Jerusalem Post:
Most people think of sugar in terms of coffee and calories, but today sugar is a widely traded commodity with an average daily trading volume of 125,851 contracts and a value of $1.94 billion, making it one of the most widely traded agricultural commodities in the world.

Aside from being a food additive, it has major industrial usage as a fuel additive in the production of ethanol, which has had a strong effect on the prices of sugar over the past year.

The price volatility of sugar has been enormous. Futures contracts for sugar (#11, also known as the price for World Sugar) started the year at $11.57/lb. In little more than two months the price increased more than 33 percent, peaking at a high of $15.42/lb on March 3rd. Since then, the price has fallen by more then 29%, just to climb up again, than it fell by another 13.6%… and so the story continues, with current sugar prices about 20% higher than year-to-date.

What has caused these price fluctuations? Many people would jump at supply and demand fundamentals, citing asserting that demand has outstripped supply, but this is simply not true, as sugar production has outpaced consumption over the last couple of years.

This is an indication that the price volatility is more a reflection of the activity of financial speculation, particularly in the realm of managed investments, rather than changes in the underlying fundamentals.

Also, the price of oil recently peaked at $147.27/barrel (representing a 59% increase since the beginning of the year), pushing transportation costs north and leading to higher food prices for the end consumer. Read full article.

“My reading is that we have a very strong case and so there is a good chance we will challenge,” Amorim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro.

Exporters see the import tariff of 54 cents per gallon as an obstacle to shipments of sugar-cane-based ethanol to the United States, which has been developing its own ethanol market based on corn.

Brazil’s Sugar Cane Industry Association hired lawyers to study the compatibility between the U.S. tariff and WTO rules. The collapse of the Doha Round of world trade talks in July made litigation against the United States more likely.

Amorim said the case could be presented in the next one or two months, depending on final consultations with producers and the government’s lawyers.

The U.S. ethanol produced from maize is far more expensive than Brazil’s ethanol derived from sugar cane.

According to sources at PickupTrucks.com, the Bobcat is essentially a turbocharged engine running at a high compression ratio. Typically, this combination results in disaster, but Ford’s system has a trick up its sleeve in the form of ethanol injection.

The Bobcat builds on Ford’s Ecoboost engines by including a direct injected ethanol nozzle that adds small amounts of ethanol to the standard port injected air/fuel mixture. The ethanol cools the combustion chamber to prevent premature detonation, allowing the turbocharged engine to run extreme compression ratios.

The system promises 5 to 10 percent greater fuel economy than EcoBoost engines, which already promise a 20 percent increase over Ford’s traditional engines. Turbodiesel enthusiasts already know that high compression plus a turbo equals gobs of torque, which is why the Bobcat is speculated to be a potential replacement to A 5.0-liter turbo V-8 with ethanol boost could be rated at 500 horsepower and 700 pounds-feet of torque.

With the system’s lower entry cost combined with gasoline’s consistently lower cost per gallon, this system could be a viable alternative to diesel engines in the big trucks of the future.

Photo: PickupTrucks.

The idea is to transform urban green waste headed for landfills into ethanol through a process that generates little pollution. Ethanol can be either blended with regular gasoline as a clean-fuel additive or used to create E85 gas for so-called flex-fueled cars. (E85 is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.)

Irvine-based BlueFire Ethanol has already received a permit to build a $30million ethanol plant near a landfill in Lancaster. Once the plant is operating next year, it will take in green municipal wastes, such as non-recyclable paper, grass clippings, wood chips, construction debris and straw, and process it into ethanol.

Arnold Klann, BlueFire’s chief executive officer, said the plant would process a batch of urban green waste into ethanol in only 18 hours. For each ton of waste that is fed into the plant, 70 gallons of ethanol are produced - at an operational cost of under $1 a gallon. The plant won’t be a strain on drought-plagued Southern California’s water resources either because it will use reclaimed water.

Klann hopes to build such plants in other locations in Southern California, possibly in the L.A. basin. Such plants would allow the state to be less dependent on the Midwest for ethanol imports. This would also reduce associated ethanol transportation costs, which in turn would reduce greenhouse gases. And the operation of ethanol plants would further reduce the production of these gases because less green debris would end up in landfills, which are major generators of methane gas.

There are other side benefits here.

Green Energy Resources says it will take up to 10 million tons of hurricane storm wood in 2008, if it becomes available. The company is asking for the public’s assistance to help procure the wood from FEMA and the Gulf States through the purchase of Green Energy Resources carbon offset credits.

Green Energy Resources is a global supplier of wood fiber fuels to the power generation industry. Wood biomass has multiple applications including ethanol production, co-firing with coal, direct burn and gasification.

