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    Japan's Marubeni Corp. plans to begin importing a bioethanol compound from Brazil for use in biogasoline sold by petroleum wholesalers in Japan. The trading firm will import ETBE, which is synthesized from petroleum products and ethanol derived from sugar cane. The compound will be purchased from Brazilian petrochemical company Companhia Petroquimica do Sul and in February, Marubeni will supply 6,500 kilolitres of the ETBE, worth around US$7 million, to a biogasoline group made up of petroleum wholesalers. Wholesalers have been introducing biofuels since last April by mixing 7 per cent ETBE into gasoline. Plans call for 840 million liters of ETBE to be procured annually from domestic and foreign suppliers by 2010. Trading Markets - January 24, 2007.

    Toyota Tsusho Corp., Ohta Oil Mill Co. and Toyota Chemical Engineering Co., say it and two other firms have jointly developed a technology to produce biodiesel fuel at lower cost. Biodiesel is made by blending methanol into plant-derived oil. The new technology requires smaller amounts of methanol and alkali catalysts than conventional technologies. In addition, the new technology makes water removal facilities unnecessary. JCN Network - January 22, 2007.

    Finland's Metso Paper and SWISS COMBI - W. Kunz dryTec A.G. have entered a licence agreement for the SWISS COMBI belt dryer KUVO, which allows biomass to be dried in a low temperature environment and at high capacity, both for pulp & paper and bioenergy applications. Kauppalehti - January 22, 2007.

    Record warm summers cause extreme ice melt in Greenland: an international team of scientists, led by Dr Edward Hanna at the University of Sheffield, has found that recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years. The new research provides further evidence of a key impact of global warming and helps scientists place recent satellite observations of Greenland´s shrinking ice mass in a longer-term climatic context. Findings are published in the 15 January 2008 issue of Journal of Climate. University of Sheffield - January 15, 2007.

    Japan's Tsukishima Kikai Co. and Marubeni Corp. have together clinched an order from Oenon Holdings Inc. for a plant that will make bioethanol from rice. The Oenon group will invest around 4.4 billion yen (US$40.17 million) in the project, half of which will be covered by a subsidy from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The plant will initially produce bioethanol from imported rice, with plans to use Hokkaido-grown rice in the future. It will produce 5 million liters per year starting in 2009, increasing output to 15m liters in 2011. The facility will be able to produce as much as 50,000 liters of bioethanol from 125 tons of rice each day. Trading Markets - January 11, 2007.

    PetroSun, Inc. announced today that its subsidiary, PetroSun BioFuels Refining, has entered into a JV to construct and operate a biodiesel refinery near Coolidge, Arizona. The feedstock for the refinery will be algal oil produced by PetroSun BioFuels at algae farms to be located in Arizona. The refinery will have a capacity of thirty million gallons and will produce 100% renewable biodiesel. PetroSun BioFuels will process the residual algae biomass into ethanol. MarketWire - January 10, 2007.

    BlueFire Ethanol Fuels Inc, which develops and operates carbohydrate-based transportation fuel production facilities, has secured capital liquidity for corporate overhead and continued project development in the value of US$15 million with Quercus, an environmentally focused trust. BlueFire Ethanol Fuels - January 09, 2007.

    Some $170 billion in new technology development projects, infrastructure equipment and construction, and biofuel refineries will result from the ethanol production standards contained the new U.S. Energy Bill, says BIO, the global Biotechnology Industry Organization. According to Brent Erickson, BIO's executive vice president "Such a new energy infrastructure has not occurred in more than 100 years. We are at the point where we were in the 1850s when kerosene was first distilled and began to replace whale oil. This technology will be coming so fast that what we say today won't be true in two years." Chemical & Engineering News - January 07, 2007.

    Scottish and Southern Energy plc, the UK's second largest power company, has completed the acquisition of Slough Heat and Power Ltd from SEGRO plc for a total cash consideration of £49.25m. The 101MW CHP plant is the UK’s largest dedicated biomass energy facility fueled by wood chips, biomass and waste paper. Part of the plant is contracted under the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation and part of it produces over 200GWH of output qualifying for Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), which is equivalent to around 90MW of wind generation. Scottish & Southern Energy - January 2, 2007.

