2007-10-22

Ugandā savs šķidrais biokurināmais no lauksaimniecības atliekām saimniecības vajadzībām

"A local investor is planning to set up a plant which will use foodstuff like maize, cassava and sugarcane to manufacture oil and gel for lighting and cooking respectively.
The investor, who currently imports the biofuels (synthetic oil and gel) from their South African-based parent company Liquifier Pty Limited, hopes to set up the plant in east and western Uganda, by the end of June next year.
INVESTOR: Mr Musoke, and below is the mild steel

According to the General Manager of Liquifier Uganda limited, Mr Michael Musoke, the plan is to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere through reduced deforestation and consequent charcoal burning.

"Plans are underway to set up a local manufacturing (biofuel manufacturing) plant in Uganda. It will be the only Gel manufacturing plant in Uganda, the East and Central African region,"Musoke told Sunday Monitor.

"There is a lot of garden surplus in Uganda, which we shall use," Musoke adds, to justify where the feedstock (crops to be used to produce the fuels) will come. He says since their operations will depend mainly on farm produce "we shall also support the farming sector by offering them more seeds to plant, provide farm inputs and provide the necessary advisory services".

Liquifier Uganda limited became operational in Uganda two years ago but its products were only launched last month.
Today, their products with a brand name Liquifier have found their way in most super markets in Kampala.

Among their products are synthetic oil, which burns in specially designed lamps (liquilamp) made of durable, hard plastic, which does not get destroyed when used for lighting.

The Liquilamp, which takes half a litter of synthetic oil, goes for Shs26,000 giving 60 hours of burning or lighting. According to Musoke, the synthetic oil has been mixed with a chemical called citronella, which is a mosquito repellant.

"When you use the liquilamp, you can also be sure you are well protected from mosquitoes and malaria,"he says of the Liquifier product. Other products are gel, which comes with specially designed stoves, made of mild steel.

A litre of gel, which burns in the stove, goes for Shs3,600. A five-litre gel pack goes for 18,000 and according to Musoke, it burns for a period of three to four weeks for light cooking.

A double plate stove goes for Shs55,000 while a single plate stove goes for Shs 42,000.
The gel is packed in consumer friendly quantities ranging from one litre to 200 litre drums, which caters for big institutions like schools, hotels, restaurants, and hospitals.

For hotels that have long been using spirit for warming foodstuffs during the buffet method of serving, Musoke says the gel is a better option as it burns longer.
Musoke describes the products as smokeless, odourless, highly portable, leaves minimal residue after use and produces twice as much energy, compared to gas and paraffin.

"It's also none poisonous and can be used as anti-septic on the skin," he says.
"Research on our products found Liquifier is a better alternative compared to other products (such as gas and paraffin)," he adds.

Biofuels are gaining firm ground in Uganda with many companies and individuals opting to convert arable land to enable production of the feedstock used to manufacture fuel from the crops.

Last year, Sugar Corporation of Uganda Ltd (Scoul) requested the government to provide 7,100 hectares of land from within Mabira Central Forest Reserve to enable it expand it’s sugar production from the current 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tones per annum, in line with their plans to increase sugar production and produce power alcohol.

In her cabinet paper which appeared in the New Vison, the Minister of Water and Environment Ms Maria Mutagamba said if Scoul was given part of the forest reserve, it would produce power alcohol, which can be mixed with petrol to the extent of 10-15percent, to diversify energy production.

Mutagamba said Scoul would produce additional 10-12 MW of electricity which can be supplied to UGMA, cable and to the national grid. But Scoul is not the only company intending to produce biofuel.

In an earlier interview, the executive director of Oil Palm Uganda Limited Mr Kodey Rao, said if additional land was given to his company in Bugala Island, Kalangala District, more palms would be planted and also used to manufacture biofuel.

However, biofuel critics warn governments against adapting biofuels at face value, saying converting land for green fuel production will increase food shortage and soar food prices and, above all, threaten fragile ecosystems like wetlands and forests.

According to the website http://www.swissinfo.org, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler was reportedly demanding an international five-year ban on conversion of land for the production of biofuels,to combat soaring food prices.

According to the website, a study commissioned by the Swiss authorities in May, concluded that biofuels might not be the panacea for the world's fossil-fuel woes. Such fuels, touted as an ecologically friendly source of energy, might be more harmful for the environment than their fossil counterparts, it said.

According to the authors, while it was true that biofuels might emit less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels when consumed, producing them is generally more stressful on the environment.

Growing and processing crops for energy purposes or feedstock can have the heaviest environmental impact, as soil quality can be affected adversely, for example through fertiliser overuse, the swissinfo reported."

Oriģināls

2007-10-14

Vēl viens kritisks raksts par ASV plāniem ražot bioetanolu no kukurūzas un to saistību ar pārtikas trūkumu jaunattīstības valstīs

"While obesity is a major health problem in the United States, and a growing problem in other developed countries, 854 million people throughout the world are hungry, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization. The FAO defines hunger as a person not getting enough food every day to sustain themselves.

