Photo from: http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/blog/2007/02/biodiesel-toys-galore-and-cool-ones.html
The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association last week awarded $2,500 grants to each of two Iowa school districts through its Biodiesel Backer Award Program at the Iowa Pupil Transportation Association annual conference. The recipients of the grants are Odebolt-Arthur and Battle Creek-Ida Grove (OA-BCIG) School Districts and West Sioux Community School District. To be eligible for one of the Biodiesel Backer Awards, Iowa K-12 schools were required to educate their students and communities about biodiesel and incorporate biodiesel into their school programming. The winners were then selected based on a competitive application process.
"With another school year right around the corner, it's a great time to recognize OA-BCIG and West Sioux as Biodiesel Backer Award Winners," says IRFA biofuels manager Grant Menke. "These two northwest Iowa schools have unique and impressive programs that highlight the benefits of using biodiesel in Iowa. We thank them for their support of Iowa biodiesel, and we hope their leadership will inspire more and more school bus fleets to make the transition to biodiesel. Clean, renewable Iowa biodiesel is the best fuel choice for school bus fleets, and more importantly, the healthiest choice for students. IRFA encourages all Iowa schools to learn the facts about biodiesel and to try it in their school buses."
I have said it many times, our society needs to know about biodiesel and that means we have to teach it in school. Luckily, it makes for a beautiful laboratory experience making your own biodiesel.
Photo from: http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2903#
LITTLE ROCK — When Pinnacle BioFuels opened in Crossett in 2008, renewable fuels and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil were on everybody’s mind.
A year earlier, the Legislature had approved the Arkansas Alternative Fuels Development Program to help jump-start the industry in the state with incentive grants.
Several proposed biodiesel plants took advantage of the incentive grants and at the end of last year there were three fully operational plants in Arkansas.
Fast forward to the present. Just one biodiesel plant is still running in the state, FutureFuel Corp. in Batesville, which is operating at less than 20 percent of capacity.
Pinnacle BioFuels in Crossett and Dewitt Oil and Seed Enterprises, formerly Arkansas SoyEnergy Group, have temporarily shut down.
Nationally, biodiesel production is down more than 80 percent.
Industry officials blame the slow down in biodiesel production on the shaky economy and congressional inaction on reinstating a $1 federal tax credit for blending the fuel with standard diesel. The credit expired Jan. 1.
When Congress reinstates the tax credit, the industry will begin to improve, some officials say. Others are optimistic that biodiesel production is on the way back, with or without the tax credit, because of new federal mandates.
Biodiesel has something to do with feeling a sense of freedom from foreign oil, and here is a proud state that needs the jobs and money of local biodiesel production.
Photo from: http://www.oilburners.com/pictures.htm
The U.S. Energy Department has announced six projects to find ways of converting captured carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions from industrial sources into useful products such as fuel, plastics, cement and fertilizers.
One of the projects will be located in Hawaii.
The department said in a Washington news release that a $24 million grant has gone to Phycal LLC of Ohio. It will design, build and operate a CO2-to-algae-to-biofuels facility in Central Oahu.
Officials say Hawaiian Electric Co. will qualify the biocrude for boiler use, and Tesoro will supply CO2 and evaluate fuel products.
The biocrude can be blended with other fuels for power generation or processed into renewable replacement fuels such as jet fuel and biodiesel.
Tennessee farmers will compare 1,000 acres of improved switchgrass with 1,000 acres of standard crops
Researchers at the University of Tennessee have planted more than 1,000 acres of switchgrass to assess how improved varieties could lead to cheaper biofuels production.
The massive planting is part of a US Department of Energy project aiming to make biofuels production more efficient, sustainable and cost-effective.
The University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative is working with California firm Ceres and Illinois-based Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DDCE) on the project, comparing the improved varieties with a different 1,000 acres planted with a standard switchgrass variety called “Alamo”.
In particular, they are testing the improved Alamo variety EG 1101 and the improved Kanlow variety EG 1102, both sold under Ceres’ Blade Energy Crops brand.
The Genera Energy/DDCE demonstration-scale biorefinery in Vonore, Tennessee, will process the energy crops into cellulosic ethanol.
The project takes in various farms in nine east Tennessee counties, which form part of the Biofuels Initiative’s farmer incentive program, which now totals 6,000 acres of switchgrass.
The researchers believe the research and development in this project could have a “significant national impact” on biofuels production using cellulosic feedstocks, reducing the amount of land required to meet US renewable fuels targets.
Dr Sam Jackson, a University research leading the project team, said: “These are the largest acreages to be planted for growth comparisons on private farms in the nation. The size of the project is necessary to adequately test and demonstrate the supply chain with local farm producers.”
Ceres sales director Frank Hardimon said the project would allow for progress in developing improved seed varieties as well as “fine tuning” the crops for the DDCE ethanol production process.
He said: “We expect to make the same type of leaps in crop performance that seed companies have made in traditional crops. We’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible.”
The US will need 16 billion gallons of cellulosic or advanced biofuels each year to meet the terms of the Renewable Fuels Standard by 2022.
The University of Tennessee Biofuels Initiative believes farmers in Tennessee could produce enough switchgrass by 2025 to produce more than a billion gallons of ethanol each year, using 1 million acres of land without displacing food and fiber crops.