The Big Biofuels Blog

Standards for biofuels are important to the future of the business, there needs to be standardised biofuel products if they are to win a significant role in future fuel mixtures.

Eugene, a fellow-poster on the SVO forum is interested in capturing some of the experiences of people making biofuels to a standard  and home brewers in a survey, partly I think to see if the current AST</EN standards for the fuels are appropriate.

The US looks likely to have the largest area of its land under corn since 1944, but the big corn crop may not curb prices, according to the Wall St Journal.

Dan Imhoff, he explains how the farm bill links the US farming, food and by extension biofuels through state aid for crops like corn, cotton, wheat, soya and rice.

More US Brazilian analysis. There's a well considered piece on the US Brazil relationship regarding biofuels on the Latin Business Chronicle.

Now biofuels could damage Europe's forests, according to a report on the BBC, which cites unnamed oil firms.

For Roger Harrabin at the BBC that looks a bit sloppy, the big oil reference only comes in the first paragraph and is not backed up with names or firms...

Check out www.bioethanol.com.ph which claims to be a weekly update of ethanol news and information in the Philippines and the rest of Asia.

Japanese researchers have been examining the possibility of extracting biofuels from seaweed, according to guanaoisland blog

I seem to remember from my Boy's Book of the Seashore, that seaweed is a kind of big algae... so its not as unlikely as it might look at first.

A new biofuels event is scheduled for St Louis September. It will be called Biofuels 2007- A Global Perspective and will be jointly run by my employers ICIS and Kline & Co. It will be held at the Westin Hotel on 19-20 September.

Disclosure: I work for ICIS: About ICIS.

There is due to be a biofuels seminar in Singapore for people who want to understand the biofuels markets and relationships within and between them. It is being organised by my employer, ICIS and will be held on May 21.

About ICIS

Orville's Planting Ethanol Corn = a new kind of OPEC.

Sorry that the posts have been a bit erratic of late. I had a week in the States filming for ICIS TV (check it out) from the NPRA convention in San Antonio Texas, and after three days in the office (one of which was taken up with more ICIS TV stuff) I'm going on holiday until 16 April.

When I get back though, I'm straight off to Paris to film for ICIS TV from Incosmetics. You can't say that Journalism is a job with out variety... I will be posting over the next couple of weeks but its likely to be fairly infrequently.

In the meantime check out the Temas Blog for a good dissection of An IDB-Sponsored "Blueprint for Green Energy in the Americas". See you soon.

One way of using renewable fuels for energy production does not necessarily involve converting materials into liquid fuels by fermentation or wet chemistry. Instead biomass can be heated up and the gasses which come off can be burnt themselves... This might be more energy efficient than processes like distillation. Biomass gassification is being trialled in California.

Biofuel could get a boost from elephants according to stuff.co.nz. The discovery was made by Scientists in the Netherlands who have been examining elephant dung... well it's a living, I guess.

Over Fayetteville way, Daddy Warbucks has been doing some sums about the US' ability to fuel iteslf on corn... nice to see our sums are heading in the same direction.

His proposal: to put a larger tariff on oil, reduce the tariffs on ehtanol and other alternative fuels and give the guys in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America a break.

I don't think that he and Dubbya went to the same school.

Just how hard it is to be in the commercial biofuels market is shown clearly by Biofuels Corporation, which is listed in the UK and has seen its share price fall from a high of £2.10 ($4.19/Euro3.09) last May (using today's exchange rates) to about £0.165 at 10 am today.

In a recent press release the firm says has gained additional funding from its bankers, rescheduled some payments to thyem and and says it is continuing to

thoroughly investigate a range of options to restructure the current debt in order to secure the company's longer term future. Amongst these options is the possiblity of a debt for equity swap.

In other words if you have lent the company money you may be offered shares instead of a cash repayment of your loan.  The board warns existing shareholders that if this idea is progressed

Given the company's current debt levels of circa £95m (excluding the drawdown of the above new facilities) and its market capitalisation, which is circa £11m, should any debt for equity restructuring occur shareholders in the company would very likely see thier shareholding significantly diluted.

The pie would get bigger, but your slice would get smaller.

Why is it so hard in the UK biofuels sector at the moment? Biofuels corporation says the statement is made...

Against the backcloth of a weaker market... and a lack of clarity on the timing and extent of any makret recovery.

This statement may be made by a UK company trading in the UK, but the messages to shareholders investing in biofuels projects could equally apply around the world.

Check out Biopact, which contains a report from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs which recommends significant changes to the US' tariff position on biofuels.

Quoting from the report:

In order for the administration and the Congress both to espouse policies that decrease this country's oil-dependency in the most expeditious manner, and to immediately address public concerns over global warming, dramatic changes must be made to the U.S.'s current energy security strategy. Therefore, it is COHA's recommendation that the leadership of the Congressional Brazil Caucus pursue, during 2008, Option 2: Not extending the Harmonized Tariff Schedule applied to ethanol imports past January 1st 2009.

In summary, lifting both the $0.54 cent import tariff and the 2.5% ad valorem tax on ethanol would effectively increase the availability of ethanol in the U.S. This greater supply may make a case for ending the ethanol's share in the U.S. fuel market--currently below 4%--while not risking the displacement of the domestic ethanol industry. Furthermore, it would promote the use of a "green" energy source that could initially complement, but ultimately replace oil. It is COHA's conclusion that legislation akin to the "Ethanol Import Fairness Act" (H.R. 5261) could lay the foundation on which an effective "green" energy security strategy could be built.

Now let's see them get that past the farmers...

