Report Says Ethanol Boosted State Economy in 2011

A new report from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture shows the state's ethanol industry produced over $5 billion in total economic activity last year, according to an article in today's Pioneer Press.  In addition to supporting more than 12,600 jobs, the ethanol industry added $912 million to the value of the state's corn crop in 2011. Much of the production, however, was to take advantage of the federal production tax credit before it's year-end expiration, and resulted in a market glut which lowered demand for ethanol in the first half of 2012, the report pointed out.  Read more

Plants' Role in CO2 Management Questioned

According to a new University of Minnesota study, plants may not be able to absorb as much of the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air as originally thought. The study shows that while plants can absorb and benefit from large amounts of carbon dioxide, they may not get enough of the required nutrients from typical soils to absorb the levels of  CO2 that scientists previously believed possible, which raises questions about their role in mitigating fossil-fuel emissions. The study was published in the current issue of journal Nature Climate Change. Read mores 

New Report on Economic Benefits of Wind Energy

A new study concludes that recent wind energy projects increased both personal income and employment in the counties included in the research, which was done by the USDA Economic Research Service, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  The researchers looked at economic data from 1,009 counties in 12 windy states, including North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. Among the sources of economic benefits analyzed in the study were direct employment during construction and operation, lease payments to landowners, demand for local goods and services, tax payments and other spending. Read more

New Energy Storage Technology Announced

RICHLAND, Wash. – A Washington state firm with a 27,000 square foot manufacturing and design facility in Mukilteo has signed a license agreement with Battelle to further develop and commercialize a type of advanced battery that holds promise for storing large amounts of renewable energy and providing greater stability to the energy grid.

The agreement with UniEnergy Technologies LLC is intended to advance and commercialize "redox flow" battery technology.

Developing a technology that can smoothly integrate energy from variable and intermittent sources — such as wind and solar power — onto the electricity grid while maintaining grid stability has proven challenging. First developed in the 1970s, redox flow batteries are one type of storage technology that has shown the ability to meet this challenge. But until now, these batteries have been limited in their ability to work well in a wide range of temperatures, their relatively high cost, and their limited ability to store energy, otherwise known as energy density.

Recently however, with funding from the Energy Department's Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability, researchers at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have made significant progress in improving the performance of redox flow technology.

Redox flow batteries are a type of rechargeable battery that stores electrical energy in two tanks of electrolytes, which are then pumped through a reactor to produce energy. The PNNL-developed vanadium electrolytes incorporate two novel approaches to overcome the limitations of previous generations of redox flow batteries. The result is a dramatically improved operating range, higher energy density and lower cost for vanadium redox flow batteries.

The licensing agreement with UniEnergy will lead to enhanced commercial products for utilities, power generators and industry that will enable the energy grid to operate more reliably and efficiently, with better integration of  renewable resources, such as energy produced by wind and the sun.

"The redox flow battery is well-suited for storing intermittent, renewable energy on the electricity grid. The technology can help balance supply and demand, prevent disruptions and meet the grid's varying load requirements," said Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager at DOE's Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability in Washington, D.C.

"Redox flow batteries can also help utilities during times of peak demand on the grid, providing additional power when it is needed," he added. "Successful commercialization of DOE-sponsored technology development, such as this, is vital for creating the grid of the future, and sustaining U.S. leadership in advanced technology."

Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Natural Gas Plant Proposed for Iowa

Officials from Alliant Energy and the Iowa Utilities Board reportedly heard public input in Marshalltown regarding a $750 million natural gas plant Alliant plans to build over the next five years. The 600-megawatt plant would generate enough electricity for 500,000 homes in addition to $1.7 million in property taxes for Marshall County. Read more

NREL Produces Ethylene via Photosynthesis

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have demonstrated a better way to use photosynthesis to produce ethylene, a breakthrough that could change the way materials, chemicals, and transportation fuels are made, and help clean the air.

NREL scientists introduced a gene into a cyanobacterium and demonstrated that the organism remained stable through at least four generations, producing ethylene gas that could be easily captured. Research results were published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

The organism – Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 – produced ethylene at a high rate and is still being improved. The laboratory demonstrated rate of 170 milligrams of ethylene per liter per day is greater than the rates reported for the photosynthetic production by microorganisms of ethanol, butanol or other algae biofuels.