    PetroChina Co Ltd, the country's largest oil and gas producer, plans to invest 800 million yuan to build an ethanol plant in Nanchong, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, its parent China National Petroleum Corp said. The ethanol plant has a designed annual capacity of 100,000 tons. ABCMoneyNews - December 21, 2007.

    Mexico passed legislation to promote biofuels last week, offering unspecified support to farmers that grow crops for the production of any renewable fuel. Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas said Mexico could expand biodiesel faster than ethanol. More soon. Reuters - December 20, 2007.

    Oxford Catalysts has placed an order worth approximately €700,000 (US$1 million) with the German company Amtec for the purchase of two Spider16 high throughput screening reactors. The first will be used to speed up the development of catalysts for hydrodesulphurisation (HDS). The second will be used to further the development of catalysts for use in gas to liquid (GTL) and Fischer-Tropsch processes which can be applied to next generation biofuels. AlphaGalileo - December 18, 2007.

    According to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Brazil's production of sugarcane will increase from 514,1 million tonnes this season, to a record 561,8 million tonnes in the 2008/09 cyclus - an increase of 9.3%. New numbers are also out for the 2007 harvest in Brazil's main sugarcane growing region, the Central-South: a record 425 million tonnes compared to 372,7 million tonnes in 2006, or a 14% increase. The estimate was provided by Unica – the União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar. Jornal Cana - December 16, 2007.

    The University of East Anglia and the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre have today released preliminary global temperature figures for 2007, which show the top 11 warmest years all occurring in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850. The announcement comes as the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, speaks at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Bali. Eurekalert - December 13, 2007.

    The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced it will launch a new journal in summer 2008, Energy & Environmental Science, which will distinctly address both energy and environmental issues. In recognition of the importance of research in this subject, and the need for knowledge transfer between scientists throughout the world, from launch the RSC will make issues of Energy & Environmental Science available free of charge to readers via its website, for the first 18 months of publication. This journal will highlight the important role that the chemical sciences have in solving the energy problems we are facing today. It will link all aspects of energy and the environment by publishing research relating to energy conversion and storage, alternative fuel technologies, and environmental science. AlphaGalileo - December 10, 2007.

    Dutch researcher Bas Bougie has developed a laser system to investigate soot development in diesel engines. Small soot particles are not retained by a soot filter but are, however, more harmful than larger soot particles. Therefore, soot development needs to be tackled at the source. Laser Induced Incandescence is a technique that reveals exactly where soot is generated and can be used by project partners to develop cleaner diesel engines. Terry Meyer, an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is using similar laser technology to develop advanced sensors capable of screening the combustion behavior and soot characteristics specifically of biofuels. Eurekalert - December 7, 2007.

    Lithuania's first dedicated biofuel terminal has started operating in Klaipeda port. At the end of November 2007, the stevedoring company Vakaru krova (VK) started activities to manage transshipments. The infrastructure of the biodiesel complex allows for storage of up to 4000 cubic meters of products. During the first year, the terminal plans to transship about 70.000 tonnes of methyl ether, after that the capacities of the terminal would be increased. Investments to the project totaled €2.3 million. Agrimarket - December 5, 2007.

    New Holland supports the use of B100 biodiesel in all equipment with New Holland-manufactured diesel engines, including electronic injection engines with common rail technology. Overall, nearly 80 percent of the tractor and equipment manufacturer's New Holland-branded products with diesel engines are now available to operate on B100 biodiesel. Tractor and equipment maker John Deere meanwhile clarified its position for customers that want to use biodiesel blends up to B20. Grainnet - December 5, 2007.

    According to Wetlands International, an NGO, the Kyoto Protocol as it currently stands does not take into account possible emissions from palm oil grown on a particular type of land found in Indonesia and Malaysia, namely peatlands. Mongabay - December 5, 2007.

    Malaysia's oil & gas giant Petronas considers entering the biofuels sector. Zamri Jusoh, senior manager of Petronas' petroleum development management unit told reporters "of course our focus is on oil and gas, but I think as we move into the future we cannot ignore the importance of biofuels." AFP - December 5, 2007.


