Tag Archives: US biofuel targets

U.S. Soybean farmers windfall as biofuel demand increases

March 30, 2011   Karl   No comments

Soybean prices rocket

An updated, independent study funded by the United Soybean Board (USB) and soybean checkoff shows production of biodiesel continues to positively impact U.S. soybean farmers’ on-farm profitability as well as the bottom lines of poultry and livestock farmers.

According to the study, the biodiesel industry’s demand for U.S. soybean oil supported U.S. soybean prices by as much as 27 cents per bushel over the past five years, bringing U.S. soybean farmers an additional $2.7 billion in net returns.

The study also found good news for the U.S. soybean industry’s biggest customer, the U.S. animal agriculture sector, which uses nearly 98 percent of the domestic supply of U.S. soybean meal. The increased demand for soybean oil resulted in a larger supply of U.S. soybean meal, decreasing feed prices paid by U.S. poultry, livestock and fish farmers by between $16 and $48 per ton in marketing years 2005-2009.

“As a soybean farmer, I’m thrilled to see that biodiesel puts this much extra money back in our pockets,” says Jim Schriver, chair of USB’s Domestic Marketing program and a soybean farmer from Montpelier, Ind. “But the study also shows that biodiesel helps us support our best customers by making feed more affordable. Lower feed prices help U.S. animal farmers stay competitive.”

Soybean oil remains the dominant feedstock for biodiesel production, and the soybean checkoff funds a large portion of the research and promotion of biodiesel through the National Biodiesel Board. Much of this funding has been used on testing to prove biodiesel’s performance, economic and environmental benefits.

Biodiesel improves fuel lubricity by 66 percent compared with petroleum diesel and performs similarly to petroleum diesel in terms of torque, horsepower, haulage rates and fuel mileage. Additionally, biodiesel bolsters the U.S. economy, supporting more than 20,000 jobs and generating more than $800 million in tax revenue as recently as 2009. And biodiesel can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 75 percent, which helps fight global warming.

These environmental benefits helped biodiesel qualify as the United States’ first domestically produced advanced biofuel under the revised federal Renewable Fuel Standard. This requirement calls for the use of at least 800 million gallons of biodiesel this year and at least 1 billion gallons per year in 2012 and beyond.

The increased biodiesel production needed to meet this demand will be important. In 2006, the federal government required food containing trans fat to be labeled. Partially hydrogenated soybean oil creates trans fat, and the study shows biodiesel demand helped mask U.S. soybean oil demand losses after some food manufacturers switched to other oils to avoid trans-fat labeling. These declines in demand could continue over the next couple years.

Centrec Consulting Group, LLC, conducted the study with funding from USB’s Domestic Marketing program. A summary of the study can be found on the soybean checkoff website at www.unitedsoybean.org.

USB is made up of 69 farmer-directors who oversee the investments of the soybean checkoff on behalf of all U.S. soybean farmers. Checkoff funds are invested in the areas of animal utilization, human utilization, industrial utilization, industry relations, market access and supply. As stipulated in the Soybean Promotion, Research and Consumer Information Act, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has oversight responsibilities for USB and the soybean checkoff.

For more information on the United Soybean Board, visit us at www.unitedsoybean.org

Read More

US lacks the infrastructure to consume more bioethanol

January 04, 2011   Karl   No comments
Biofuel pump

Purdue University study shows that the US lacks infrastructure to consume more bioethanol

Purdue University study suggests that the United States doesn’t have the infrastructure to meet the federal mandate for renewable fuel use with bioethanol, howver they could meet the standard with significant increases in  next-generation and cellulosicbiofuels. Their findings were published in the December issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

The team used U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency data to determine that the United States is at the “blending wall,” the saturation point for ethanol use. Without new technology or a significant increase in infrastructure,they  predict that the country will not be able to consume more ethanol than is being currently produced.

The federal Renewable Fuel Standard requires an increase of renewable fuel production to 36 billion gallons PA by 2022. 13 billion gallons of renewable fuel was required for 2010, the same amount Tyner predicts is the threshold for U.S. infrastructure and consumption ability.

“There simply aren’t enough flex-fuel vehicles, which use an 85 percent ethanol blend, or E85 stations to distribute more biofuels. According to EPA estimates, flex-fuel vehicles make up 7.3 million of the 240 million vehicles on the nation’s roads. Of those, about 3 million of flex-fuel vehicle owners aren’t even aware they can use E85 fuel.”

There are only about two thousand E85 bioethanol pumps in the US, and it took more than 20 years to install them.

“Even if you could produce a whole bunch of E85, there is no way to distribute it,” Tyner said. “We would need to install about 2,000 pumps per year through 2022 to do it. You’re not going to go from 100 per year to 2,000 per year overnight. It’s just not going to happen.”

And even if the fuel could be distributed, E85 would have to be substantially cheaper than gasoline to entice consumers to use it because E85 gets lower mileage, Tyner said. If gasoline were $3 per gallon, E85 would have to be $2.34 per gallon to break even on mileage.

There is talk of increasing the maximum amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline for regular vehicles from 10 percent to 15 percent. But Tyner said that even if the EPA does allow it, the blending wall would be reached again in about four years.