The stock of the parent company, Denver-based BioFuel Energy Corp., soared 16 percent on the news. BioFuel shares on Friday closed at $1.44 a share, up 20 cents. The stock sold at $6.98 at the start of this year.

In a government filing Friday, BioFuel revealed it had lost $39 million on hedging and related financial agreements with Minnetonka-based Cargill, Inc.

“Cargill has not yet been paid for approximately $22 million of these amounts,” BioFuel said in a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The parent company currently does not have sufficient liquidity to retire these obligations,” said BioFuel, whose subsidiaries
operate the Fairmont ethanol plant and another in Wood River, Neb.

“The operating subsidiaries have received approximately $25 million of parent company corn inventory that it has not been reimbursed for,” the company disclosed.

BioFuel said talks with Cargill aim to find a solution to the problem. “However, there can be no assurances that these efforts will prove successful,” it said.

BioFuel is not the only company to face disappointment in making ethanol, once thought to be a golden product for investors. More.

Schafer made the remarks as the show, held for the first time at its permanent Iowa location, began to wrap up on its final day. Considered the largest outdoor farm show in America, the event moves to Decatur, Ill. next year.

Schafer said the federal mandate to have a minimum amount of renewable fuel in the nation’s auto fuel is a conscious decision to begin moving towards a new way of providing energy through renewable fuels.

“This system does affect food and livestock, but it’s become apparent that the RFS is moving this country in the right direction,” he said. “Global demand for food is impacting food prices much more than ethanol is.”

The RFS is a mandate that requires at least 9 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2008 and 11 billion gallons in 2009 in the nation’s automobile fuel supply. The request to cut the mandate by half came from Texas Gov. Rick Perry earlier in the year. Perry claimed ethanol was driving corn prices higher and thus, causing food and livestock feed prices to go higher as well.

Schafer said the EPA rejected that argument based in part on the cost vs. savings analysis. He says Perry claimed that higher food and feed prices caused $1.2 billion in economic damage to Texas’ livestock industry. But the U.S. Energy Department determined that Texas motorists saved 25 to 30 cents per gallon for gasoline as a result of ethanol stretching fuel supplies – resulting in a $4 billion savings to Texas drivers.

We’re not talking about E85 here either; apparently, it’s the much more common (and in some places ubiquitous) E10 blend, which is 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline, that technicians are blaming for gummed-up carburetors, internal rust and lubrication issues.

Of course, ethanol trade groups are claiming their extensive testing showed no adverse effects from running E10 in small gas engines. But the mechanics’ descriptions of what they’re seeing, coupled with the known properties of ethanol, make for a compelling argument.

Since ethanol combines readily with water, gasoline containing ethanol easily transports that suspended water into the engine. Once inside, the water can gum up carburetors and cause rust on key components, leading to rapid wear and eventual breakdown.

Read more.

The Iowa Attorney General’s office filed a state consumer-protection lawsuit Aug. 13, charging Jerry Fratzke, owner of Pronto Market gas stations in Sumner and Fairbank, Iowa, of “improperly and fraudulently” selling E85 as regular unleaded gasoline or E10 to his customers. A temporary restraining order was filed and granted preventing Fratzke from selling E85. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22.

An affidavit signed by Lisa Kurt, weights and measures inspector for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and filed with the Blackhawk County District Court, states that during the process of her normal duties, she discovered eight invoices showing that E85, E75 and other blends of ethanol had been delivered from Jesup, Iowa-based bulk fuel distributor Consolidated Energy Co. to the Pronto Market stores. It was noted that neither location had underground storage tanks or pumps for E85. Kurt then took fuel samples from the underground tanks at each location to determine the ethanol content. Testing conducting by Magellan Midstream Partners LP concluded that the fuel in each tank contained levels of ethanol greater than 10 percent. Article continues here.

ALL has established a novel partnership with distributors and should invest 104 million Brazilian reais (US$ 64 million) in systems for collecting and distributing ethanol to the market in the state of São Paulo.

The partnership contemplates installation of 11 points for cargo centralization (loading centers) at strategic points in the main producer regions of the state of São Paulo, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, as well as a structure for railway unloading at Planalto Paulista Refinery (Replan), in the city of Paulínia, in the interior of São Paulo state.

According to ALL, the operation marks the start of cargo transport on the old Brazil Railways lines, purchased by the company in 2006, and covering three concessions, Ferroban, Ferronorte and Novoeste.

In 2009, the railway should move 1 million cubic meters of alcohol towards the market in São Paulo and surrounding region, and the total may rise to 2 million a year by 2010. The operation counts on 250 new tanker wagons each with a 103 cubic-meter fuel capacity to be used to collect the product in the interior of the states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. Read more.