Ten million children under the age of 5 die each year from hunger, according to an article in the Lancet, a major medical journal. Three billion people out of the 6 billion in the world face premature death due to lack of nutrition or potable water, according to the FAO; 2.4 billion people have to cook with wood or other biological products and 1.6 billion have no access to electricity.

In the past year, the problem of hunger—especially in the least developed areas of the world like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia—has grown sharper because the price of corn has shot up, more than doubling in the past 12 months and the price of wheat has reached a ten-year high. The world has less than 60 days of corn stockpiled, the lowest level in decades, and the stock of wheat is at a 25-year low.

The reason for this increase is the policy recently adopted by the Bush administration to produce a major amount of ethanol from corn. Ethanol can be used as a substitute for fuels produced from petroleum.

In the developed countries, not much corn is consumed directly. Instead, it is used as feed to produce milk and dairy products, eggs, meat (beef, chicken, pork), cereals, peanut butter, soft drinks and snacks.

But in countries like Mexico and South Africa, with a significant level of economic development—certainly not at the level of the U.S. or Western Europe, but nonetheless substantial—corn meal is a staple.

Mexico came close to food rebellions earlier this year, when the price of corn meal rose by 400 percent. Thousands of angry workers came out in the streets all over the country, waving corncobs. These workers were used to spending up to a third of their income on corn meal to make tortillas and were even used to fluctuations in corn prices—but a 400 percent increase was catastrophic.

Mexico is the fourth-largest producer of corn in the world and under NAFTA it can import supposedly cheap corn from the U.S. Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón cobbled together a “voluntary” price control plan, enforced by angry consumers.

Prices of white corn meal in South Africa have risen by 186 percent in the last two years, due to poor harvests throughout much of southern Africa and the demand-driven world price, which has been pushed higher by the demand for ethanol produced by corn in the U.S. The number of people the U.N. calls “food insecure,” particularly in Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and southern Mozambique, has gone from 3.1 million in 2006 to 6.1 million this year.
Imperialists use corn as weapon

In an article entitled “Foodstuff as Imperial Weapon: Bio-fuels and Global Hunger,” Cuban President Fidel Castro pointed out, “The sinister idea of turning foodstuffs into fuel was definitely established as the economic strategy of the U.S. foreign policy on Monday, March 26th last.” Fidel Castro quoted an Associated Press dispatch about George Bush’s meeting with car company executives in which the U.S. president called on the industry to modify engines to run on ethanol in order to reduce “reliance on imported oil.”

In this dispatch, Bush said he was going to call on Congress to mandate the production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, which Fidel Castro points out is a phenomenal amount that “will happen after a great number of investments, which could only be afforded by the most powerful companies whose operations are based on the consumption of electricity and fuel.”

Bush has claimed that the shift to ethanol might help clean up the environment. Analysts argue, however, that the carbon released into the atmosphere by the energy required to produce this amount of ethanol and the huge amount of fertilizers needed to grow the corn would most likely be higher than the carbon released by using oil.

The costs involved in substituting ethanol for oil will be very high, but there also might be vast profits, something that drives capitalists ever onward. Politically, the U.S. ruling class would very much like to reduce its and the world’s dependence on oil from countries like Venezuela and Iran.

Brazil is one of the world’s major producers of ethanol. It uses the waste from sugar production, a substance called bagasse, to create ethanol. About 30 percent of the automotive fuel in Brazil is ethanol. Brazil’s ethanol producers just announced that they intend to invest $9 billion to increase production. Environmental activists in Brazil point out that this investment will require clearing a major amount of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest.

A number of African countries—including Benin, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal, led by Ghana—have been testing producing biofuel from jatropha, a weed that is widely used to protect fields from livestock, which don’t like its taste or feel. The seeds of jatropha contain oil, which has been used for a long time to produce soap. But researchers have found that it is much cheaper to produce biodiesel from jatropha than from corn or soy beans. And burning jatropha-derived biodiesel produces one-fifth the carbon of burning petroleum-derived diesel. The residue left after oil production can even be used as fertilizer and to produce soap.

Since it is a perennial weed, jatropha grows well in very poor, arid conditions without fertilizer or irrigation. Its roots, lying close to the surface, stabilize the soil and for this reason it currently is planted on earthen dams and dikes.

Mali, an extremely poor, landlocked African country, hopes to eventually power all of the country’s 12,000 villages with affordable, renewable energy sources derived from jatropha, which is widely used as a hedge by Malian farmers. Aboubacar Samake, head of the jatropha program at the government-funded National Centre for Solar and Renewable Energy, told Reuters, “As things stand, a snake can bite someone in a village and they have to go to [the capital] Bamako to get a vaccine.” With power, local clinics can keep vaccines refrigerated.

