December 2010 Archives

I might have mentioned before that my day job is actually writing a weekly column for ICIS Chemical Business magazine, and one of my market coverages involves chlor-alkali (the production of chlorine and caustic soda).

US chlor-alkali producer Olin announced in early December that it is exiting the use of mercury cell technology by the end of 2012 by closing its 100,000 ton/year Augusta, Georgia chlor-alkali production facility as well as converting its 260,000 ton/year Charleston, Tennessee, production from mercury cell to using membrane cell technology.

Olin said the Charleston plant will employ the most modern membrane technology which would result in lower operating costs and higher quality products produced.

"Over the past eighteen months we have experienced a steady increase in the number of our customers unwilling to accept our products manufactured using mercury cell technology. The conversion of the Charleston facility, which in addition to hlorine and caustic soda also produces potassium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, and bleach, will prevent the potential loss of these valuable customers."

Chlor-alkali producers currently use either mercury cell, diaphragm cell, or the more recently developed ion exchange membrane process. Within the past 3 years, the green blog previously reported about several chlor-alkali producers ceasing the use of mercury cell-based technology and transitioning to membrane cell technology instead.

The blog posted in 2008 about OxyChem's decision to be the first mercury-free caustic potash producer in North America by ceasing all of its mercury cell based production in the region and converting its chlor-alkali plant at Taft, Louisiana into using membrane cell technology.

Early this year, we posted Bayer MaterialScience's press release about a new chlorine production developed in collaboration with engineering company Uhde that is said to be more eco-friendly than the traditional membrane cell technology. Somebody from DuPont (or is it Dow? I forgot...) questioned how eco-friendly this new process can be. Unfortunately the only answer I can say based on the press release is that it is said to result in a 30% lower electricity consumption compared to traditional membrane cell technology.

ICB published a very interesting article in September about the move of Western chlor-alkali companies to membrane cell from mercury cell technology because of 1) regulatory pressures, 2) rising maintenance costs for outdated mercury cell plants, 3) membrane conversion will reportedly help producers save 20-30% in electricity costs, and boost output by more than 30% compared to mercury cell plants.

According to industry analysts, electricity is the largest cost factor in chlor-alkali production typically accounting for 40-50% of costs. 

While the ICB article mostly reported about European legislation pressures, in North America there is also pending potential mercury legislation in Congress, which would require chlor-alkali producers to either shut down their mercury cell plants by mid 2013 or convert to other technologies by mid-2015.

This decision has to be made by mid-2012 under the bill H.R. 2190, which is still waiting to be approved by both the House and the Senate. Mercury cell chlor-alkali capacity including those of Olin's, are estimated at 474,000 short tons or 3% of total US chlor-alkali capacity.

[Photo of Olin's Augusta, GA facility]

Myriant announced yesterday about getting the green signal of building what they claimed as the world's largest biobased succinic acid plant at the Port of Lake Providence, Louisiana.

As announced before, the 392,000 sq. ft. plant will have a capacity of up to 30m lbs/year (13,612 tonnes/year) of succinic acid using feedstock sorghum and carbon dioxide. The construction is expected to last for 18 months which will begin in early 2011. The project is expected to create 176 new direct and indirect jobs (not including at least 250 construction workers) representing a capital investment of around $80m.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $50m for the project, which would also benefit from port funding by the state and from a state tax and payroll rebate program, according to the governor of Louisiana.

As previously reported by the blog, competitors BioAmber and DSM are also looking to build their own bio-succinic acid plant in other regions. We just have to wait and see if these companies will usurp Myriant's position in planning to have the largest bio-succinic acid plant in the world.

In a previous post about Celanese's new coal-to-ethanol project in China, the blog questioned the "greenness" of ethanol production using coal as feedstock. I was able to talk to Steven Sterin, senior VP and CFO of Celanese a day earlier from their conference call on December 16.

First of all, Sterin did agree that there is a stigma especially in the United States about the use of coal as energy feedstock. In China, however, the use of coal makes perfect sense given that 1) It is plentiful as feedstock for both chemicals and fuel production, 2) China does not have enough land available for food much less use it to plant crops for industrial purposes, 3) China is short on gasoline and petroleum oil supply, and therefore using coal as energy source and be less dependent on foreign sources makes sense for its government.

Celanese reiterated that China already has its own regulatory requirements and standards for using clean coal technologies. The company plans to use a carbon capture and sequestration technology for its planned 400,000 ton/year coal-to-ethanol facility. Location in China has not yet been decided.

Correction 12/29/10: Celanese just called and said they will not use a carbon capture and sequestration technology on the planned facility. I'm pretty sure I heard Sterin said something about this but I guess I'm getting too old and my hearing is deteriorating...just have to double-check my recorder from now on...

Sterin also pointed out that there are also disadvantages in the use of corn-based ethanol technology such as a lot of wastewater emissions and the use of fertilizers.

"There are always issues and challenges in every kind of carbon technologies even biological-based. We expect the industry to solve these over the next 10-20 years." -Sterin.

The company claimed that they already have their own data on carbon emissions in coal-to-ethanol production but it is still very difficult for them to compare it to emissions from traditional ethanol production as third party inputs are still needed to compare the environmental and socio-economic impacts of different types of ethanol production technologies.

However, Sterin emphasized that the energy return on investment for coal-to-ethanol is substantially higher than using corn and sugar as feedstock. Sterin said they still have to get external verification and independent data to validate their calculations.

Bottomline, the sustainability of coal-based ethanol (according to Sterin) makes sense to China or any other countries that meets these 3 criteria: short on energy source, plentiful hydrocarbon availability, needs energy security based on economics (not subsidies).

"The most obvious market for fuel potential is in China. They're importing 4m bbl/day of oil today and is expected to increase to 8m by 2020. They don't want to be dependent on foreign oil and they are doing a lot of things to close that gap. We think that our technology provides another alternative to potentially reduce their dependence on foreign oil and leverage their own natural resources." - Sterin

Celanese said their technology would be the lowest cost ethanol alternative in China even compared to every low price points of corn, sugar and oil in their historical cycles. Their ethanol production is expected to have high yield efficiencies with no material byproducts to worry about.

Another point that Sterin added is that their technology can actually use biomass or waste feedstock as well although this still needs a lot of technological advances before it can be commercially economical. 

Celanese admitted that part of its thermochemical ethanol production process uses gasification but no fermentation step in the processing. The company also noted that their process is cost-comparative with fermentation methods with the advantage that it will not rely on food-based feedstock.