The process does not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Conversely, the process recycles carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, since the organism utilizes the gas as part of its metabolic cycle.

Ethylene is the most widely produced petrochemical feedstock in the world. But currently it is produced only from fossil fuels, and its production is the industry’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Steam cracking of long-chain hydrocarbons from petroleum produces 1.5 to 3 tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of ethylene produced.

The NREL process, by contrast, produces ethylene by using carbon dioxide, which is food for the bacteria. That could mean a savings of six tons of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of ethylene produced -- the three tons that would be emitted by tapping fossil fuels and another three tons absorbed by the bacteria.

NREL principal investigator, Jianping Yu, says it’s the difference between using old photons and new photons. Ethylene from old photons is the ethylene produced from fossil fuels, derived from photosynthetic organisms that captured the sun’s energy millions of years ago. The NREL process uses new photons that are currently hitting plants, algae and bacteria capable of producing fuels directly.

Ten years ago, a group of Japanese scientists led by Takahira Ogawa at Sojo University was the first to try to produce ethylene via photosynthetic conversion in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus 7942. But by the fourth generation, the bacteria were defunct, producing no ethylene at all, Yu said.

NREL turned to a different cyanobacterium, Synechocystis 6803, which scientists had been researching for a long time, knowing how to change its DNA sequences. They manipulated the sequence to design an ethylene-producing gene to be more stable and more active than the original version.

This process resulted in an organism that uses carbon dioxide and water to produce ethylene, but doesn’t lose its ability to produce ethylene over time. The product ethylene is non-toxic to the producing microorganisms and is not a food source for other organisms that could potentially contaminate an industrial process.

“Our peak productivity is higher than a number of other technologies, including ethanol, butanol, and isoprene,” Yu said. “We overcame problems encountered by past researchers. Our process doesn’t produce toxins such as cyanide and it is more stable than past efforts. And it isn’t going to be a food buffet for other organisms.”

After the culture reaches maximum growth, it’s possible that it could keep producing for months at a time, said Rich Bolin, who is a member of NREL’s partnerships group. The ethylene gas it produces naturally leaves the organism, spurring the organism to keep producing more.

The ethylene would be produced in an enclosed photobioreactor containing seawater enriched with nitrogen and phosphorous. The ethylene gas would rise and be captured from the reactor’s head space. It could then undergo further processing, including a catalytic polymer process to produce fuels and chemicals. The continuous production system improves the energy conversion efficiency and reduces the operational cost.

NREL is initiating discussions with potential industry partners to help move the process to commercial scale. Interested companies include those in the business of producing ethylene or - transportation fuels, as well as firms that build photobioreactors.

“Separations in biotechnology are complicated and costly,” said Jim Brainard, director of NREL’s Biosciences Center. “The nice thing about this system is that it is a gas that just separates from the culture media and rises to the head space. That’s a huge advantage over having to destroy the valuable culture that is taking carbon dioxide and light and water to make your product. It’s much easier than a liquid-liquid separation like in ethanol.”

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

Source: NREL

New Carbon Capture Technology Announced

A new Senate bill introduced last week aims to provide incentives for carbon capture though improved access to tax credits, but it may be a bit premature. The process has not yet been proven on a commercial scale, and some scientists think the ammonia-based materials currently used in typical carbon capture technology actually may contribute to toxic emissions during the process of trying to reduce them.

Current capture processes also require large amounts of heat to separate the carbon so that it can be transported and stored. Power plant officials complain that the capture process is "parasitic"--that is, it significantly reduces the efficiency of the plant by diverting heat to the carbon separation process.

Recent innovations, however, may improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of carbon capture. For example, the Department of Energy last month announced preliminary results of its tests with a new carbon sorbent called BrightBlack, which demonstrated efficiency rates as high as 95% and yielded carbon with purity rates between 95 and 100 percent.

In the BrightBlack process, CO2 is absorbed in a bed of proprietary sorbent pellets and desorbed in a separate reactor that regenerates the sorbent and cycles it back to the absorber at  low thermal temperatures. Through 7,000 absorption-regeneration cycles, and a total of 130 hours of operation, the sorbent showed little-to-no mechanical or chemical degradation. The DOE plans to use the data from the initial pilot project to run scaled-up trials of the process, with the eventual goal of testing it in a pulverized coal boiler.