“The advances in the production of thermo-chemical biofuels, which are created by using heat to chemically alter biomass and create fuels, would be necessary to meet the Renewable Fuel Standard. He said those fuels would be similar enough to gasoline to allow unlimited blending and would increase the amount of biofuel that could be used”

“Producing the hydrocarbons directly doesn’t have the infrastructure problems of ethanol, and there is no blend wall because you’re producing gasoline,” Tyner said. “If that comes on and works, then we get there. There is significant potential to produce drop-in hydrocarbons from cellulosic feedstocks.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the research.

Via businessgreen.com

Read More

US ethanol production reaches record high

November 05, 2010   Karl
Biofuel made in the USA

US ethanol production reaches record high

Information from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that US ethanol production rose in August to an all-time high. August 2010 ethanol production averaged more than 869,000 barrels a day (bpd), up from 857,000 bpd in July.

Ethanol demand, as calculated by the RFA, also reached an all-time high as well at 911,000 bpd in August, up from 734,000 bpd a year ago. EIA also reported fuel ethanol imports of 420,000 gallons in April.
EIA data indicated that US biofuel producers exported 29.6 million gallons of ethanol (both denatured and undenatured, non-beverage alcohol) in August, up 18% from July. Year-to-date ethanol exports stand at 212 million gallons, nearly double the amount of total exports in 2009.
Total exports in August were the third highest of the year, trailing only March and April. The US remains on pace to export more than 300 million gallons of ethanol in 2010, equivalent to roughly 2.5% of expected domestic production.
In particular, exports of un-denatured, non-beverage ethanol surged in August, jumping by 360% from July. Exports of un-denatured, non-beverage product totaled 12.5 million gallons. The Netherlands, Philippines, Mexico, and Brazil, in that order, were top export markets for un-denatured ethanol.

Read More

US navy completes successful test on boat powered by algae biofuels

October 28, 2010   Karl

A machine producing biodiesel from algae, a fuel type used to successfully power a US gunboat for the first time. Photograph: Ashley Cooper/ Ashley Cooper/Corbis

American navy sails towards sustainability with biofuel-powered gunboat

It looked like a pretty ordinary day on the water at the US naval base in Norfolk, Virginia: a few short bursts of speed, a nice tail wind, some test manoeuvres against an enemy boat.

But the 49ft gunboat had algae-based fuel in the tank in a test hailed by the navy yesterday as a milestone in its creation of a new, energy-saving strike force.

The experimental boat, intended for use in rivers and marshes and eventually destined for oil installations in the Middle East, operated on a 50/50 mix of algae-based fuel and diesel. “It ran just fine,” said Rear Admiral Philip Cullom, who directs the navy’s sustainability division.

The tests, conducted on Friday, are part of a broader drive within the navy to run 50% of its fleet on a mix of renewable fuels and nuclear power by 2020. The navy currently meets about 16% of its energy and fuel needs from nuclear power, with the rest from conventional sources.

Read More

Surging price of oil forces US military to seek alternative energy sources

October 28, 2010   Karl

US Marines south of Baghdad in April 2003. The US military used an estimated 800,000 barrels a day during the conflict. Photograph: Wally Santana/AP

Fiscal reality is dawning as US jets and warships trial alternative fuels in bid to end military’s costly dependence on oil.

It’s a secret just how much oil the US military uses, but estimates range from around 400,000 barrels a day in peacetime – almost as much as Greece – to 800,000 barrels a day at the height of the Iraq war.This puts a single nation’s armed forces near Australia as an oil consumer and among the top 25 countries in the world today.

Either way it is by far the world’s largest single buyer of oil and the last thing any admiral, general or under secretary of defence has had to be been concerned about is whether there’s gas in the tanks or that the navy’s carbon emissions are a bit extravagant.

But there are signs of change. Every $10 rise in the price of oil costs the gas-guzzling US air force around an extra $600m each year. Just keeping one US soldier in Afghanistan with the world price of oil at $80 a barrel now costs hundreds of dollars a day in fuel alone. And because the US as a country imports more than $300bn worth of oil a year, fiscal reality is dawning. The US military spent around $8bn in 2004 on fuel, and probably twice that last year. Surging world fuel prices are likely to put the brakes on the US oil war machine as much as political opposition.

Read More

Hardest part of reaching biofuel goal awaits

October 03, 2010   Karl
biofuel sticker

halfway to achieving its goal of 36 billion gallons of renewable transportation fuel

The United States is roughly halfway to achieving its goal of 36 billion gallons of renewable transportation fuel by the year 2022, but the last half likely will be harder, and probably more expensive, than the first.

John Whitaker, Iowa executive director for Farm Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told a symposium last week that as many as 527 new biofuel plants will be needed, in addition to the 171 ethanol plants now working, to meet the mandate.

The cost: $168 billion.

“Corn ethanol has gotten consumers to accept ethanol as a fuel,” Whitaker said. But he noted that the congressionally imposed mandate sets a 16 billion-gallon limit on ethanol’s contribution to biofuels. The rest has to come from other sources such as switchgrass and miscanthus, algae, wood biomass and electrification.

Robert Brown, who directs biofuels research at Iowa State University, observed that Iowa and other corn states contributed to the big surge in ethanol production in the last decade without major technological breakthroughs.

Read More

  • Navigation


  • BioFuel Tweets!