Celanese would initially focus its coal-based ethanol technology on industrial ethanol markets in China while also exploring the fuel ethanol market in China as well as other countries.

During the conference call on December 16 (which an ICIS colleague covered), Jim Alder, Celanese senior vice president, operations and technical, said that the ethanol technology integrated elements from the company's leading acetyl technologies.

The technology, which would be protected by some 3,000 patents worldwide, was highly capital-efficient as plant capacities could be increased at a fraction of the cost of the initial facility.

Another colleague of mine forwarded these patent links (1) and (2) from the European Patent Office talking about Celanese's production of ethanol from acetic acid. This could be helpful in getting glimpses of Celanese's ethanol technology.

Here are two ICIS stories (requires subscription) based on Celanese's recent interview and conference call:

Celanese plans to pursue China's fuel ethanol market

Celanese ethanol technology could reshape company, industry - CEO

I was able to plow myself out from New York City's 2-feet of snow and got to the office without any mishap. It's amazing to see abandoned cars on the middle of the street! No wonder city snow plows are having a hard time getting their work done. Hopefully, tomorrow will see a much cleaner street and a warmer weather!

Enough of my snow ramblings, here are this week's news roundup. There were definitely plenty of company announcements before Christmas!

ExxonMobil has completed expansion of the world's largest carbon dioxide capture plant located near LaBarge, Wyoming. The $86 million expansion includes the installation of compressors to capture 50 percent more carbon dioxide for potential use in enhanced oil recovery and other industrial uses.

Amyris' and Grupo Sao Martinho's joint venture SMA Industria Quimica SA had contracted CNEC WorleyParsons as the construction manager for their first sugarcane-based renewable chemical plant in Sao Paulo state. The project is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2012. Sao Martinho said about 1.5m-2.0m tonnes of its 14.5m tonnes/year sugarcane production would be used to make industrial ethanol and other chemicals, including Biofene, a biobased hydrocarbon.

Toray Plastics (America) will begin construction in Q2 2011 a 446 kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic (PV) field on its 70-acre campus in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, worth $2m. The 3-acre field consists of 1,650 PV panels with utility-scale single-access trackers, and will be the largest solar-powered system in the state.

France-based green chemistry company Deinove is expecting the European Patent Office to grant in Q1 2011 their patent application EP2016183, which covers a genetic engineering process that exploits deinococci's unique self repair ability. The patent will make Deinove the only company able to commercially exploit the Deinococcus-related genetic tools and use them in industrial applications.

Axion seeks waste plastics feedstock
UK-based Axion Polymers is seeking new sources of waste plastics feedstocks amid forecasts of strong growth for the European plastics recycling sector in 2011 and beyond. Suppliers are given a three-month forward purchase plan for volume call-off of waste plastic and a competitive price agreement based on the average market rate for the preceding six months. 

Green biofuel joint venture
Hunt Global Resources' BioSolutions division formed an exclusive R&D project with Carbon Green to use Carbon Green's recycled tire-derived oil for its LoNOX industrial biofuel formulation. The biofuel is expected to meet the US EPA's mandates for industrial and marine diesel emissions. Initial market applications include boiler fuel, heating oil, marine fuel and other stationary diesel and off-road users.

The United States Advanced Battery Consortium LLC (USABC), an advanced research collaboration among Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Company, awarded $5.43 million in advanced battery development and technology assessment contracts to five firms: Envia Systems, Quallion, ActaCell, Leyden Energy, and K2 Energy Solutions.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will take authority in January in eight states that are unable or unwilling to implement the agency's new greenhouse gases restrictions on new plant construction and modifications.

Canada Lithium Corp plans to start producing 20,000 tonnes/year of lithium carbonate at its mining project in Quebec province by the end of 2012.

Congressional Republican leaders likely will propose legislation in 2011 to completely strip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by US industry, sources said.

While the green blogger is still in the midst of an after-Christmas haze, here is an interesting new video from Dow Chemical about their new Ecolibrium bio-based plasticizers, which are said to be phthalate-free, for wire insulation and jacketing. The plasticizers are said to be made from nearly 100% renewable feedstocks. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any information on what particular feedstock it is made from.

An article from Modern Plastics indicated that the impact of the green plasticizer on a cable's total cost is expected to be small, with a worst case of a roughly 15% premium for B&C cable and wiring. For a residential home, such a premium translates to about $50/home.

I guess investors are pretty much in a giving mood this Christmas week as three companies - Elevance, LS9 and Cereplast - announced influx of funding yesterday and today.

France oil firm Total is steadily expanding its renewable chemicals investment, first with Amyris and now its venture firm Total Energy Ventures has acquired stakes in US-based Elevance.

Elevance announced yesterday that it has raised $100m in its Series C financing round from Total and Luxembourg-based Naxos Capital Partners joining Elevance's investors TPG Biotech and TPG Growth in the financing.

Total did not disclose how much stake in Elevance it has acquired but instead noted that the investment will help support Elevance's ongoing development particularly plans to build additional facilities. Elevance is currently building its first facility in Indonesia in joint venture with oleochemical company Wilmar. The company plans to expand and create biorefineries in Asia, North and South America.

Total said it will have a seat on Elevance's board of directors.

Meanwhile, LS9's newly appointed CEO Ed Dineen, formerly COO of LyondellBassell, was able to work fast in raising $30m with BlackRock leading the investment round. Previous investors such as Flagship Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and CTTV Investments (the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures) also joined in.

LS9 said the latest funding will be used to advance the company's product commercialization as well as support R&D.

Cereplast was able to secure $5m from Horizon Technology Finance Corp., which according to Cereplast CEO Frederic Scheer, will be used to purchase additional raw materials as well as for working capital needed to meet growing demand for its bioplastic.

Cereplast received an initial installment of $2.5 million with an additional $2.5 million to be funded during its 2011 first quarter ending March 31, 2011, pending reaching certain revenue targets for January and February of 2011. Each $2.5 million installment carries a term of 39 months from the date of funding with interest of 12 percent.

I received news today about DSM's acquisition of Martek Biosciences for $1.09bn and the words algae and industrial biotechnology mentioned in the press release definitely rang several bells in one section of my brain (where all things green and chemistry info are located).

There is also one time a few months ago that I received a phone call from a Martek official inquiring about algae developments in the chemical sector. With this acquisition news, it now all make sense to me and I'm thinking Solazyme might soon face a big competitor in the algae-based chems field especially specialty applications.

Now, let's talk about Martek and its microalgae-derived product portfolio.