Meanwhile, British scientists have announced a new low-cost sorbent called NOTT-300 (from Nottingham University where some of the research occurred) made from aluminium nitrate salt, cheap organic materials and water. In additon to being non-toxic, the material enables captured CO2 to be released using virtually no heat.

The NOTT-300 technology uses two filters. When one filter becomes saturated with carbon, it is removed and the carbon is released through a pressure reduction process while the exhaust gases are diverted to the second filter. The regenerated filter is then reconnected to be used when the second filter becomes saturated, a process the Nottingham scientists say can occur repeatedly and at normal temperatures.

The capture rate during the trial was nearly 100%  The researchers say the rate could be lower in an actual power plant application but should still approach 90%. They also think NOTT-300 could be used in gas separation processes since other gases such as hydrogen, methane, oxygen and nitrogen cannot interact with the material in the same way and therefore cannot be adsorbed.

It is important to point out that these new technologies, while showing great promise, are still only laboratory experiments. It's unknown whether they will work in commercial power plant applications, which are likely many months from being tested.

Sources...

• The U.S. Department of Energy, "Novel Sorbent Achieves 90 Percent Carbon Capture in DOE-Sponsored Test", August 21, 2012
• Financial Post, "Boost for carbon capture from new non-toxic absorber", September 24, 2012
•TCE Today, "New NOTT-300 MOF offers CCS Potential", September 25, 2012

Egyptian Company Plans Iowa Fertilzer Plant

Orascom Construction Industries, Egypt's largest company, has announced plans to build a $1.4 billion fertilizer plant in southeast Iowa. The plant will use natural gas to create the reaction between nitrogen and hydrogen that is the basis of  ammonia fertilizer. Iowa is offering at least $100 million in incentives to secure a plant that will provide 165 permanent jobs after start-up, along with 2,500 during the construction. Read more

Biodiesel Production Continues Strong

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that that 100 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in July, bringing the total production for the first seven months of 2012 to nearly 658 million gallons. The 2011 total was 1.1 billion gallons. Iowa, with 13 biodiesel refineries, is a leading biodiesel producer. Read more...

Minnesota Ethanol Plant Resumes Production

An ethanol plant in Buffalo Lake, Minnesota has resumed production after being closed in 2010.  Formerly known as Minnesota Energy, the plant has been renamed Purified renewable Energy LLC. The new owners plan to begin introducing other feedstocks in addition to corn, such as agricultural waste. They also plan to diversify the plant's products to include isobutanol and other chemicals.  The plant in currently permitted to produce 25 million gallons per year, with expansion options up to 35 million gallons. Read more...

New Minnesota Wind Farm Under Construction

One of the biggest wind farms in Minnesota is expected to be online by the end of the year. Currently under construction near Harwick in the southern part of the state, the facility will feature 119 GE 1.68-megawatt turbines and generate approximately 200 megawatts of electricity. The project, with an estimated cost of $305 million, is a joint venture between GE and Enel Green Power, an Italian multinational energy corporation. Once completed, the wind farm will supply all of its power to Northern States Power Company, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, under a 20-year contract. Read more...

Making Algal Biofuel with Flue Gas

Washington, D.C. —A novel method to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from flue gas and produce biofuels has been formally launched in the second phase of a Department of Energy (DOE) project at a nursery in Ohio. Successful application of the process could eventually help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a source of liquid biofuels and biogas, reducing U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources. 

Touchstone Research Laboratory in Triadelphia, W.Va., successfully inoculated four biomass production ponds with algae at Cedar Lane Farms in Wooster, Ohio, and is now investigating the effectiveness of an innovative phase change material to enhance open pond algae production.

The project consists of several indoor and outdoor ponds which are being used to determine how Touchstone’s phase-change material tackles three challenges inherent in algae biofuels production: maintaining temperature, minimizing water evaporation, and protecting against invasive species. The phase-change material absorbs infrared solar radiation during the day as latent heat and releases it to the water at night when temperatures drop. Covering the surface of the pond, the material regulates daily temperature fluctuations, reduces water loss from evaporation, and helps control the growth of invasive species.