India gave the Economic Community of Western African States $250 million to investigate exporting biodiesel. Mali, however, is not going to start producing jatropha for export until it has met the needs of its own people for energy.

“They came to explain the project to us and said that if we grow jatropha it can produce oil to make the machine work,” Daouda Doumbia, an elder in the Malian village of Simiji told Reuters. Simiji was recently outfitted with a biodiesel generator. “I grow groundnuts, and this activity can go alongside it as a partner crop,” he explained.

Ghana, which is trying to develop jatropha cultivation, has found that producing the oil is profitable for local farmers if they can get it to market.

The real problem Africa and technologically underdeveloped regions of the world have is poverty. They don’t have the money to develop, feed and educate and care for their populations. And the whole thrust of the energy policies of the U.S. and Western Europe is to force the countries which they have kept impoverished to solve the world’s economic and ecological problems, to the detriment of the oppressed."

Oriģināls

2007-10-07

Bioenerģija un granulu ražošana Kanādā

"Sometime down the road, possibly even in the near future, certain buildings in the downtown core of Prince George could be drawing heat from a communal system that relies on wood waste to heat a water loop. The loop would run through businesses and municipal facilities heated by hot water, such as the library and the soon-to-be-opened RCMP facility at the corner of Seventh and Quebec.
"Using community energy would likely be a more efficient way of providing heat for the downtown core buildings than using geothermal," civic facilities manager Greg Anderson said.
It also has the potential to improve air quality because a single boiler would be required for ignitions control. The downside is the cost of installing such a system - $8 million, to be exact - which is subject to a government grant program.
"If there's enough there to make the project a go, we could start construction as early as next year," utilities division manager Marco Fornari said.
"Once we put community energy through, any building that has hot water heating could then be run off the biomass," Anderson added. "Because you're using local wood waste to operate the facility, you've now taken yourself out of the equation of fluctuating energy prices for fossil fuel."
In terms of energy production, linking the words 'wood' and 'waste' is something akin to blasphemy because wood, mill residues and standing dead timber are some of the most common sources of biomass energy.
"We never use the word 'waste,'" said John Swaan, executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. "We have wood residues, whether it's sawmill residues or roadside debris, or whole log standing dead. We've got municipal waste in whatever form, gas and solid. Effluent has a lot of gas for us to utilize if we wanted to.
"We've got the opportunity to launch a bioenergy economy because of the resource that we do have. It's more than just energy systems, it's a complete system. In Europe, for example, you see what they call CHP, which is combined heat and power, and that's effective, efficient use of using energy if you will, no matter what it is. But particularly bioenergy, or biomass, because you're not only generating one form of energy, you've got others coming out that you utilize for electricity, or heating homes. In this case, you're generating hot water so you can distribute that as a heating medium to heat more than just a facility, now you can heat all buildings and offices."
Swaan said Europeans are utilizing biomass because it's the "most sustainable green energy source" we have. The trouble in North America, he feels, is that people have not bought into the concept that biomass is carbon neutral.
"That's our biggest problem, Swaan said. "When we're utilizing it, we're burning it so we are generating CO2 (carbon dioxide). Some people have a difficult time wrapping their head around the carbon neutrality of that."
As mentioned, money is another problem of converting biomass into energy. But Swaan has a solution called a "carrot and stick approach" which would tax the offenders, namely gas, oil and coal.
"Anything that comes from beneath the ground needs to be taxed, and anything you utilize from above the ground needs to be rewarded. Period. That's one of the major issues that we need to get the economics in line."
Wood residue is the most abundant source of biomass, which is defined as organic material derived from plants. It represents the largest opportunity for electricity generation in the province, according to B.C. Hydro, which is planning a call for power in 2008 to utilize beetle kill wood and other wood fibre fuel sources.
"There's promise with added potential revenue from the dead and dying component. You could take stands that are uneconomic and make them economic once again," said Doug Routledge, vice-president of northern operations at the Council of Forest Industries.
"The pulp and paper industry, quite frankly, has been in the power and heat generation business since their inception in the '60s. They're really bioenergy plants as well as pulp and paper plants, and the reason is because huge amounts of heat and power are required to make pulp and paper, and the more they can generate themselves, the more they can reduce their need to buy it off the grid, for example, and buy natural gas."
Increasingly, he added, mills such as the Canfor-owned P.G. pulp mill have been putting into place their own co-generation facilities, which burn wood waste to heat oil which in turn heats the kilns.
"That's kind of the next generation of bioenergy, still within the forest industry, all built on residues," said Routledge, adding most residues are "fully committed to offset natural gas consumption." Meaning beehive burners are disappearing, although some still exist at operations such as Dunkley Lumber.
But again, using mill residues to power a co-gen plant is a costly proposition.
"The biggest challenge to producing power and heat from biomass is that because this province has relatively inexpensive power from hydro generation from big mega projects, the price that consumers in B.C. pay for power is relatively quite low," Routledge said. "To try and transport biomass into a plant and then generate heat and power, the biggest barrier is the transportation cost."