I first encountered the company back in 2001 when I was covering the wonderful world of oils and fats, and the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) market especially omega fatty acids DHA and ARA in infant formula and nutritional supplements was somewhat still beginning its commercialization stage. DSM was already supplying Martek arachidonic acid back then for its nutritional oils.

If you read my article, Martek's revenues during Q2 2001 was around $4m compared to this year's $450m fiscal net sales (ended Oct. 31). Quite a leap in less than 10 years.

Since then, the company spread its microalgae product applications from infant formula and dietary supplements to the food and beverage markets (even pet foods). Scanning the green blog's excellent archives, Martek started venturing in the industrial applications R&D last year with joint collaboration with BP on microbial oil-based biodiesel.

The multi-year R&D venture is expected to establish proof of concept for large-scale, cost effective microbial-based biodiesel using fermentation process. BP is contributing up to $10m in the first phase of collaboration. The companies will use sugars from biomass as feedstock and transforming the sugars into lipids (via fermentation), which are then converted into fuel molecules either through chemical or thermocatalytic processes.

More about DSM's strategy on Martek's microalgae technology in industrial applications will be posted soon after my interview with DSM this week. A DSM spokesperson did say that algae is one of the missing pieces in their industrial biotechnology development portfolio

I tried to contact Amyris for one of my upcoming green chemistry article but unfortunately they seem to have a policy of not talking to media because of being a public company (???) Oh well, at least the green blog has plenty of materials to get from other sources...

Now this recent news from Amyris is pretty interesting since I used to cover a little bit of the base oil industry when I wrote articles for Chemical Market Reporter before on lubricants, greases and waxes. Amyris announced last week its collaboration with sugar ethanol producer Cosan to form a joint venture for the development, production and commercialization of farnesene-derived base oils.

Both companies would share the marketing and operating costs.

The renewable base oils are said to be biodegradable, can perform in cold weather and have high-performance viscosity properties. As I've said, I've covered paraffin waxes before, which is a byproduct of the Group 1 base oil production. Global paraffin wax supply has been tightening (and prices have been going up) because of the shrinking Group 1 base oil capacity worldwide as oil companies jump to Group II and III.

It's probably safe to assume that the Amyris joint venture will not only venture into bio-lubricants market but in waxes as well especially if you consider the nice profitability of specialty waxes in cosmetics and personal care applications (think about Elevance and Dow Corning's collaboration in cosmetic waxes...)

If you want to get updated information about the global base oil market, I suggest attending one of ICIS' base oils conferences, where the last one - the ICIS Pan American Base Oils conference - was held in early December in New Jersey, US. The blog's colleague Neil Burns, wrote a brief post on his blog about it when he attended the conference.

For ICIS news subscribers, here are some links on articles from the conference:

Mexico demand for Group II, III base oils grows - expert

Size beats age for performance of base-oil plants - US consultant

New Middle East plants to make Neste a global base oils player

Lubricant marketers must inventory all base oil groups - US expert

Brightstock, waxes save Group I base oil plants - US consultant

Base oil supply constraints for 2010 not over yet - market players

World base-oil demand recovers on restocking - US experts

US napthenic base oil prices rise on limited supply, tyre demand

Or if you have no clue about the base oil market in general, why not attend one of ICIS' base oils training in London or in Houston? I probably need to do this as well...

A lot of activities last week which I was unable to post as I was out playing NYC tour guide for 4 days. Amyris and Cosan announced their green base oil JV; Solvay announced plans to build a glycerin-to-ECH plant in China; Dow plans to build a HPPO-based propylene glycol plant in Thailand; and Olin is exiting the mercury-based chlor-alkali production in the US. All of these news will be in separate posts.

Hopefully, this short week will be a quiet one. The green blog wishes everybody a very Merry Christmas!!

TetraVitae Bioscience successfully produced n-butanol in a corn dry-mill pilot plant which demonstrates potential economic production of the chemical from renewable-based source in North America, according to the company. The process also produces acetone and distiller's grains.

New Zealand-based Aquaflow Bionomic reported over 100 chemical compounds that the company has isolated from wild algae. The company is targeting development of 20 chemicals that include toluene, ethyl benzene, styrene, xylene, C10-C17 paraffins and olefins, pyrimidine, alkyl pyrazines, NMP, NEP, 2-pyrrolidinone, N-methyl piperidinone, 2-piperidinone, dimethyl-cylopentanone, propanoic acids, palmitic nitrile, butanoic acid, di-anhydro mannitol, di-anhydro sorbitol and alkylphenols.

Darling International builds biodiesel plant
Animal fats producer Darling International receives approval from the Port Commission of San Francisco to convert a part of its tallow delivering plant into a biodiesel production facility. The company first applied for building the facility in 2006.

Logos' Phase 2 BioJET project approved
Logos Technologies has been awarded the second phase of its BioJET project from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to produce fully compatible jet fuel from cellulose. The program requires delivery of the bio-jet fuel with a projected cost of less than $3/gal at commercial scale implementation of at least 50m gal/year.

Betaine from sugar beet ethanol
Novasep and Danisco scaled up their process for the production of natural betaine extracted from vinasse, a byproduct of sugar beet-derived bioethanol. Danisco said it will be able to substantially increase the availability of natural betaine, which is globally used as a technical animal feed ingredient and currently in short supply. The betaine will be sold by Danisco as Betafin.

Solvay will resume plans to build a plant in Brazil that will rely on sugarcane-based ethanol to produce polyvinyl chloride (PVC), the company said.

US refining, chemical and broader manufacturing and business leaders expressed disappointment over a court's decision to not halt federal enforcement of a new greenhouse gases rule, instead putting their hopes on blocking action by Congress.

US chemical company Celanese plans to enter China's fuel ethanol market to capitalise on the country's goals in renewable fuels consumption, chief financial officer Steven Sterin said.

The green blog's good friend Neil Burns recently posted on his own blog about the impacts of clean technologies in the energy and chemicals sectors, which reminded me of my fast-growing list of recent chemical company activities on clean tech especially from Dow Chemical and DuPont who seemed to be always talking about this billion dollars global market potential.

I just posted today about Dow's recent investments in clean technologies when this news just came out about the company's start-up of its ENLIGHT polyolefin encapsulated films manufacturing facility in Ohio. The encapsulants are use in photovoltaic (PV) solar panel modules. The company said it plans to phase in production capacity around the world as needed to meet growing demand for PV encapsulants. 

Also in the solar sector, DuPont noted films, resins, encapsulation sheets, flexible substrates and conductive pastes as some of the materials chemical companies (such as DuPont) supply to photovoltaic manufacturers. DuPont said it expects this year to exceed $1 billion in revenue from sales into the PV market and to exceed $2bn in sales by 2014.

