International visitor Guillermo Parra Romero, with Paraguay ethanol producer Petropar, considers FEW to be the most important ethanol event of the year. Petropar owns the largest ethanol plant in Paraguay, producing 40 MMly (10.5 MMgy) of anhydrous ethanol. In all, the country produces 120 MMly of ethanol primarily from sugarcane, with 20 percent coming from corn. He comes to the FEW to network and learn about U.S. market trends and commercialization, he said. “For me, it is important to get in contact with the American ethanol fuel industry.”
BBI International chairman Mike Bryan cited the FEW’s longevity and success as he introduced the leadership of Growth Energy who helped with the official ribbon cutting ceremony that launched the 26th annual FEW conference, reception and expo. Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis seconded Bryan in his remarks. “This continues to grow. The industry continues to grow. We reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we improve the environment and create jobs right here at home,” he said. Speaking later in the expo, Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark, co-chairman of Growth Energy, described the industry’s long-term outlook. “Great wars aren’t won in a single battle,” he said. “We are in this for the duration.” Clark outlined a theme that echoed throughout the conference, as speaker after speaker referred to the Gulf oil spill. “It’s about oil,” he said about the need for ethanol production and the reason behind America’s presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It’s about the money from oil.”
Article Continues After Advertisement
During the general session the following day, Bryan and Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, amplified the oil theme. “After all the saber rattling and desk pounding happening over this oil spill is over, we will recover,” Bryan said. “What’s most important is to learn from this event. We need to maximize our domestic oil production and maximize our alternative energy production, from all sources.” Delivering the keynote address, Dinneen told the audience that now is the time to break our dependence on foreign oil, adding, “Now, no one in this room is naïve enough to believe that America is going to stop using oil today, tomorrow, or in the near future. But that should not deter us from aggressively proceeding with efforts to develop and deploy the wide range of ethanol technologies you in this room are developing.” Dinneen went on to summarize a number of the policy initiatives and issues facing the ethanol industry.
With the industry facing new greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets in the renewable fuels standard, the first panel session of the event discussed corn ethanol’s improving carbon score. Steffen Mueller, research economist at the University of Illinois-Chicago, related the results of a survey of ethanol producers showing marked improvement in efficiency of ethanol yield, water use and power use over the past decade. Charles Hurburgh, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University, noted that the expected corn yield improvement of 4 to 6 percent per year over the next decade will result in 350 to 500 million more bushels of corn each year. There is plenty of corn to meet the needs of the various users, he said, and with the corn utilization in traditional markets remaining relatively flat, ethanol use of corn actually needs to expand to absorb the increase.
Pete Moss, vice president of marketing for Cereal Process Technologies, discussed some of the challenges that will be faced by grandfathered ethanol plants wanting to increase production levels. Every new gallon brought online after the passage of the 2007 Energy Security and Independence Act that revised the renewable fuels standard must meet a 20 percent GHG reduction threshold if it is to receive a renewable identification number (RIN). To achieve that, ethanol producers are going to have to select one or two of the technologies that significantly improve corn ethanol’s carbon footprint, such as fractionation, deoiling, combined heat and power (CHP), membrane separation, raw starch hydrolysis, and wet distillers grains. Raising the question of whether corn ethanol could ever reach a 50 percent GHG reduction and qualify as an advanced biofuel, Moss pointed out that EPA calculations show a dry grind, natural gas-powered plant that utilizes CHP, fractionation, membrane separation and raw starch hydrolysis for wet distillers grains would only make a 36 percent reduction in life-cycle GHG emissions. A dry grind biomass-powered plant utilizing the same technologies would bump that number up to 46 percent, still short of the 50 percent goal. Moss suggested corn-ethanol plants that add fractionation and deoiling technologies should receive GHG credit for the additional coproducts. A modification in the use of indirect land use impacts on GHG will ultimately be needed to improve corn ethanol’s GHG reduction score, although the biggest challenge is that EISA excluded corn-starch-based ethanol production from qualifying as an advanced biofuel.
| 1 2 | Next Page --> | |
| View Entire Article | ||