Roadside residues might offer a more attractive source of biomass energy, since tree tops, limbs and rotten logs are not being utilized.
"That stuff, which annually we have to burn off over the winter to keep the fire hazard down for future years, is going up in smoke right now and could represent the next available fibre supply for the bioenergy industry," said Routledge, who notes increasing power prices may soon be able to cover transportation costs of roadside fibre.
Standing dead timber in mountain pine beetle areas is another potential biomass source, although harvesting and reforestation costs make this option less viable.
"(But) Because these plants are being built with 20-year lives, it could eventually be that the price of power gets to a place that can support harvesting those standing dead trees," Routledge said.
Which means forest companies could become energy producers, either by themselves or in conjunction with an existing energy company.
"Existing industry could act as a conduit," Routledge said. "It's just a matter of leveraging the fact that the most cost-effective way of getting that roadside and standing fibre out is to enter these business relationships. We see a role here emerging very quickly for these business-to-business relationships to develop."
"Waste wood" is being used to produce flake board and pellets, the latter of which have become a key product of this region's forest sector. Eraser-size wood pellets are made from sawdust, shavings and wood fines left over after a tree has been processed. Pellets are used mostly to produce energy, but have other applications such as livestock bedding.
The majority of the 1.6 million tons of pellets expected to be produced in Canada this year will come from B.C.
"We're the largest exporter to Europe. We took the product to them 10 years ago. I was the one that was responsible for the very first shipment," said Swaan, who in 1994 founded Pellet Flame, a Prince George company which amalgamated with the Vancouver-based Pacific Bioenergy Corp. Since that time, pellets have gone from being a niche product to a "globally-traded commodity.
"Now there's companies all over North America," Swaan said.
There are several pellet plants in northern B.C., including Pacific Bioenergy, Pinnacle Pellet and Run of the River Power Inc. The latter, which recently purchased Western Biomass Power Corp., plans to build a series of wood-fired plants utilizing beetle-killed trees and logging/mill wastes.
"They're taking a very different approach to things," Routledge said. "They're potentially one of this new generation of stand-alone power plants that would enter into business relationships with companies for fibre."
Alterna Energy is a two-year-old Prince George company which is close to finishing construction of a research plant, also known as an enviro carbonizer, through which tests will be conducted with materials such as wood, rubber and plastics that will provide data on emissions and energy output.
"We will one day be selling power to B.C. Hydro but not necessarily with our research plant," Alterna president Leonard Legault said. "We are considering projects in B.C. and elsewhere."
Clearly, the biomass supply - and demand - is alive and well in this province. As Swaan says, "It's growing at us all the time."
But is this enough to make a community energy system in Prince George become a reality?
Routledge thinks so, but only if existing underground infrastructure can be used in conjunction with a pulp mill, as is the case in communities such as Golden and Revelstoke.
"It's going to be a bit of a hurdle for us to do the retrofitting," he said.
"If somebody has an industrial process that has waste heat, and they're located close to our potential sources, we would look at entering into some agreement to purchase that heat, rather than do a biomass plant ourselves," Fornari added. "It makes sense long-term. It provides stable energy sources, rather than the volatile gas and oil markets. They're not manufacturing more oil, as far as I know. They're just pulling it out of the ground. Eventually it's going to run out."
A community heating system has been in place in Revelstoke in southeast B.C. since 2005, when a multi-million dollar project was commissioned. Town leaders had originally hoped for a full-blown co-gen plant using wood waste from mills, but electricity rates did not warrant the scale of the project, which would have produced about 4.5 megawatts (MW) of power.
"What we do now is it's a heat-only project where we only burn about 10 per cent of the waste, and we generate steam," said Geoff Battersby, the town's former mayor who is a director of the Revelstoke Community Energy Corporation. "Downie Street Sawmills is the big sawmill in town. They signed a 20-year agreement to provide us with fuel for the plant, free. And they also provided a site for the plant, free, within the boundaries of their operations. And they signed an agreement to purchase steam energy for the dry kilns for 20 years as well. It's a 1.5 MW biomass boiler. About half the energy goes to produce steam for their dry kilns, and the rest is used to provide hot water to be pumped around the community to various large buildings."
These include the ice arena, high school, community centre, aquatic centre, a motel, and a bed and breakfast. The corporation hopes to hook up a few more buildings in the future.
The project required 1.6 kilometres of underground piping from the mill to the buildings. The pipe cost about $750 a metre, the price of which has since jumped substantially. The total project cost about $6 million, which they hope to pay off in about 20 years.
"It's a great system but it's certainly capital intensive on the front end," Battersby said. "Our pledge to the citizens when we did this project was that we would not incur any liability for the taxpayers, and not use the city's borrowing power, but use the project alone as a stand-alone thing."
The environmentally-friendly system runs on heat exchangers, which take up less space than boilers.
"But more importantly, the 20-year contract gives them certainty of what their prices are going to be, with the only escalation being annual CPI (Consumer Price Index), nothing tied to fossil fuel prices," Battersby said."