More on DuPont's solar investment plans from this previous post.

Meanwhile, Dow Chemical's silicone joint venture business Dow Corning opened in November China's largest integrated silicone manufacturing facility with its partner Wacker Chemie. The facility in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province will have combined capacity for siloxane and pyrogenic silica production at 210,000 tonnes/year.

In another news, Wacker announced last week that it is building a new polysilicon production facility in Tennessee, US, with a capacity of 15,000 tonnes/year. The company said it anticipates continued double-digit  annual growth in polysilicon demand by the solar industry. Wacker claimed to be the world's second largest producer of hyperpure polycrystalline silicon with a production output of 30,000 tonnes in 2010.

The Wacker Tennessee plant is expected to be complete at the end of 2013.

Another solar materials supplier, Solutia, announced on December 8 its plans to expand current operations of its Vistasolar ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) encapsulant in Suzhou, China, by late 2011. No capacity numbers were disclosed. Solutia said the PV market has seen tremendous growth in 2010 and that majority of the PV module production is in Asia.

For product offerings, BASF was seen at the recent K2010 plastic show offering its Ultramid® grades polyamides for use in connectors and junction boxes of photovoltaic installations and PolyOne also showcased its solar product portfolio at the show such as color and additive concentrates, flame retardant engineered materials for PV wire and cable, back sheets, connectors and housings.

Meanwhile, Arkema now made available in North America its premium grade of Kynar® PVDF film specifically developed for photovoltaic backsheets, and Rhodia launched in late November its new halogen-free flame retarded Technyl polyamides dedicated to PV component applications.

By the way, I received this recent Nexant prospectus about opportunities for manufacture and use of solar PVs. The consulting firm noted that global annual investments in SPV are now in the billions of dollars and that growth rates of capacity installed in various regions are as high as 40%/year. Two main types of SPV technologies are said to be crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafer (which are far more mature) and thin film technologies (which have a significantly lower cost structure and achieved higher growth rates in recent years).

"Silicon accounts for approximately half of raw material costs for c-Si wafers and therefore is a key determinant of economics for SPV technologies. Driven mainly by the semiconductor industry, silicon costs are highly volatile and have oscillated between factors of up to 10 from highest to lowest within the last few years. Therefore, addressing and managing silicon cost is crucial to the advancement of the SPV industry." - Nexant

Lux Research also recently put out a study entitled "Module Cost Structure Breakdown: Can Thin Film Survive the c-Si Onslaught?", which noted the increasing pressure on manufacturers of thin film technologies including TF silicon, cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium deselenide (CIGS) becayse of the falling cost of polysilicon raw material and advances in c-Si technologies.

"Crystalline silicon is dominant by volume and remains the cost/price benchmark for solar modules. Cadmium telluride is limited in efficiencies, but is the absolute leader in cost. We project these two technologies will continue to be highly profitable," said Ted Sullivan, a senior analyst for Lux Research, and the report's lead author. "The profitability of thin-film silicon is much dicier, but copper indium gallium diselenide is positioned to outplace crystalline silicon in profitability by 2013 as leading developers improve process stability."

We published this week ICB's annual Top 40 Power Players within the global chemical industry and Dow Chemical CEO and president Andrew Liveris was chosen as the top power player for 2010.

This reminds me of my attendance at Dow's annual investor day last month where a lot of the business presentations I saw targets clean technology such as Dow's solar shingle, epoxy resins in wind energy, water treatment, energy storage, technologies in green building trends, green polyethylene....During the event, Liveris said they expect the clean tech energy sector opportunity to be more than $2 trillion by 2020.

We toured their POWERHOUSE solar shingle pilot facility in Midland, Michigan, where we were able to ask some questions such as what type of materials/chemicals are being used for the product, how much it will cost per unit, how many units will be sold next year, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of the information are proprietary but Dow did say that the shingles will use copper indium gallium diselenide solar modules, or CIGS, made by Global Solar Energy Inc. CIGS cells typically are more efficient at turning sunlight into electricity than traditional polysilicon cells.

Dow also expects a $5bn market opportunity for chemicals and materials used within the solar industry and the company expects to earn more than $1bn from its solar shingles by 2015. The solar shingles are going to be commercially launched next year. Dow said it continues product testing in various climate conditions.

During that time, Dow announced that the solar shingles received product safety certification from Underwriters Laboratories (UL). Over 50 individual tests were conducted to assess the safety of the DOW™ POWERHOUSE™ Solar Shingles against building code standards, including wind and fire resistance, and electrical code requirements, such as proper wiring and photovoltaic (PV) connections.

We were able to also tour one of the model zero-energy homes in Michigan, which uses not only the solar shingles but also several Dow Chemical products such as heat transfer fluids, polyurethanes, coatings, adhesives, sealants and other energy-saving building construction products. Market opportunity just for low/zero-VOC coatings alone is around $800m and Dow expects to gain sales of more than $160m in this market by 2015.

Speaking of heat transfer fluids, Dow said it achieved record supply of heat transfer fluids this year mostly for solar power applications. To date, Dow supplied to 14 large Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants in Spain and the United States, with a total capacity of more than 700 MW. The fluid collects the heat energy from the solar panels and transports it to a power station where it is used to produce steam, which drives turbines that generate electricity.

When it comes to wind energy, Dow's venture capital business made a minority equity investment this year in wind turbine blade manufacturer Blade Dynamics Ltd. The company plans to establish and operate a new manufacturing facility in New Orleans. In September, Dow formed a collaboration with Astraeus Wind Energy Inc. (AWE) and MAG Industrial Automation Systems (MAG) to develop "material-enabled automated manufacturing solutions" focused on improving and enhancing the manufacture of wind turbine blade components, and finished blades, for the wind industry.

Chemically-speaking, the liquid epoxy resins (LER) market, of which Dow is a major producer, is actually benefiting from the growth within the wind energy market. According to Dow, new epoxy resins could lighten wind turbines and increase energy efficiency.

Dow has been very active as well this year in energy storage projects, where its joint venture company Dow Kokam broke ground in June for a new lithium ion batteries production facility in Midland. Dow also announced at their Investor Day its plans to form a new business focusing on manufacturing and selling materials for advanced batteries.

