biofuel

- by Kristi Pihl, August 23, 2014, Tri City Herald

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"248","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 275px; height: 183px; float: left; margin: 3px 10px;"}}]]Some of Green Power's Tri-City creditors have received the green light to foreclose on the troubled biofuel company's unfinished Pasco plant.

Franklin County Superior Court Judge Cameron Mitchell recently approved a request by the creditors to foreclose on the liens they hold against the company's personal property.

Mitchell also approved a priority order for the creditors. A company called Panda Holding, which requested the decision, is first and sixth on the priority list of those who have not been paid yet.

Jose Gonzalez, owner of American Electric of Richland, and James Osterloh of West Richland, who was Green Power's former chief engineer and owner of Concrete Structures, formed Panda Holding to pursue what Green Power owes them.

Both have received court judgments for the debts owed by Green Power. Green Power owes American Electric more than $1 million for electric work on the unfinished Pasco plant. Osterloh says he's owed $4.4 million, including interest.

In total, Green Power still owes nine creditors $6.1 million, including interest, because of liens that were secured on the company's personal property, according to court documents.

-  July 24, 2014, Farmers’ Advance

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"238","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 222px; height: 167px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Michigan State University (MSU) plant biologist C. Robin Buell has been awarded $1 million from a joint U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program to accelerate genetic breeding programs to improve plant feedstock for the production of biofuels, bio-power and bio-based products.

Specifically, the MSU College of Natural Science researcher will work to identify the genetic factors that regulate cold hardiness in switchgrass, a plant native to North America that holds high potential as a biofuel source.

"This project will explore the genetic basis for cold tolerance that will permit the breeding of improved switchgrass cultivars that can yield higher biomass in northern climates," said Buell, also an MSU AgBioResearch scientist. "It's part of an ongoing collaboration with scientists in the USDA Agricultural Research Service to explore diversity in native switchgrass as a way to improve its yield and quality as a biofuel feedstock."

One of the proposed methods to increase the biomass of switchgrass, and therefore its utility as a biofuel, is to grow lowland varieties in northern latitudes, where they flower later in the season.

-  by Susan Smallheer, July 17, 2014, Rutland Herald

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"229","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 200px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]North Springfield, Vt. — Out with biomass, in with solar panels.

Winstanley Enterprises announced Wednesday that it was seeking state approval to build five, 500-kilowatt solar arrays in the North Springfield Industrial Park.

Some of the land that will be used was earlier proposed to be the site of the ill-fated North Springfield Sustainable Energy Project, which was rejected by state regulators earlier this year. The biomass plant would have burned tons of woodchips a year to produce 35 megawatts of electricity.

The developers of the project could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

But according to a news release sent out earlier in the day, it is a joint project of Winstanley Enteprises LLC, of Concord, Mass., Green Lantern Development LLC, of Waterbury and Powersmith Farm Inc., of Guilford.

But according to the three groups’ news release, the five arrays would total 2.5 megawatts of electricity, and represent approximately $8 million in capital investment.

By comparison, the biomass plant was estimated to cost upward of $150 million.

-  June 23, 2014, Bioenergy Insight

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"219","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 200px; height: 129px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Lufkin Daily News"}}]]InventivEnergy, an asset management firm, has selected NRG Energy Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy, to restart the Aspen Power biomass plant located in Lufkin, Texas.

NRG will also operate and maintain the facility once it resumes operation. The plant first opened in August 2011 and was the first wood-fired biomass power plant in the state. It can consume about 525,000 tonnes of logging debris and municipal wood waste per year.

The Aspen power plant has the capacity to deliver approximately 50MW to the grid and uses locally sourced clean wood-waste biomass as its fuel supply. Work to restart the facility began in mid-May and commercial operations are expected to be achieved by late July. NRG is in the process of hiring the site management team and operating staff.

'The Aspen Power facility was shut down in the fall of 2012 due to market economics. Since then, our projections show an attractive opportunity for the plant to resume operations and provide competitively-priced clean energy to the Texas market,' says John Keller, CEO and founder of InventivEnergy.