Oriģināls

ASV mežrūpniecībi nepieciešami jauni produkti ar augstu pievienoto vērtību - nedaudz par bioenerģiju

"Paper, board and sawmills are struggling amid a slowdown in U.S. housing construction and excess capacity in the global papermaking industry.
Here’s some of the regional evidence:
  • In late August, Louisiana-Pacific curtailed production again at its oriented strand board (OSB) plant in Hayward, this time through October. The company said it also was indefinitely suspending OSB production at its Silsbee, TX mill. The Hayward mill was idled last November to reduce an inventory backlog.
  • Ainsworth Engineered has resumed some OSB production in Cook, but its Grand Rapids mill has been idled “temporarily” for a year. In mid-2006, Ainsworth permanently shut down half of the capacity at its OSB mill in Bemidji.
  • Symptomatic of a painful restructuring underway in the paper industry, a bankrupt mill in Park Falls reopened in mid-2006 under new ownership as Flambeau River Papers. Two other paper mills — Boise Cascade in International Falls and Stora Enso in Duluth — are operating amid ownership changes.
  • Meanwhile, Finnish owner UPM-Kymmene is sitting on permits it secured nearly two years ago for an additional paper machine at its UPM-Blandin Paper mill in Grand Rapids. The company has made no public statements for many months about the status of the “Blandin Thunderhawk” project.
Paper and board mills use energy-intensive manufacturing processes, and rising fuel costs are contributing to the financial stress. When the previous owner of the Park Falls mill closed its doors in early 2006, for example, natural gas and electric costs had caught up with labor as the No. 2 expense, trailing only wood procurement costs.
But rising oil prices, concerns about future supplies, and the role of fossil fuel emissions in climate change are adding up to the forest industry’s best untapped opportunity: producing fuels and industrial feedstocks from waste wood, or woody biomass. That conclusion is reinforced in a recent assessment by Shri Ramaswamy, PhD, chairman of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering in St. Paul and nonprofit Dovetail Partners in Minneapolis.
Their report was commissioned by the Blandin Foundation and Iron Range Resources, which jointly released it during a Sept. 21-22 conference they co-sponsored in Grand Rapids, “Seizing Opportunity: Forestry and the BioEconomy.”
Following ag’s footsteps
The potential payoff for the forestry industry is best represented by a U.S. agriculture sector that’s already producing biofuels from corn (ethanol) and soybeans (biodiesel). Minnesota’s ag sector is the nation’s No. 4 producer of ethanol, No. 8 in biodiesel. Wisconsin didn’t open its first biofuels plant until 2004, but is quickly catching up with about half the production capacity of Minnesota.
Record oil prices has spurred demand for these renewable fuels, pulling up corn and soybean prices to near-record levels.
Meanwhile, a vast array of industrial chemicals and feedstocks is derived from oil and natural gas, ranging from plastics and butyl rubber to synthetic fibers, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.
A common theme resonated through the conference: To pursue these potential markets, a search for proven technologies to produce both industrial feedstocks and liquid fuels from forest biomass needs to kick into high gear.
“Biofuels are the hottest thing in business development today,” said conference keynoter and biofuels expert Robert Elde, dean of the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences. He told the audience bioscience is at a time of convergence, where wood fiber has great value as a genetic building block for new product development.
Industry, government and academic researchers need to align in multi-state Midwest partnerships to compete in the developing bioeconomy, he said. “We have to be more aggressive than we have been to date to be the pacemaker.”
A global survey
Elde said electric utilities and the U.S. forest industry need look no further for bio-fuels development potential than northern Europe and South America.
  • Brazil is the world leader, producing nearly all of its transportation fuels from renewable sources, principally sugar cane.
  • Stockholm’s public bus system operates on ethanol, and Sweden is meeting 20 percent of its overall energy needs from renewable sources.
  • Finland, also has met the 20 percent threshold and plans to be completely oil independent by 2025, a strategy relying heavily upon forest biomass product development. The chief executive at Finland-based UPM Kymmene, owner of the Grand Rapids mill, has stated the company intends to become a major producer of biodiesel from woody biomass.
While the U.S. ag sector is a frontline player on the renewable liquid fuels front, the forestry industry and the rest of the nation is barely in the game.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty acknowledged as much during the second day of the Grand Rapids conference. “This country has been asleep at the switch,” he said. “We’re one significant event away in Saudi Arabia from $100 per barrel oil . . . that’s $4 a gallon and it’s going to get worse. It’s not a choice to stay the same,” he said.