The business will start selling raw materials and associated technology in 2012 initially focusing on rechargeable lithium ion batteries for the automotive market. Dow did not disclose the specific type of materials they will sell to battery manufacturers. As far as my research goes. some of the major materials used in automotive lithium ion batteries include lithium ion phosphate, lithium metal oxides, polymeric separators, anode materials such as graphites, and electrolytes, etc.

A Dow official said the company is also looking to invest in lithium projects in China to capitalize on the growing energy storage market potential in the region. Government clean technology subsidies and environmental policies in China are expected to drive increasing demand for electric vehicles, according to the official.

Dow Chemical estimates the global energy storage industry to grow from the current $24bn to $74bn by 2020, with the largest growth opportunity in the automotive market. For lithium ion battery materials, the market opportunity is said to be around $15bn.

Speaking of China, Dow's Electronic Materials business unit announced at the event its plans to construct a new manufacturing facility in Zhangjiagang site in the province of Jiangsu, to meet the growing material demand to serve printed circuit board (PCB), electronic and industrial finishing, and photovoltaic (PV) markets in Asia. Construction is expected to begin in late 2010, with production anticipated to beginning in late 2011.

Finally, I was able to speak to Dow's vice president of sustainability and EHS (Environnmental, Health and Safety) Neil Hawkins at the event. He noted continued strong demand for chemicals and other clean technology materials in the US despite regulatory uncertainty in the implementation of renewable energy policies from the newly-elected US law makers.

Hawkins also briefly described some of Dow Chemical's sustainability accomplishments this year such as the innovative hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) process jointly developed with BASF aside from the solar shingle product. (I will actually post about HPPO in the next few days mostly from my interview with Evonik).

Dow noted that sales from products with sustainable chemistry performance increased from 1.7% in 2008 to 3.4% in 2009. In terms of their won greenhouse gas and energy efficiency goals by 2015, the company said it plans to reduce its GHG intensity by 2.5%/year and reduce their energy intensity by 25% from 2005 baseline. Unfortunately, according to Hawkins, it is not easy for the company to quickly reduce their global manufacturing's GHG and energy intensities because of frequent adjustments from mergers and acquisitions activities such as the recent acquisition of Rohm and Haas.

Check out my brief interview with Neil Hawkins on the video below:

ZeaChem completed two key financial milestones in the construction of its 250,000 gallon-per-year biorefinery in Boardman, Ore., that will start up in 2011. The company obtained a guaranteed maximum price with engineering firm Burns & McDonnell, for construction of the core facility, which will convert sugars into acetic acid and then ethyl acetate; and ZeaChem also secured full construction funding (undisclosed) from investors for the core facility.

Agrivida is collaborating with Syngenta Ventures to develop advanced crop technology such as corn, sorghum, switchgrass and miscanthus that will provide low-cost sugars for biofuels and biochemicals applications. Under the terms of the agreement, Syngenta licenses to Agrivida access to crop technology and intellectual property in return for Agrivida equity.

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) in joint development with the National Agricultural Research Center for Kyushu Okinawa Region (KONARC), has created a high-throughput DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis technology that can substantially shorten the time needed to improve varieties of sugar cane and improve plant performance. TMC believes the technology will constitute a major step toward achieving the goal of shortening the period needed for sugar-cane improvement by 50%.

Evonik New Energies GmbH inaugurated its first bio-mass CHP (combined heat and power) plant in the Saarland, Germany, that generates an electricity output of 1.8 MW and a thermal output of 8 MW. The CHP plant uses 40,000 tonnes of untreated woodscrap for feedstock. The organic Rankine cycle power plant technology (ORC for short) is also being used in the Saarland for the first time.

The Procter & Gamble Company's Auburn, Maine, site became the first P&G manufacturing plant in North America to achieve zero waste to landfill. More than 60% of its waste is recycled or reused, while the remainder is converted to energy. The company's goal is to achieve less than 0.5% disposed manufacturing waste by 2020 for all of its facilities worldwide.

Bayer MaterialScience will open a pilot plant in early spring to research using carbon dioxide (CO2) in the manufacture of polymers.

A total of 4,300 substances were registered under the EU's Reach chemicals regulation by the 30 November deadline including 900 not sold in Europe when the regulation became law, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said.

EU member states will have to ban the manufacture of polycarbonate (PC) infant feeding bottles with bisphenol A (BPA) from 1 March 2011, the European Commission said.

A lot of biofuel news last week so I have separated these from my weekly news roundup. Also. my article about new renewable diesel facilities from Neste Oil and Dynamic Fuels is out this week on ICIS Chemical Business so pls. check it out for those who are subscribers. I'll post some information tidbits about renewable diesel this week for those who are not subscribers.

PS for this biofuel news roundup:
I did not include any recent analysis on US biofuel tax credits issues and the EPA's new Renewable Fuels Standard Requirements for 2011 as that will require further research and a separate posting...

DuPont and BP's biobutanol joint venture Butamax™ Advanced Biofuels announced that it has achieved several milestones in its plan to commercialize biobutanol for the transportation fuel market. Butamax is advancing discussions with key stakeholders in preparation for commercial launch.

Black Pearl Capital Partners bought a 46-acre site in Bromborough, Wirral, UK, with facilities for bio-diesel refining, blending, processing as well as storage. The plant, which is expected to be operational by mid-2011, is capable of processing up to 100,000 tones of waste oils into a range of bio-diesel products.

OriginOil completed first phase of its commercial pilot program for its CO2 feeding and algae extraction systems. The company's first customer and pilot partner, MBD Energy, plans to deploy the algae systems in MBD's three full-scale power plant operations in Australia, which have the potential at full scale to consume more than half of each power station's flue-gas emissions.

Viral Genetics, Inc. launched a subsidiary called "VG Energy, Inc." to market the company's biofuel technology. VG Energy is marketing an algae-enhancing technology, which has shown to increase the yield of oil production from algae by as much as 300%.

Japan-based ITOCHU through its joint venture company, Orient Bio-Fuels Company, will build a 1 million liters/year bio-ethanol plant in Vietnam using cassava as feedstock. The facility will start operations in spring 2012 and is expected to be sold to the market through gas stations under PetroVietnam Oil.

The Future Is Closer Than You Think for Some Forms of Alternative Energy - Boston Consulting Group

Algae-Based Biofuels to reach 61m gallons by 2020 - Pike Research

Global Biofuels Demand Projected to Grow 133% by 2020, Production Must Increase by 32 Billion Liters - Hart Energy

New Report Predicts Strong Growth in Camelina-Based Biofuel Industry Over Next 15 Years- Biomass Advisors

Potential of Camelina as a New Biofuel Crop - USDA Agricultural Research Service

Investment in Cellulosic Biofuel Refineries: Do Renewable Identification Numbers Matter?- CARD

And finally, Biofuels Digest recently published its 50 hottest bioenergy companies for 2010. The rankings recognize innovation and achievement in bioenergy development from all over the world.

