Shell goes carbon negative, signs commercial-scale deal with SBI

If you think about it, the world of combustion engines could really use a carbon-negative story that goes father than electric cars and their entirely mythic but potent “zero emissions” storyline.

Shell might have just won that race.

Yep, they’re going carbon negative. Petroleum fuels emit 94 grams of CO2 per megajoule of energy. Shell’s latest deal with SBI Bioenergy gives it access to a fuel that emits Minus 14.

That means the atmosphere gets less carbon, with every mile you drive. You motor your way to a global emissions solution.

And, offering something that electric vehicles never will — a technology that claws us back from the carbon precipice instead of a technology class that lets us dangle there forever.

The Simple Reason Why Renewables are Surging (It’s Not the Government)

June 21, 2017 - After last year’s election, a number of pundits had predicted that a Trump victory would usher in a new age for coal and crude oil in the U.S.

Renewables, like solar and wind, would be used as alternatives only in certain regions of the country – or so these pundits suggested.

Well, it’ hardly worked out that way, even with the more recent decision to cut the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord.

Renewables are soldiering on, and the reason is simple (and market-based)…

June 15, 2017 - Biofuel makers hope for increase in mandate

Canadian biofuel producers are already gearing up for what they believe will be a doubling of the country’s ethanol and biodiesel mandates in the near future.

Environment and Climate Change Canada is consulting with provinces and territories about developing a clean fuel standard to reduce greenhouse gases by increasing the use of low carbon fuels.

It has prepared a discussion paper that outlines how the standard would address a range of fuels including liquid, gaseous and solid fuels. It would go beyond transportation fuels and include fuels used in industry, homes and buildings.

The objective of the standard is to achieve 30 megatonnes (Mt) of annual reductions in GHG emissions by 2030.

June 20, 2017 - Corn better used as food than biofuel, study finds

Corn is grown not only for food, it is also an important renewable energy source. Renewable biofuels can come with hidden economic and environmental issues, and the question of whether corn is better utilized as food or as a biofuel has persisted since ethanol came into use. For the first time, researchers at the University of Illinois have quantified and compared these issues in terms of economics of the entire production system to determine if the benefits of biofuel corn outweigh the costs.

Civil and environmental engineering professor Praveen Kumar and graduate student Meredith Richardson published their findings in the journal Earth's Future.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-corn-food-biofuel.html#jCp

LCFS vs RFS: As two contend for the Renewables Heavyweight Championship, who is the Greatest?

There are 4 primary differences.

1. An RFS creates a standard, and any fuel that meets that standard can compete in that market. Once a fuel has met the low-carbon standard, it becomes entirely about fuel price — a $3.00 cellulosic fuel that reduces carbon by 60% will get market share over a $3.10 cellulosic fuel that reduces carbon by 100%, because both fuels meet the cellulosic standard. In an LCFS, all fuels get credited according to the carbon reductions of their pathway. So, there are no “motivational dead zones” when it comes to pushing harder on reducing carbon

2. An LCFS sets carbon volumes, not fuel volumes. Under an LCFS....

20 oil? $200 oil? Does it matter?

For the world of renewable fuels — the only significant carbon legislation on the books, it really doesn’t matter what the oil price is. The RFS creates a separate market for renewable fuels and they compete against each other as alternatives within that market.

It’s not unheard of. California, for example, has a separate market, anyway, because of the requirement to produce reformulated gasoline, a unique type of anti-smog fuel. To use another example, Colorado and Wyoming utilize 85-octane regular unleaded fuel, instead of 87-octane as we see elsewhere around the country. There are distinct fuels markets for different reasons, and the renewable fuels market is one of them.

Grassley to Reintroduce Biodiesel Tax Credit Bill

A biodiesel tax credit bill is being reintroduced in the Senate today. The prime sponsor is Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. He says the measure changes the tax incentive from a blenders credit to a producer’s credit.

He says his legislation will keep foreign biodiesel producers from accessing the U.S. credit.

Grassley says biodiesel benefits the U.S. economy, while protecting the environment.

Grassley’s legislation comes on the heels of the U.S. biodiesel industry challenging Argentina and Indonesia for flooding the U.S. market with their biodiesel.

Great Leaf Forward: The Top 10 Trends driving the Canadian advanced bioeconomy

Although the bigger players — China, the US, Brazil and the EU take most of the headlines in the advanced bioeconomy, Canada is definitely “boxing above its weight class” these days, as the saying goes. In particular, in the areas of innovative project deployment and policy support, Canada has been shining, and in many ways the causes for that are linked.

The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to renewable drop-in fuels

The Digest had a well-received webinar on drop-in renewable fuels, featuring Drop-in Fuels 2020 author and in-demand industry consultant Will Thurmond on hand to detail the very latest in a wide array of approaches to making infrastructure-compatible, high-blend renewable fuels — from renewable diesel to renewable jet and biogasoline. The slides from that presentation are here below.

Air Canada takes off with biofuels tests

In Canada, Air Canada just revealed its participation in the Civil Aviation Alternate Fuel Contrail and Emissions Research project, a research project led by the National Research Council of Canada to test the environmental benefits of biofuel use on contrails.