- by Cascadia Forest Defenders, July 7, 2014, Forest Defense Now

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"218","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 187px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]Scores of activists with Cascadia Forest Defenders and Earth First! converged on the Seneca Jones biomass plant this morning to protest the company’s privatization of public lands in the Elliott State Forest and ongoing pollution in West Eugene.

Currently several people have locked themselves to equipment at the plant, effectively blocking the “truck dump” where biomass is loaded into the incinerator. A banner has been dropped off of a tower reading: “Seneca Jones: Privatizing the coast range, polluting West Eugene.”

The activists are bringing attention to Seneca Jones Timber’s role in privatizing the Elliott State Forest. This month Seneca closed on their purchase of 788 acres in the Elliott, called East Hakki Ridge. Co-owner of Seneca Kathy Jones recently expressed the company’s intention to clearcut East Hakki and replace it with Douglas fir plantation.

Cascadia Forest Defender Richard Haley commented, “However Kathy Jones paints it, her company is a bad neighbor everywhere it operates. Here in Eugene, Seneca pollutes. In the Elliott, Seneca clearcuts and puts up ‘no trespassing’ signs in pristine, never before logged forest. East Hakki is no longer a place where locals can go hunt, fish, hike, camp or watch birds. Now it is corporate property.”

Other than the author's support for so-called "sustainable" biomass, overall a decent piece. - Josh

- by William H. Schlesinger, June 18, 2014, The Hill

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"213","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"270","style":"width: 222px; height: 125px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]In America’s Southeastern states, there’s a booming energy trend that’s as big a step backward as imaginable.

In fact, it stretches back to the time of cavemen. Power companies are burning trees to produce energy, a deeply misguided practice that’s razing precious forests, producing fuel dirtier than coal and boosting carbon pollution right when we need to sharply curb this key contributor to climate change.

- by Chris Jensen, May 23, 2014, New Hampshire Public Radio

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"153","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 280px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;"}}]]About 51 percent of the wood purchased for the new Burgess BioPower biomass plant in Berlin during its first two months of operation came from New Hampshire, according to a new “sustainability” report filed with the state’s Site Evaluation Committee.

Thirty-five percent came from Maine.

Five percent from Vermont.

Eight percent from Massachusetts.

And "one truck load" came from Canada.

- May 21, 2014, WhoTV.com  

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"197","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"226","style":"width: 422px; height: 255px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: WhoTV.com","width":"402"}}]]A Nevada couple is suing a cellulosic ethanol plant after a fire threatened their home.

Ernest and Barbara Clark are suing DuPont Danisco.

They are claiming the company has acted recklessly and carelessly in storing the highly combustible corn stover across from their home.

On March 31st, at least eight of the bails caught fire and the wind pushed the fire toward their home. Some of their property was damaged. Embers burned the home’s exterior and smoke and ash covered the home’s interior.

- by Nicolas Loris, May 16, 2014, Source: The Foundry

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"116","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 304px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;"}}]]

With the Senate considering extending a package of tax credits that expired at the end of 2013, six Senators have banded together to call on Congress to re-up the expired biofuel credits.

In particular, tax credits of $1 per gallon produced was offered for blended diesel made with agricultural products. Apparently, decades of handouts worth billions of dollars, a federal mandate for biofuel production, and numerous state “incentives” just aren’t enough stability for those feeding from the trough filled with taxpayers’ money.

The Senators pointed to a drop in biodiesel production in 2014 as evidence of the need for continued government support. Biodiesel production in January 2014 was 65 million gallons lower than December 2013. That’s because biofuel producers are gorging on taxpayers’ money to oversupply the market.

- by Virginia Moran, May 16, 2014, Source: The Union

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"134","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 219px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: right;"}}]]Regarding the proposed “biofuels” plant (i.e. acceleration of climate change) project, here is what I find “scary”: that residents of western Nevada County are never allowed to live our lives in peace. If we are twitchy and irritable it is because we are constantly on guard regarding what the next project will be to exploit our county.

What I find scary is cronyism (i.e. revolving door) between public and quasi-public agencies here, and members of the so-called private sector (“consultants” and contractors) who tend to look out for their own interests (i.e., profit).