Among the top 50, fifteen are active in cellulosic ethanol development (down from 19 last year), five are developing algae-based energy solutions (down from seven last year), and 16 are producing "drop-in" renewable biofuels such as biobutanol, renewable diesel, green gasoline and renewable jet fuel (up from 15 last year). Thirteen are developing capabilities to produce renewable chemicals.

My ICIS colleague Franco Capaldo was able to attend the 5th European Bioplastics Conference held in Dusseldorf, Germany, last week. According to the European Bioplastic Association (EBA), more than 170 companies attended the event with 70% of the participants came from Europe, 20% from Asia, and most of the rest are from the Americas.

Hasso von Pogrell, the association's managing director, noted that there are an increase from established chemical companies beginning to enter the bioplastics industry mostly led from changes in consumer behavior. The year 2010 is said to be a pretty good year for the bioplastic industry, which has seen good sales despite the financial crisis.

An executive from packaging films group Innovia Films expects 2011 to remain positive or even be better than 2010. The company noted its own sales growth rate for 2010 at 35% year-on-year, which the executive said is not untypical of other bioplastic producers.

"A large number of companies in the bioplastics industry decided during 2010 to start up the projects they had been previously planning. If you look around this year, there has been more investment in the (bio) polymers that have been around, more products released from producers and you will have seen a lot more new and bigger players on the block." - Innovia

Several companies announced recent investments at the conference such as Purac's 75,000 tonne/year lactide plant in Rayong, Thailand, which is said to be on track to start up in the second half of 2011; Novamont which plans to expand its biopolymer production capacity from 80,000 tonnes/year to 150,000 tonnes by the end of 2012 or in early 2013: and Uhde Inventa-Fischer, which just started up its 500 tonne/year polylactic acid (PLA) pilot plant in Guben, Germany.

Links from ICIS News (requires subscription):

More chemicals companies to enter bioplastics industry - source

Novamont to raise biopolymer capacity with new plant in Italy

European bioplastic firms envision bright 2011 - exec

Uhde Inventa-Fischer starts up polylactic acid plant in Germany

Purac aims for Thailand lactide plant start-up in second half of 2011

The green blog has been noticing that major food manufacturers seem to be loudly proclaiming their comeback to their historical roots of producing biobased chemicals.

Take for example Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), which announced yesterday the hiring of its former employee Paul Bloom as business director of the company's Industrial Chemicals business. I remembered writing articles about some of ADM's industrial chemicals products such as linseed oil for paints, glycerine, and non-food use for soybean oil and corn (such as biodiesel, ethanol, sorbitol...). These days, ADM's portfolio have now expanded to propylene glycol, isosorbide, and of course its Mirel bioplastic through the joint venture company Telles.

The company noted on the press release that their much-awaited glycerine-to-propylene (and ethylene) glycol plant in Decatur, Illinois, is expected to be fully operational in Spring 2011. The plant started up in Spring last year...

Another food company, Corn Products International, announced today that it plans to invest between $75 million and $100 million over the next several years to support the growth of its Brazilian business, which also include biobased industrial chemicals. Also worth noticing is Corn Products' recent acquisition of National Starch. I used to communicate with National Starch on their industrial adhesives, cosmetic and personal care ingredients, and paper chemicals.

Corn Products said this recent Brazilian investment will focus on expanding capacity and develop new ingredient solutions particularly to support the rapid growth of the food, beverage and industrial sectors in the region. The company, I believe, is also working on bioplastic which makes sense being a starch company.

Others such as Tate & Lyle, Roquette, and Cargill are all very much active in bioplastic and the development of plant-based chemicals.

Sorry for another post delay. The past two weeks was a record in terms of doctor/medical appointments. Not to worry green blog fans, the physical body may be aging but the blogging spirit is still strong!

Last week, I was also able to talk to Neste Oil and Dynamic Fuels about their new renewable diesel facilities in Singapore and the US, respectively, and these information will come out on ICIS Chemical Business' December 13 issue. I also had the chance to interview Anellotech CEO David Sudolsky about their Biomass to Aromatics technology and LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren about their Waste Gas to Chems/Biofuels technology. I'll posts some of these information as soon as I can

For now, here are this week's news roundup:

Ford Motor is collaborating with Merquinsa in the use of its Pearlthane® ECO thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU). The bio-based TPU will be incorporated in the Lincoln tambour door tambour console, which Merquinsa said will reduce the carbon footprint of the part by as much as 40%.

EQUATE Petrochemical, a joint venture between Dow Chemical and several Kuwait-based petrochemical companies, launched Kuwait's first carbon capture project and the Middle East's first water recycling plant within petrochemical facilities. EQUATE plans to recycle 245m gal/year of water reducing distilled water intake by 20% to 32% annually. The projects are expected to start operating in 2012.

Rhodia plans to install 12,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels on the Rhodia Belle-Etoile site in Saint-Fons and Feyzin (in the Rhône département) to produce 2 million kilowatt-hours per year of electricity. The facility will be one of France's largest solar power projects installed on the roof of an industrial building and is expected to be up and running by the end of 2011.

Algae center in New Mexico
A new advanced Algae Center devoted to algae commercialization is being built in Roswell, New Mexico by Sustainable Resources Inc. with the help of OriginOil. Once deployed in mid-2011, the center will give algae researchers, engineers and producers a secure and unbiased environment to test their technologies and processes on a wide variety of algae species before commercialization.

CO2 solutions, Codexis and an undisclosed company who is said to be a major player in global energy  and infrastructure projects (maybe GE???) will start collaborating in the development and pilot scale testing of CO2 Solutions' carbon capture technology in coal-fired power plants. CO2 Solution and Codexis will provide the Company with exclusive access to their respective technologies for use with specific systems in power generation and industrial applications. Correspondingly, the Company will work exclusively with CO2 Solution and Codexis related to carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzymes in these applications.

RWE npower renewables, the UK subsidiary of RWE Innogy, is building a biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plant in Markinch, Fife (Scotland), which is said to be the biggest of its kind in the UK. The CHP plant will have an installed output of 50 megawatts and will be able to deliver up to 120 metric tonnes of industrial steam per hour.

Environmental activist group Greenpeace has sued US producer Dow Chemical and South African company Sasol, accusing them of spying and stealing confidential information over a decade ago.