A reduction in the thickness and coverage of contrails produced by the jet engines of aircraft could reduce aviation’s impact on the environment, an important beneficial effect of sustainable biofuel usage in aviation.

Countries doing the most (and least) to protect the environment - #1 Most - Finland

Finland passed in 2014 a visioning document that sets carbon-neutrality as a goal by 2050. The Nordic country is well on its way. Approximately 24% of all energy consumed in Finland is from alternative or nuclear sources, one of the largest shares of any country and not far from the nation’s goal of 38% by 2020. Clean energy has a positive effect on both the health of the planet and its citizens. An estimated 3.5 billion people worldwide are exposed to unsafe air quality, which was responsible for one in every 10 global deaths in 2013. In Finland, just 0.1% of the population is exposed to unsafe air pollution annually, nearly the least of any country world-wide.

Convert low-value biomass into a high-value liquid asset with RTP™ Technology

Envergent Technologies, a UOP joint venture with Ensyn, offers a practical and commercially proven path to green energy. RTP™, or rapid thermal processing technology, is a fast thermal conversion process used to convert cellulosic biomass feedstock, usually forestry or agricultural residuals, into RTP green fuel—a light, pourable, clean-burning liquid biofuel.

This fuel provides a sustainable, cost-effective and virtually carbon-neutral alternative for heat, power generation and, with further refining, transportation fuels.

Diamond Green Diesel expanding to 275M gallon capacity to meet booming renewable diesel demand

March 19, 2017 - In Louisiana, the Diamond Green Diesel facility in Norco will expand its annual production capacity of renewable diesel from 10,000 barrels per day to 18,000 bpd (275 million gallons per year), using Honeywell UOP’s Ecofining process technology.

US biomass-based diesel imports break new record in 2016, EIA states

March 22, 2017 - US imports of biomass-based diesel, which include biodiesel and renewable diesel, increased by 65% in 2016 to reach a record level of 916 million gallons, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Increasing Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) targets and the recently expired biodiesel blender’s tax credit were strong drivers of biomass-based diesel demand in 2016, incentivising increased levels of imports of both biodiesel and renewable diesel.

Diamond Green Diesel to expand renewable fuel capacity using Ecofining technology from Honeywell

March 20, 2017 - Petrochemical specialist Honeywell UOP announced that the Diamond Green Diesel facility in Norco, Louisiana, US, will expand its annual production capacity of renewable diesel from 10,000 barrels per day to 18,000 bpd, using Honeywell UOP’s Ecofining process technology.

Diamond Green Diesel, which is owned by Valero Energy Corp. and Darling Ingredients., is the largest commercial advanced biofuel facility in the US, according to Honeywell. The company plans to complete the expansion in the second quarter of 2018.

“The expansion of the Diamond Green Diesel facility is a testament to the viability and growth potential of renewable fuels,” said Dave Cepla, senior director of Honeywell UOP’s Renewable Energy and Chemicals business.

Big Bird, You’re Fired! And all of you enviros, too! Trump thumps, dumps in new budget

Good-bye ARPA-E, DOE, Loan Guarantee program, Energy Star, OPIC, USTDA, NEA, and the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program. Even Big Bird gets the guillotine.

In Washington, the White House released its budget requests for 2018, a high-level, 62-page overview of President Trump’s strategy for “Making America Great Again”.

Branstad shoots down rumored anti-ethanol backroom deal

March 6, 2017 - Iowa Governor Terry Branstad said Monday he is aware of reports of a backroom deal in the Washington, D.C., that would hurt Iowa's renewable fuels industry, but has been assured President Donald Trump's administration will support producers of ethanol and biodiesel fuels.

Hedge funds wrong-footed in ags by Trump biofuels shake-up talk

...the selling came ahead of a firm finish to the week for agricultural commodities, spurred largely by talk that Mr Trump was to introduce US biofuels reforms likely to spur demand for both ethanol, processed largely from corn, and biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oils such as soyoil.

Beating Nature at Its Own Game

The sun was out in full force the fall morning I arrived at Caltech to visit Professor Nate Lewis’s research laboratory. Temperatures in southern California had soared to 20 degrees above normal, prompting the National Weather Service to issue warnings for extreme fire danger and heat-related illnesses.

The weather was a fitting introduction to what I had come to see inside Nate’s lab—how we might be able to tap the sun’s tremendous energy to make fuels to power cars, trucks, ships, and airplanes.

California Is Smiling On Renewable Diesel HPR Fuel

California, the world’s seventh-largest economy, de facto air quality rulemaking body inciting automakers to make electric cars just for it is smiling on a fuel called Diesel HPR.

Not to be confused with biodiesel which Propel also sells, Diesel HPR is the first highly concentrated North American offering of a Finnish-originated product called NExBTL.

The non-petroleum-derived fuel works in all modern diesel engines, works better in fact, and is cost competitive within the span of higher-priced biodiesel and lower-priced regular ultra low sulfur diesel.