Touchstone will operate the new system for approximately 14 months and gather data to substantiate future commercialization efforts. Once the algae ponds have matured, the algal biomass will be harvested and processed to collect the lipids. Roughly 2,000 gallons of algal oil will be recovered from the process per year and upgraded to renewable biofuel. The Ohio State University’s Ohio Agricultural Research Development Center will perform pilot-scale process development and testing of an anaerobic digestion process to convert the residual algae biomass to methane.

During Phase 1 of the project, researchers constructed a small laboratory pond to demonstrate the viability of the material to improve algae growth. This helped researchers pinpoint performance requirements of the phase-change material and gas-injection components needed for the Phase 2 system, which is now installed at Cedar Lane Farms. The algae in the ponds will photosynthesize CO2 captured from a small, coal-fired combustor used to heat greenhouses and will naturally produce lipids (oils) as it grows. 

Source: DOE　

Study Shows Strong Growth in Solar

According to a new report by the British firm, IMS Research, the photovoltaics (PV) market in the Americas (primarily the USA) more than doubled in the first half of 2012 to reach 1.7 GW. IMS predicts the total will reach almost 4.3 GW for the full year. Global PV installations exceeded 13 GW in the first half of 2012, with much of the increase coming from the Americas and Germany. The Americas market increased by more than 120% to reach 1.7 GW in the first half of 2012, compared to 750 MW in the same period last year, according to the IMS report. Read more...

DOE Tests New CO2 Capture Process

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced a successful trial of a new CO2 capture method using a new sorbent called  BrightBlack™, designed by Advanced Technology Materials Inc. (ATMI). 

In the DOE trial, CO2 was absorbed in a bed of sorbent pellets and desorbed in a separate reactor that regenerates the sorbent and cycled it back to the absorber. As the test run began, the observed CO2‑capture efficiency was as high as 95 percent and the captured CO2 purity was 95 to 100 percent. Through 7,000 absorption-regeneration cycles, and a total of 130 hours of operation, the sorbent showed little-to-no mechanical or chemical degradation. The high-capacity sorbent is regenerated easily at moderate thermal temperatures, making the process less energy-intensive than typical, amine-based CO2-capture processes. 

The information from the trial will be used to design a larger, pilot-scale unit of 0.5 megawatts or more in preparation for potential future testing at an operating pulverized-coal boiler.  

Source: DOE

Court Vacates EPA Cross-State Pollution Rule

A federal appeals court today vacated the EPA’s Cross-State Pollution Rule, which would have restricted power plant emissions in 29 states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Illinois. Read more...

Gamesa Debuts New Turbine for Low-Wind Areas

       

Until recently, most of the attention from the wind energy industry in North Dakota has been on the pink and purple areas of the map shown above, those areas of "good"and "excellent" wind potential. Unfortunately, many of these areas are not practical for wind farms because their remoteness puts them far away from the necessary transmission infrastructure. The most cost-efficient areas for wind power are those in the eastern third of the state where higher population densities mean easier access to transmission facilities and other infrastructure requirements. Those areas, alas, are largely brown and orange ("marginal" and "fair") and of little interest to wind developers.

Their allure may improve, however, as new technology is introduced to capitalize on areas that don't boast the gusty winds western North Dakota is famous for. The Spanish manufacturer, Gamesa, for example, recently introduced 2 MW turbines specifically designed for low-wind regions. The G97-2.0 MW Class III model is currently being manufactured in Spain, China, India and the U.S. The turbine features a swept area 16% larger than that of the Gamesa's current G90 model and includes a new aerodynamic blade tip design and noise control technology. 

The G97 currently is making its U.S. debut as part of a wind project underway in Faribault County, Minnesota. (Wind maps indicate the aveage wind potential in this area is similar to that in most of eastern North Dakota.) Idaho-based Exergy Development Group plans to install 18 of the new units near the town of Blue Earth, according to a recent report from Recharge. The new facility, which is expected to be online by the end of the year, reportedly plans to sell its output to Northern States Power. 

Ethanol Producers Test Bio-Engineered Corn

Golden Grain Energy (GGE) of Iowa and Siouxland Ethanol of Nebraska have signed an agreement with Syngenta in North America to demonstrate the value of Syngenta's Enogen® genetically-engineered corn. Both ethanol plants will complete a three-month trial with the specialized corn grain that, according to  Syngenta, allows ethanol production to be more efficient, cost effective and better for the environment. Read more...