Close to 17,000 Reach registrations had been made successfully by 29 November, European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) data showed.

EU member states will have to ban the manufacture of polycarbonate (PC) infant feeding bottles with bisphenol A (BPA) from 1 March 2011, the European Commission said.

German airlines Lufthansa announced on Monday that it will start using bio-kerosene on April 2011 for commercial flights on Hamburg-Frankfurt route. The six-month trial with an Airbus A321 will use a 50-50 mix of traditional kerosene and Finland-based Neste Oil's renewable diesel NExBTL made from hydrotreated vegetable oil (I'm assuming feedstock could be rapeseed oil or palm oil).

The aircraft will specifically use a blend of 50% NExBTL jet fuel and 50% fossil-based jet fuel in one engine, while the other engine will use conventional jet fuel.

Neste Oil said the feedstock will be sustainably sourced and that it will not compete for food, water, nor land.

I am actually going to write an article about "Green Diesel" from companies such as Neste Oil, Syntroleum/Dynamic Fuels and UOP/Honeywell so for ICIS Chemical Business (ICB) subscribers, stay tune for that on December 13.

Back to Lufthansa's news, the project is expected to cost the company EUR 6.6m.

Scanning some previous biofuel reports that I've received the past year, the outlook for airline biofuels is said to be positive, according to a report from Accenture, mainly because the technology challenges have been fairly overcome. The use of biofuel in the very competitive aviation industry will also alleviate pressures from fuel cost aside from reducing carbon emissions, which is necessary in a very tightly regulated industry.

However, the challenge here is supply given the limited feedstock availability and competing demand for biofuels in road transport. Which is why, producers of these type of diesel is constantly looking for feedstock alternatives such as algae, jatropha and camelina (non-food based oilseeds).

I've mentioned in previous posts about KLM testing camelina oil-based biofuel developed by Honeywell's UOP business, as well as Air China looking to use UOP's green diesel as well.

I've been thinking about this news on Celanese's technology in producing industrial ethanol in China using coal and wondering if this really falls under anybody's 'green' category as I saw several green-based websites announcing this plans (e.g. BiofuelDigest, Green Car Congress, GreenTechnolog, etc).

Celanese announced early November that it is building as many as two coal-to-ethanol facilities in China each with a capacity of about 400,000 tons/year as well as a smaller 40,000 ton/year natural gas-to-ethanol plant in Texas, US. Industrial ethanol could be produced either by petroleum-based processing or fermentation processing using corn or sugar.

Celanese expects to begin production in China within 30 months after the project is approved, while the natural gas-based ethanol facility is expected to be completed by the end of 2012. Celanese said it will also explore opportunities to produce fuel ethanol if the regional commercial environment is supportive (e.g. government subsidies will be favorable).

UPDATE: Celanese called and commented that there was no mention whatsoever about government subsidies relating to their plans. The blog will soon interview Celanese for more information about this project.

China's industrial ethanol demand, according to the company is 3m tons/year with growth rate of between 8-10%/year. Coal is China's primary energy and chemical feedstock and I'm sure Celanese's processing will employ the latest in emissions/waste control and other new "clean coal technologies".

There's always a big stigma attached to the use of coal much like petroleum (although a bit less since everybody knows we can't live without petroleum --yet). Natural gas is thought to be a better, more environment-friendly alternative feedstock but now the issue on "fracking" (type of natural gas extraction) especially in the US is spreading fast. The use of vegetable oils as feedstock continues to spark the food versus fuel (and chemical applications) debate as well as other environmental issues related to farming.

It seems biomass, algae and other waste-based feedstock could be the best partial solution for these feedstock problems but they are still years away from being commercially produced and used. By then, I'm sure there will be problems that are going to 'crop up' (pun not intended) in using these type of feedstock as well.

[Photo image from Lighthouse Global Investments]

This year, I am making sure my annual green gifts for the holidays will be a bit early (still in time for Hannukkah!) compared to last year. It seems there are more offerings as well this year so I hope this will be helpful in crossing out some from your holiday list. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

1. BPA-free kitchenware - Eastman Chemical has been very busy this year partnering with several companies that want to incorporate its Tritan copolyester in order to market plastic products that are free of bisphenol-A (BPA). Aside from the usual water bottles, Eastman also featured BPA-free food storage containers made by Reynolds and a multifunctional blender by Cuisinart.

2. Forever green lawn - Do you often hear family complaints on lawn mowing and pruning? Do you want to conserve water and eliminate costs on lawn pesticides as well? DuPont noted its DuPont ForeverLawn Select Synthetic Grass as a green solution to these problems. The artificial turf also uses recycled plastic for its backing. SynLawn's synthetic lawn and turf meanwhile are using soy-based polyols for their backing made and developed by Universal Textile Technologies with the help of the United Soybean Board.

3. Bioplastic eyeglass frame - I mentioned earlier this year Cereplast's bioplastic 3D glasses, which will be really useful if anybody took advantage of the recent US Black Friday sales on 3D television units. The world's first biodegradable/compostable 3D glasses are manufactured by Oculus3D. For fashionable eyewear, Japan-based Teijin collaborated with Katherine Hamnett, a world-famous English fashion designer in the launched of eyewear lineup with the frames made with Teijin's BIOFRONT polylactic acid (PLA)-based bioplastic. You might have to order them in Japan though.

4. What green to wear? - Here we have silk crepe kimonos where Teijin's BIOFRONT fibers were interwoven with silk fibers; Invista has its COOLMAX EcoMade socks where the fiber contains 97% recycled resources such as plastic water bottles;and one of my favorite store, H&M, launched early this year its Garden Collection of floral pattern clothes that where made from either recycled PET bottles, textile waste or organic cotton/linen. BayerMaterialScience, by the way, posted on its website last September its vision of a "green shoe" dubbed Ecotrekker. The shoes include renewable polyurethane feedstocks, raw materials for solvent-free coatings and adhesives, and a polycarbonate blend and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) based on renewable resources

5. Sporting green goods - One of Atomic Ski Boots 2010 collection features the RENU bioplastic boot made with Arkema's castor oil-based (about 80%) Pebax thermoplastic elastomer. Atomic uses Pebax without pigments so it can be recycled and used in any color again. Other earth-friendly features of the ski boots include recyclable foams and textiles in the liner (with bamboo lining) and cork footbed. Arkema also featured this year Sony's special FIFA soccer ball specifically developed for donation to children in Africa. The soccer ball is also made with Arkema's Pebax Rnew elastomer. Finally, urethane producer Elasco hooked up with skateboard manufacturer Section 9 (owned by Billabong) to use Elasco's Biothane brand polyurethane wheels made with soybean-based polyols. Sales of Elasco's high performance soy-based wheels are said to have increased substantially this year.