The Ramaswamy / Dovetail Partners study concludes the region’s paper mills are best-positioned in the wood industry for profitable biofuel and biochemical development in conjunction with their pulp and paper operations. Most already produce part of their process steam electricity and by burning their wood waste, and available technology can convert the “black liquor” byproduct of the paper pulping process into fuels. Some even have formal partnerships with their electric utilities to manage their “biomass” energy operations. One of those utilities, Minnesota Power, also is weighing a major biomass energy addition to its Laskin generating plant in Hoyt Lakes.
For financially-strapped loggers, a stable market for the waste wood they currently leave on the forest floor would add to their cash flow. It also would produce a better managed and more sustainable resource, said John “Jack” Rajala, of Deer-River based Rajala Cos., patriarch of one of the region’s best-known forestry families and an ardent advocate of sustainable management practices.
“Minnesota is backward with respect to full utilization of wood,” he said in an interview between sessions. “(Loggers and sawmill operators) are waiting for a better market for residue. For good forestry you have to get the residue out of the way.”
Flambeau River leads the way
Leading the way in this region on several of these fronts is Flambeau River Papers.
Its majority owner is William “Butch” Johnson, chief executive of Hayward-based Johnson Timber. The company operates three chipping mills and provided wood procurement services to the Park Falls mill before its bankruptcy, drawing from a logger network within a 150-mile radius. Johnson was a major creditor in the bankruptcy, and acquired the mill with silent minority investors.
They reopened the mill in July 2006 with a business plan to become energy independent and operate as a “biorefinery,” producing cellulosic ethanol, other biofuels and biochemicals from wood waste. The company’s $80 million grant request to the U.S. Department of Energy to help finance its $215 million plan was narrowly rejected this spring.
It’s since downsized that initiative with a planned $84 million, smaller scale demonstration plant. On Aug. 14 it submitted a new $30 million application to the federal agency for a new round of renewable energy grants to be awarded in early 2008, said William “Bill” Johnson, Flambeau River’s president.
The project essentially would add a “gasifier” to the mill’s No. 6 boiler — presently fired by wood waste, natural gas and coal — and build a gas-to-liquids plant on the backside of the gasifier, he said. Tail gases from the gasifier would be diverted to the paper mill, replacing the natural gas and coal presently used to fire the boiler, Johnson said.
The gasifier plan also would employ modified “Fischer Tropsch” technology to operate a gas-to-liquids plant that would produce up to 500 barrels per day of “biocrude,” a renewable input for oil refining. Murphy Oil executives, considering a major expansion of the company’s refinery in Superior, have submitted a letter supporting Flambeau River’s grant application, Johnson said.
The original technology was developed by two German scientists, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the 1920s in petroleum-poor but coal-rich Germany to produce synthetic liquid fuels. Germany and Japan used the process to supplement their crude oil needs during World War II.
Johnson said a second phase expansion would follow a successful demonstration project.
Public policy considerations
One big concern in biofuel and biochemical development from the forestry resource is that the pursuit of an energy solution does not create environmental damage to the region’s soil and water resources. Ethanol production from corn, for instance, produces carbon dioxide, recognized as the most serious greenhouse gas contributor to global warming. The water-intensive process adds to the growing pressure on underground aquifers, competes with other ag crops and is driving up food costs.
At the same time, farmer-owned cooperatives have snared a major part of the growing market for ethanol and biodiesel, and a significant share of the profits are returning to those producers.
Conference organizers devoted several sessions to explore and avoid potential unintended consequences from badly-planned, forest-based bioeconomy development. Beyond a new industry that’s environmentally sustainable, policymakers want it to produce a diverse basket of value-added forest products with a fair share of the profits staying in the region.
James Hoolihan, president of the Blandin Foundation said that goal is at the heart of its four-year-old ‘Vital Forests / Vital Communities’ initiative. “Many regions already recognize the opportunities to transform the forest products industry so that it becomes both the and of diverse and sustainable products. We believe that’s an entirely obtainable goal that is well within our region’s reach.”

