always great to network and learn stuff you had no idea of. Heck it may also generate new business. Check out the link here for more detailed info http://www.nationalethanolconference.com/

The Department of Energy said Friday it would give $564 million in stimulus funding to 19 projects aimed at turning biomass into fuels, chemicals and power.

The grants are hoped to help the federal government meet its aggressive deadline to get 36 billion gallons of biofuel production up and running by 2022 – a goal government and industry analysts have said will be hard to reach.

The 19 winning projects span 15 states, and include both giants like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Honeywell’s (HON) UOP and startups such as ZeaChem, Amyris, Solazyme and Algenol.

The projects are aimed at using non-food feedstocks such as wood chips, grasses, algae and municipal waste to make biofuel. A federal mandate calls for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol to be made by next year, but it appears increasingly likely that this target will not be met.

The grants aren’t all for biofuel production – some are aimed at the production of biochemicals or generating power from biomass, though most of those are linked to biofuel production.

While most of the projects haven’t received DOE funds yet, one has – BlueFire Ethanol (BFRE.OB), which will get an additional $81.1 million to help along its plans to build a 19 million gallon-per-year plant making ethanol from biomass and waste in Fulton, Miss. BlueFire had received $40 million to build a plant in California, but moved the project to Mississippi in October.

Also on Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would give San Diego, Calif.-based algae biofuel startup Sapphire Energy a $54.5 million loan guarantee from the 2008 Farm Bill’s Biorefinery Assistance Program to build a demonstration plant in New Mexico. Sapphire also received $50 million in DOE grants.

Some selected DOE grant winners include:

• Algenol Biofuels will get $25 million to make ethanol from algae at a 100,000 gallon-per-year demonstration plant in Freeport, Texas.
• American Process Inc., of Alpena, Mich., will get $17.9 million to build a plant to make 890,000 gallons of ethanol and 690,000 gallons of potassium acetate from processed wood.
• Amyris Biotechnologies, of Emeryville, Calif. will get $25 million to help build a pilot plant to use its genetically altered yeast to turn sugar from fermented sweet sorghum into hydrocarbons closely resembling diesel fuel, as well as lubricants, polymers and other petrochemicals.
• Archer Daniels Midland, of Decatur, Ill. will get $24.8 million for a facility to use acid to break down biomass to convert to ethanol or ethyl acrylate.
• Clearfuels Technology, of Commerce City, Colo. will get $23 million for a plant to make woody biomass into diesel and jet fuel using processes from the company and partner Rentech (RTK).
• Enerkem will get $50 million to build a plant in Pontotoc, Miss. to convert municipal wastes into syngas for conversion to biofuels.
• Logos Technologies will get $20.4 million for a Visalia, Calif. plant to convert switchgrass and woody biomass into ethanol.
• Solazyme will get $21.8 million for a Riverside, Penn. plant to produce algae oil to convert to oil-based fuel.
• UOP, a Honeywell company, will get $25 million to develop a Kapolei, Hawaii plant in partnership with Ensyn to turn a variety of crops and feedstocks into fuels.
• Zeachem will get $25 million to build a wood-to-ethanol plant in Boardman, Oregon.