In turn, however, many of Bruce Dale’s own statements deserve scrutiny. We will take a look at several of them.

Some critics of ethanol argue that even if all our farmlands are used to produce corn for ethanol, we will replace only about 10 percent of our fuel consumption. His response: “but 10 percent is huge.”

If we are worried about food used as fuel, we need not be. “Very little U.S. corn (about 10 percent) is fed directly to people.” But 10 percent cannot be “huge” and “very little” at the same time. Using absolute numbers does not help either. In 2007, 10percent of our oil consumption came to 6.8 million barrels and 10percent of our corn production came to 1.3 billion bushels. Why is 6.8 million “huge” and 1.3 billion “very little?”

He says, “in regard to the subsidies, the ethanol blenders’ credit of 51 cents per gallon cost tax payers about $3 billion last year, but it reduced price crop supports by about $6 billion and our oil import bill by another $15 billion. Some of that $15 billion for oil would surely end up in the bank accounts of America’s enemies.”

There is a lot going on here. We reduced our import bill by $15 billion. But the oil import bill went up by $13.5 billion, adjusting for inflation.

We socked it to our enemies. Who? He names no one. If Dale can’t name who was injured, how does he know we didn’t harm friendly nations?

If ethanol production is such a potent weapon against our enemies, perhaps we should remove our troops from Afghanistan and redeploy them in Iowa to produce more corn for ethanol.

He concludes that ethanol subsidies save us money by lowering farm subsidies. However, as corn prices go up or down farm subsidies vary inversely. Therefore, whatever caused the price of corn to increase caused the farm subsidies to go down. If ethanol caused farm prices to increase, then ethanol caused the farm subsidies to go down.

The nearly $1 million will go toward planting trees at various locations across the state.

The modified trees produce more sugar, which is the part of the tree that can produce ethanol.

NC State’s Principal Investigator for the project Hasan Jameel says now is the time to use trees this way.

“It probably wouldn’t make sense that you could make trees into ethanol at a dollar a gallon of gas. But once you start getting around three, four dollars a gallon, it becomes possible to do it.”

It will take five to ten years before the trees can be harvested. But Jameel says the genetic modification allowing them to produce more ethanol also makes them grow faster.

Ethanol breaks down natural rubber and corrodes aluminum - two materials that can be used to create hoses and gas tanks.
Don’t get too worried yet.

When it comes to fuel options there are two different types of cars.

The first type of car is the run-of-the-mill vehicle. These should run on no more than a 10 or 15 percent mix of ethanol into gasoline.

According to Boise State Building Facility Specialist Pat Carlson, there should be no problems with rubber or aluminum at this ratio because manufacturers began designing cars in 1979 to run on a 90/10 mixture of gasoline/ethanol.

The other type is a flex fuel car. A flex fuel car is designed to take a mixture of up to 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. This is called E85.

“When you have a vehicle that runs E85 it can have varying amounts,” Carlson said. “You can run gasoline in that car as well as E85.”

Ethanol, in essence, is whiskey. The only difference is it’s distilled for longer. Since sugar is needed for this process to work, anything with high sugar content can be used to make ethanol.

“Ethanol is made from organic material … you can make it from corn,” Carlson said. “That’s what the biggest thing right now is.”

This “big thing” could change soon. Carlson said the weed known as “switch grass,” which has high sugar content, is now in the research stage to see if it can be used to make ethanol.

And that’s not all. General Motors and the University of Illinois are experimenting with turning garbage into ethanol, Carlson said.

One advantage to mixing ethanol with gasoline is reduced gas prices at the pump.
However, the government Website fueleconomy.gov compares the prices of gasoline versus an E85 mixture on certain flex fuel vehicles. It shows that more money is spent on E85 in a year than on gasoline.

Ethanol does not have as much power per ounce as gasoline does, according to Carlson. Mileage can drop as a result, causing the need to buy more E85 mixture than gasoline. Continued…

Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, said that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium.

“Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce,” Ozkan said. “Our catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram.”

She and her co-workers presented the research Wednesday, August 20 at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia.

The Ohio State catalyst could help make the use of hydrogen-powered cars more practical in the future, she said.

“There are many practical issues that need to be resolved before we can use hydrogen as fuel — how to make it, how to transport it, how to create the infrastructure for people to fill their cars with it,” Ozkan explained.

“Our research lends itself to what’s called a ‘distributed production’ strategy. Instead of making hydrogen from biofuel at a centralized facility and transporting it to gas stations, we could use our catalyst inside reactors that are actually located at the gas stations. So we wouldn’t have to transport or store the hydrogen — we could store the biofuel, and make hydrogen on the spot.”