Oriģināls

2007-10-02

Dynamotive plāno uzbūvēt jaunu biodegvielas ražotni Argentīnā ar jaudu 200 t/dienā (15 MW)

"Vancouver-based Dynamotive Energy Systems (OTC: DYMTF) announced plans today to build two biofuel to electricity complexes in Argentina.
The company said it planned to invest $105 million in the two self contained facilities, located in the northeastern province of Corrientes.
"We are moving forward with these projects in Argentina because the need and the economics are compatible with our corporate growth goals, and they reflect how Latin America is helping to lead the biofuel revolution," said Andrew Kingston, CEO of Dynamotive.
"We look forward to developing future plants here and elsewhere in Argentina and South America," he said.
Dynamotive said each complex will be comprised of a 15.7 megawatt electricity generating station powered by the majority of the fuel output of two 200 ton per day modular plants.
The plants will produce biofuel from wood waste and residues from nearby forests and other biomass residue. The company said excess biofuel will be sold into commercial and industrial fuel markets.
"Dynamotive's proprietary fast-pyrolysis technology is a proven and cost-effective method of turning agricultural and forest residues into renewable fuel and electric power. Furthermore, we have pioneered our technology as a readily transportable series of modules that can create such biofuel-to-electricity complexes virtually anywhere in the world," said Kingston.
The company said development and construction of the complexes will be implemented jointly with Tecna, an Argentine engineering firm, with financing to be provided by a group of banks and other private sources.
Dynamotive said the plants are expected to be fully operational late next year."

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Biodegviela no kukurūzas

Pētījuma rezultāti par biodegvielas ražošanu no kukurūzas un citām (labākām atbilstoši pētījuma rezultātiem) izejvielām.

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Daudzgadīgo energokultūru atbalsta programma atsākusi darbību Lielbritānijā

"The new Energy Crops Scheme has opened for applications, although no grant agreements will be offered until the Rural Development Programme for England 2007-2013 (RDPE) has been approved by the European Commission.
Defra says the scheme has opened for applications only to enable growers to begin the appraisal process, which can take three months, and plan for spring planting. No work may be undertaken in connection with any application until a funding offer is received and accepted by a grower.
The Energy Crops Scheme will provide funding for growers to establish the perennial energy crops miscanthus and short rotation coppice (SRC) of willow and other native or naturalised species to produce renewable energy.
Establishment grants are currently proposed at £1,000 per hectare for SRC and £800 per hectare for miscanthus, although these rates cannot be confirmed until the programme is approved by the European Commission and may be subject to downward revision."