Virgin wants to use biokerosene in its aircraft, Sir Richard Branson, the company's chairman is due to reveal in Chicago today, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph says:

The test will see on of the plane's four engines being filled with a mixture of 60 per cent conventional aviation fuel and 40 per cent from alternative sources.

Work on developing the engine will take place on the ground over the next few months ahead of the first test flight, on which no passengers will be carried.

Should the trial be successful, Virgin will run further tests in which all four engines will be filled with a 50-50 mix of conventional and biofuel.

Given the amount of aviation gasoline/kerosene call it what you like that Virgin gets through this is going to be a pretty high volume, if it takes off. It also preempt's to some extent any changes to the taxation regime on aviation fuel, which may be along in the future. Currently, in Europe, aviation fuel is exempt from value added tax, and flights are heavily subsidised, despite their environmental impact.

In a different area:

"It's significant that Boeing and GE have said that they are interested in doing this," said Steve Ridgway, Virgin's chief executive. "Everyone has said that it will be a long time before we do this, but it doesn't mean we are not going to try.

Being a Derby boy, I'm a little disappointed that Virgin is going for GE engines and not Rolls Royce's excellent power plants

It is possible that farmers in parts of Latin America are turning from drugs to another cashcrop, produce for biofuels, according to Making Biodiesel.

It would be great wouldn't it if we could cure two addictions with one biofuel crop?

I've just stumbled across a post on an Italian language blog about biofuels. I have two world languages, English and LOUDER, so I'm a bit at sea with it, but if you read Italian, check it out... It think its about energy and the environment in my life.

The conflict between land for food or lan for fuel was highlighted on Monday by at a conference organised by the European Parliament's green group and reported yesterday by EUobserver.  

"Land availability for both food and fuel is very questionable", managing director Guenther Buck of food-giant Unilever warned.

This is an important warning, Unilever is big, its brands range from food to other domestic necessities. 

Quoting from EUobserver,

The multinational company estimates that in 20 years time, an extra 50% food production will be needed to feed the world's growing population.

"Without agricultural intensification this will require an additional 2.5 billion hectares of land - as much as two thirds of the current forest area. And this is before biofuel production sets in," Mr Buck said.

Combustion or consumption: how to balance biofuels production is a question that, is making the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(IRIN), like Unilever, worried that there will be competition for scarce food resources between biofuelers and people who need to eat.

In a long report it quotes Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute (EPI), as saying at three-day UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) meeting in Rome last week

"The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists, who want to maintain their mobility, and its two billion poorest people, who are simply trying to survive, is emerging as an epic issue."

However, the FAO came out positive on the opportunities that biofuels offer to rural communities's: Alexander Müller, Head of FAO's Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, said commenting on last week's meeting.

"While there is legitimate concern among some groups that bioenergy could compromise food security and cause environmental damage, it can also be an important tool for improving the well-being of rural people if governments take into account environmental and food security concerns."

Which kind of works if enough of the money from biofuels cash crops gets into the pockets of people who will need to buy food, rather than growing their own.

Food, fuel and water -- who decides? Adding his weight to the food vs fuel argument is Mike Stones on Food for Thought, a Farmers Weekly blog. He quotes Henry Fell, chairman of the UK commercial farmers union who believes quite strongly that relying on food imports is a mistake.

What do you think?

The EU is working to increase the amount of community involvement in biofuels through two initiatives that have come across my desk recently.

The first is Biogasmax, a project for sustainable development, which:

The European Biogasmax project creates a network of biogas-related demonstrations on the European territory with the aim of sharing experiences in terms of best practices in managing urban transportation.

The second is Biofuels Cities which is about how to use biofuels in transportation across the EU, and there's a useful survey that you can take to help shape that project's development. And some documentation about the Biofuels Cities programme.

The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) will be offering mini-sized Agricultural Futures for people who want to trade smaller lots electronically from 14 May 2007.

Some cattlemen think that using corn to make ethanol could not be the drain on resources that others believe will be the case. They believe that if the price of grains remains low then it makes sense to feed them to cattle. Ethanol makers will only be able to keep the price reasonable for distillers grains if there is no alternative but to feed them to cattle. But, there's a lot of energy left in the grains and you can quite easily make biodiesel out if them... It will be interesting to see if the US price of beef rises as alternative energy uses are found for distillers grains.

Brazil has granted a licence for a firm to plant transgenic eucalyptus trees on its territory. The trees will be modified to make it easier to extract ethanol from their wood... according to a post in Spanish on Ambientum.

Work on the modification was carried out by researchers at the University of North Carolina by Vincent Chiang, according to Ambientum.

The big challenge in making biodiesel is what to do with glycerol that that the process produces. Cardiff University's Chemistry Department has won a grant from the UK Department of Trade and Industry to try to find uses for the by product and is working with Vertellus Specialities.

"A couple of days ago, I was at a party at Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas' house for Al Gore to celebrate his Oscar-winning film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. "Penelope Cruz and Leonardo DiCaprio were there and loads more stars. Melanie and Antonio's 10-year-old daughter Stella has convinced them to 'green' their houses, so I'm going to help them get solar power in their five homes and get their cars on biodiesel.

Who do you think would be the best celeb to publically endorse biofuels and put them firmly in the public's eye. 

Here's my top five

1. Willie Nelson: Bio Willie great name for a product

2. Daryl Hannah: Lots of fancy celeb friends to convert

3. Vindod Kholsha He's been written up in learned journals

3. Al Gore: Made a film, talks at length

4. Richard Branson: A one-man Brand. Is he riding the wave or making waves?

Help me out. I need more names for a top ten.