The catalyst is inexpensive to make and to use compared to others under investigation worldwide. Those others are often made from precious metals, or only work at very high temperatures.

Read full article.

Etanol de Costa Rica SA says the plant would produce about 132 million gallons (500 million liters) of ethanol a year, refining ethanol imported from Brazil. Spokesman Fabio Chazyn says the fuel would be sold to the U.S. through Caribbean duty-free concessions not available to Brazil.

Planning officials are reviewing the proposal. Chazyn said Monday that if approved, construction could start in about five months.

Other Brazilian energy companies are investing in the Caribbean. Infinity Bio-Energy is boosting its ethanol production with help from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.

The funding goes along with millions that private investors are spending to find ways to cut the nation’s dependence on oil.

The future of alternative energy appears to be rich, whether it is the potential of new biofuels, citrus peel or farm waste products to supply new energy sources.

At a recent conference in Florida, green entrepreneurs met with researchers and farmers to plot the industry’s future. Scores of research firms are developing conversion methods to process a variety of raw materials into ethanol. Farmers are finding ways to turn long overlooked products, like livestock manure and non-food crops, into fuel supplies.

Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told delegates that green energy is creating great new opportunities for the U.S. economy, especially in the farming sector.

‘There is no turning back from a future in which more of our energy resources are grown and harvested in a sensible way,’ he said. ‘That means agriculture is going to be right in the middle of the game.’

Schafer said, under a newly approved farm bill, officials plan to spend $600 million over the next five years to develop and implement new energy technologies, including biofuel crops. That comes in addition to $35 million already being spent.

Green entrepreneurs say federal support is crucial to propel development of advanced technologies that are needed for new energy solutions. Federal loans also are an important tool to give nascent projects the chance to develop into successful businesses.

Ron Coles, manager of communications and public relations for Atlantec BioEnergy, said farmers across the province this summer planted 550 acres of beets to be used as a demonstration and in the company’s research.

“The main focus was to get a demonstration to Nova Scotia farmers.”

As part of the project, Atlantec BioEnergy held a series of farm tours throughout the province so people could see the beets in farmers’ fields.

Now the company is bringing the tour to Cumberland County farmer Doug Bacon’s sugary crop.

Coles said the company learned a lot from the first crop and added there is a lot of potential for growth in Nova Scotia.

“We see a lot of opportunity with the land that’s available.”

Bacon, the farmer contracted to grow energy beets in Cumberland County, said bad weather in the spring meant they were a little late getting the beets into the ground on his farm.

“I think it will be interesting to see how they turn out,” he said.

With about 20 acres of energy beets growing in his field as part of the test run, Bacon said he could see committing a few hundred acres to them in the future as part of his crop rotation, if they turn out to be profitable.

“It’s another opportunity to the farmer.”

As Bacon lifted heavy leaves to show the top of a beet too big for him to wrap his hands around, he said it is important for farmers to be diverse and added he thinks they need to be a little adventurous.

“I think it’s exciting.”

Read full article.

This became evident locally when the Yuma County Farm Bureau decided to consider a proposal urging changes in federal policies about ethanol. Currently, the policies provide subsidies for ethanol production and mandate its use in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil and because it can reduce vehicle emission pollution.

The effect of these federal subsidies and policies is to encourage the use of corn for ethanol production, which is good news for corn growers who have seen higher prices for their crops. But critics point out it also increases the cost of food for consumers and makes corn less available for human and animal consumption.

It is the animal feed grain problem that is becoming an issue with farm groups like the Yuma County Farm Bureau and others around the state. What is good news for corn growers is bad news for livestock producers who must cope with less availability of feed grain and higher prices. Finish reading this article.

The American Coalition for Ethanol’s trade show began less than a week after the Environmental Protection Agency gave the industry some good news by refusing to cut the federal ethanol mandate.

The trade group’s president Bob Scott encouraged the conference attendees to think of themselves as revolutionaries challenging the current reliance on oil.

And Scott said the truth supports the ethanol industry’s view that it’s the recent spike in energy prices - not ethanol - that is mostly to blame for increased food prices.

By combining gasification with high-tech nanoscale porous catalysts, they hope to create ethanol from a wide range of biomass, including distiller’s grain left over from ethanol production, corn stover from the field, grass, wood pulp, animal waste, and garbage.

Gasification is a process that turns carbon-based feedstocks under high temperature and pressure in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere into synthesis gas, or syngas. Syngas is made up primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (more than 85 percent by volume) and smaller quantities of carbon dioxide and methane.

Read more.