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Plašāka informācija

Nedaudz par biodīzeļdegvielas mazumtirdzniecību ASV Sietlā

"A map of Seattle and its environs teems with pins — potential sites for the company's green-and-white biodiesel pumps. Most of the pins mark well-established gasoline stations that sell traditional petroleum-based fuels. By striking deals to sell biodiesel there, Propel executives think they can overcome the retail-distribution obstacles that so far have kept it an alternative fuel for a small circle of green devotees.
The invasion is about to begin, with the company's first two pumps opening in mid-October.
"We're not asking customers to radically change their behavior" in order to buy biodiesel, Propel founder Rob Elam said.
Biodiesel, which can be used in any diesel engine, has a following among environmentalists and well-informed car buffs. But it represents less than 1 percent of diesel consumption in the U.S., according to the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) numbers, and is used mostly by government fleets such as King County Metro.
The Seattle area has about a dozen distributors, mostly informal operations, although Safeway sells a 20 percent biodiesel blend at some of its locations.
Elam thinks it will take a healthy dose of marketing savvy — from fancy logos and flashy canopies to standardized automated-payment centers and consumer-loyalty programs — for biodiesel to succeed with mainstream consumers.
A strong retailing effort would crown the national push toward biofuels, which has gained momentum amid rising crude-oil prices and environmental concerns.
Government incentives have increased the possibility of profit, helping entrepreneurs attract investment; Propel recently raised $4.75 million from venture capitalists.
A budding supply infrastructure is also beginning to reach critical mass: Washington catapulted to third place in national biodiesel-production capacity with the construction of Imperium Renewables' Grays Harbor facility, the largest in the U.S.
Imperium backed Propel with loans at the time of its inception and provides biodiesel for its pumps. (Propel's temporary base, once located atop an alehouse in Magnolia, now is nestled at Imperium's offices south of downtown Seattle, pending a move to more permanent quarters near Fremont.)
Business or hobby?
Propel isn't the only one riding on this alternative-energy élan, though it's the most ambitious.
Ballard biodiesel pioneer Dan Freeman, who offers anti-war stickers and environmental books in the auto shop where he sells alternative fuel, just opened his second biodiesel location, at Espresso Express near the University District, with the aid of a federal grant. He, too, has a new logo "very similar to the organic- food label," said Freeman, who goes by "Dr. Dan."
But as traditional gasoline retailers know, selling fuel is a tough business, with low margins, intense competition and volatile prices. Biodiesel retailers face the added challenges of setting up new distribution networks, dealing with authorities unfamiliar with biodiesel, and marketing a product that currently costs 30 to 50 cents more per gallon than conventional diesel.
"I don't think it's a get-rich-quick plan," said Sean Aydlott, who sells biodiesel by appointment from his house in Bothell and makes enough to cover his costs; he calls it "more of a hobby."
Another obstacle is that diesel users, who can make the transition to biodiesel without making any changes to their vehicles, represent a small minority of the automobile fleet.
A self-sustaining, expanding biodiesel retail sector "seems like a longshot at this point," said Marie LaRiviere, a biodiesel expert at the EIA. "It is a limited percentage of the transportation market."
Coexisting with Big Oil
Despite biodiesel's niche status, Propel's Elam said there's enough fervor in Seattle to make the fuel a big business. In 2005, the company installed a test pump near University Village, followed by similar sites in South Seattle and Issaquah.
"Truth is, we were selling a ton of biodiesel," said Elam — about 20,000 gallons a month per site.
Propel's official push will begin with two selling points: in Ballard, at Bernie's Auto on Leary Way, and at a Shell station on Bothell Way in Kenmore. The company plans to open other pumps within six to 12 weeks in Factoria, Maple Valley, Mount Vernon, Poulsbo, Seattle's Maple Leaf neighborhood, Camano Island and Bremerton.
Elam believes the secret to success is to make biodiesel visible and convenient. His team has talked to more than 100 gas-station owners on the West Coast, seeking arrangements to install pumps. "Generally the response is very enthusiastic," Elam said. "We don't ask them to have any hassle."
But coexistence with Big Oil is challenging, because existing contracts between fuel dealers and oil companies forbid placing a biodiesel pump under the canopy that carries the station's brand. Propel must have its own canopy and pump, leasing the space from the gas-station owner.
Elam says a biodiesel pump will also attract more customers to a station's convenience store, which is where retailers make most of their profits. "We give them a new revenue stream and increased visibility," he said.
The company is also looking at nontraditional fueling sites such as auto shops, but getting permits is a chore.
Municipalities are unfamiliar with biodiesel, which is not as flammable as petroleum diesel and can be stored in surface tanks. For entrepreneurs, the amount of explaining and paperwork can be daunting. Propel's proposals for stations in Lake Forest Park, downtown Bellevue and Gig Harbor are "stalled in city permitting," according to Elam.
"It took a little understanding of what they were proposing to do," Seattle planning-department spokesman Alan Justad said. He added that alternative fuels are a priority for the city and that the approval for Propel's pump at Bernie's Auto in Ballard took eight weeks, a relatively short time by Seattle standards.
Propel executives say they can make a profit on the fuel by avoiding the high overhead costs that traditionally eat up most of retailers' revenue. The biodiesel selling points will be unmanned and centrally managed, Elam said. Government incentives — like a federal tax credit for building alternative-fuel infrastructure, and exemptions from certain local taxes — may help the company's bottom line.
"Starting to break even"
As biodiesel retailing becomes more businesslike, it's generating some tension. "Dr. Dan" Freeman, who says that after six years he is "starting to break even," resents Propel's incursion into Ballard with a pump a few blocks from his home base.
"I think there's a lot of market out there. Instead of taking advantage of that market, they're exploiting mine," he said.
But there may be enough market for everybody, if the fuel catches on. An anticipated fossil-fuel crunch may help tilt the balance in biodiesel's favor.
Although petroleum diesel is currently cheaper, many analysts think its price will only increase with time. Sharp spikes in price — such as those produced by political tension or hurricanes — drive people toward alternative fuels. "After the war started all we could do was answer the phone," Freeman said."

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Neliels raksts par diskusijām par bioenerģiju Lielbritānijā

"Organised by the Renewable Energy Association the conference brought together Britain’s leading clean energy specialists, who said a fragmentation of the renewable energy strategy in the UK was holding back the industry.
Three broad areas of energy use were discussed – for power generation, transport fuel and renewable heat. But while delegates agreed the first two are beginning to move in the right direction it was the poor progress in the development of renewable heat that attracted the most criticism.
According to Government figures, UK renewable heat from biomass is currently less than 1 per cent. It is argued this figure could grow to 6 per cent but only with appropriate Government backing and a change in public perception on things like wood-fuelled boilers.
Sir Ben Gill, former NFU president and now director at Countrywide Farmers, told delegates that using wood as a heat source is both efficient and effective and should be pursued as part of an integrated approach to reach national energy targets.
“People don’t recognise that using solid biomass technologies have moved on dramatically. Biomass use in residential and industrial heating with wood-fuelled boilers is simple and cheap.”
Modern wood boilers – using wood pellets, chips or logs – can produce heat on demand, similar to oil or gas systems and will reduce carbon emissions by about 90 percent compared to fossil fuels.
Notwithstanding imports, the coming years could provide an opportunity for farmers to supply fuel for these boilers which Mr Gill hopes will become commonplace.
He mentioned two fuels that could become a greater part of farmers’ armoury where diversification has become today’s farming watchword.
Typically, a short rotation coppice – densely planted and high-yielding willow or poplar – can be harvested on a two to five year cycle and can yield over 15 tonnes per hectare.
Miscanthus – a woody grass (pictured above) – can harvest as much as 20 tonnes per hectare. As climate change targets loom ever closer, it is expected that the agriculture industry will be further encouraged by the Government to grow such crops to aid renewable heat."

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