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Friday, January 25, 2008

Pacific Gas & Electric Company to research large-scale biomethane resources for its customers

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), one of the largest combination natural gas and electric utilities in the United States, announced that it has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to identify partners for a potential project to demonstrate technologies that could cost-effectively produce significant quantities of biomethane - pipeline-quality, renewable natural gas. The demonstration project is part of PG&E's commitment to increase the amount of clean energy it provides customers throughout its northern and central California service area. The company created an online biomethanation forum where interested parties can meet.

Biomethane is pipeline-quality gas derived from biomass as defined [*.pdf] by the California Energy Commission (CEC), which includes any organic material not derived from fossil fuels, including agricultural crops, agricultural and forestry wastes and residues, and construction wood wastes, among others. Biomethanation, also called anaerobic digestion, is the biochemical process of converting biomass to biogas via microorganisms. Alternatively, a thermochemical pathway based on the gasification of biomass can be used to yield socalled synthetic natural gas (called 'bio-SNG' or 'greengas' in Europe).

Renewable biogas is then purified and upgraded to pipeline quality and can be blended with natural gas in existing pipelines. This is done in Europe on an increasingly large scale. In the U.S., the first such project was announced only recently (previous post).

According to energy experts, the highly efficient gaseous biofuel holds a large potential across the world. In Europe, a comprehensive study showed that biogas can replace all of the continent's Russian gas imports by 2020. The EU could generate around 500 million cubic meters of biogas per year, sustainably. Estimates of the potential for China and the U.S. are even larger (previous post). PG&E is aware of this potential.
There is a tremendous opportunity in California to utilize biomass, which would otherwise go unused, to contribute significantly to meeting the state's climate goals. With this request for information, we hope to identify promising biomethanation technologies and understand what the market needs for support. Biomethanation is the latest example of how PG&E is planning for the future by exploring innovative technologies to produce and deliver clean energy. - Fong Wan, vice president of Energy Procurement for PG&E
California and the western region of North America contain large quantities of biomass, which could meaningfully contribute toward the state's renewable energy requirements while simultaneously providing other benefits, including greenhouse gas emission reduction, fire prevention, improved local air quality and landfill disposal reduction.

Emerging biomethanation technologies and processes may increase conversion efficiency, expand the range of usable feedstock, and improve the quality of biomethane products. To accelerate the commercial availability of these emerging biomethanation technologies, PG&E is seeking partners to develop and operate a facility that will demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of emerging technologies for developing significant quantities of biomethane:
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Through the proposed biomethanation demonstration project, PG&E intends to promote viable biomethanation technologies that convert CEC-approved sources of biomass into biomethane that could be injected into PG&E's gas transmission system and delivered for high-value uses such as dispatchable power generation.

PG&E will hold a networking forum on March 5 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at its San Francisco headquarters to answer questions about the RFI and provide an opportunity for potential project partners to meet. Parties interested in attending the forum must register online by February 22, 2008, here [*.pdf]. For more information about the RFI, or to participate in PG&E's online biomethanation RFI forum, please visit: www.pge.com/rfi.

PG&E is a leader in utilizing biomethane. The utility recently received approval by the California Public Utilities Commission of its gas purchase agreements with Microgy, Inc. and with BioEnergy Solutions to deliver up to 8,000 MMBtu per day each of pipeline quality biomethane captured from cow manure.

PG&E currently supplies 12 percent of its power from qualifying renewable sources under California's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) program. PG&E continues to aggressively add renewable electric power resources to its supply and is on target to exceed 20 percent under contract or delivered by 2010. On average, more than 50 percent of the energy PG&E delivers to its customers comes from generating sources that emit no carbon dioxide, providing among the cleanest energy in the nation.

References:
PG&E: Pacific Gas and Electric Company Seeks to Research Biomethane Resources for its Customers - January 24, 2008.

PG&E: biomethanation forum.

Biopact: Germany considers opening natural gas network to biogas - major boost to sector - August 11, 2007

Biopact: Market study tracks global boom in biogas, Germany technology leader - July 13, 2007

Biopact: Report: biogas can replace all EU natural gas imports - January 04, 2008

Biopact: A first for the U.S.: company feeds biomethane into natural gas pipeline - January 22, 2008

Biopact: EU research project looks at feeding biogas into the main natural gas grid - April 08, 2007

Biopact: Schmack Biogas and E.ON to build Europe's largest biogas plant, will feed gas into natural gas grid - July 18, 2007


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