6. Bring green to work - Arkema also featured this year its Rilsan 11 castor oil-based polyamide for use in travel bags manufactured by Japanese company UNITIKA, which specializes in technical fibers. For your Iphones, IPads and MP3s, Hongkong-based bioserie is using NatureWorks' Ingeo PLA resin for covers for these gadgets. The covers are all bioplastic materials. The IPad cover, by the way, is not yet in stores but bioserie said it will be available early next year. If you're feeling the economic pinch, why not just give a bioplastic pen, which I posted in May. Newell RubberMaid launched this year its Paper Mate Biodegradable pen and pencils, which uses Metabolix's Mirel bioresins; DBA is selling its 98% biodegradable disposable (potato-based) pen; and Cereplast is supplying its bio-resins for use in a compostable, biodegradable pen called Eko BIO manufactured by Brazil-based S.R. Promocionais Ltda.

7. For kids only - Back to Eastman, the company featured early this year its collaboration with Baby Dipper LLC for a BPA-free baby dipper bowl (complete with baby utensils), which uses Eastman's Tritan copolyester. In February, Eastman featured  the Keep-It-Kleen BPA-free pacifiers and in August, Eastman showcased a phthalate-free bouncing ball, which uses Eastman 168 non-phthalate plasticizer.

Here are some bioplastics news I received late last month while I'm struggling with my now 3-week old cold. But first, Purac announced today that it has developed a polylactic acid (PLA) compound comparable to the common thermoplastic acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) in terms of heat stability and impact strength.

Purac's new bioplastic combines the company's L-Lactide and D-Lactide monomers technology. The PLA compound can be used in injection molding applications.  The company is currently building a 75,000 tons/year Lactide plant in Thailand which will start in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Meanwhile, Cardia Bioplastic announced yesterday its collaboration with consumer goods company Nestle in bioplastic packaging. Unfortunately, not much information was disclosed due to Nestle's sensitive commercial nature, according to Cardia. We'll probably hear more about it when Nestle is ready to launch its bioplastic-encased product/s.

Also yesterday, NatureWorks said its Ingeo biopolymer will be distributed further in the Japanese market via a new deal with BP (Bio-based Plastic and Packaging) Consulting. BP said it is also developing several unique Ingeo-based products using modifiers made of inorganic or food ingredient substances.

In terms of R&D, scientists at the University of Bath (UK) and Tel Aviv University (Israel) are also working to improve PLA's properties by developing a new chemical catalyst for PLA processing. The scientists aim to make PLA more heat resistant and stronger in order to expand its use in engineering plastics (e.g. automotive market).

And to add to the growing debate of 'how green are bioplastics?', a study by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh indicate that plant-based plastics are not necessarily better in terms of environmental impact compared to petroleum-based materials when analyzing both plastics' life cycle.

According to the researchers, biopolymers rank highly in terms of green design such as biodegradability, lower toxicity (throughout the production supply chain) and use of renewable resources but they exhibit relatively large environmental impacts from production itself if considering the farming methods for feedstock - just think about the energy, fertilizer, pesticides that farming typically uses...

Of course, you have to consider what type of biopolymer and petroleum-based polymer were included in the study as well as the type of feedstock used for the biopolymers. There are also varied LCA analysis tools that the researchers can use. Unfortunately, I can't access the full study so I hope the readers can and make their own decision about it.

I did read one report that noted 12 plastics -- 7 petroleum-based polymers, 4 biopolymers (PLA included), and one hybrid - were included in the study. The researchers performed LCA on each polymer's preproduction stage to gauge the environmental and health effects of the energy, raw materials, and chemicals used to create one ounce of plastic pellets. They then checked each plastic in its finished form against principles of green design, including biodegradability, energy efficiency, wastefulness, and toxicity.

The biopolymers rank 1, 2, 3, and 4 based on green design metrics but rank in the middle in terms of LCA metrics. Polyolefins rank 1, 2, and 3 in the LCA rankings and complex polymers, such as PET, PVC, and PC place at the bottom of both ranking systems.

NatureWorks announced last month a sort of rebuttal with a peer-reviewed "Ingeo eco-profile" article published in August. The article documents the energy and greenhouse gas emissions input and output of Ingeo production including planting, harvesting, fermenting plant sugars and resin production.

"The data provided in this report is only valid for Ingeo (polylactides produced by NatureWorks in Blair, Nebraska, USA) and not for polylactide production in general. The life cycle inventory data for polylactides that might be produced elsewhere will be different due to different raw materials (sugar or starch source) and raw material production practices, different technologies for processing these raw materials, different fermentation and polymerization technology, and different background data for electricity/fuel mixes used." - NatureWorks

Finally, here is a nice video courtesy of NBC Washington featuring various bioplastic products showcased at the BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing event held in July.

Biomass is in the air as both Dow Chemical and specialty chemical company Rhodia announced today their investments in this energy feedstock.

Dow is building a biomass co-generation plant at its Aratu manufacturing complex in Brazil, which will use eucalyptus wood biomass to produce steam for the site's chlor-alkali and chlorohydrin production processes.

Chlor-alkali processing (the production of chlorine and caustic soda), by the way, is a large consumer of steam and electricity so this move could potentially lower Dow's operating costs if the biomass feedstock is not that expensive as well as minimize volatility of their electricity costs. Steam and electricity typically account for 50-55% of total chlor-alkali production cost, according to industry analysts.

Dow expects the co-generation plant to reduce the site's carbon dioxide emissions by 180,000 tonnes/year and conserve 200,000 cubic meter/day of natural gas. Dow will also receive carbon credits for the project. The Aratu site currently receives all of its electricity from hydropower.

The co-generation plant is expected to be completed in December 12, and Energias Renovaveis do Brasil (ERB) will invest, install and operate the plant.

Rhodia's business unit Rhodia Energy Services, meanwhile, signed a deal with Brazilian private company Paraiso for its first bagasse-based biomass project also focusing on producing electricity. Rhodia will upgrade and operate a cogeneration unit in Paraiso's sugar and ethanol facility in Brotas city using the sugarcane bagasse.

The cogeneration unit that will produce 70 megawatts of electricity mostly be sold to the local grid as well as supply the site with electricity and steam. Paraiso will supply the bagasse and other sugarcane solid waste to Rhodia on an exclusive basis.