industry
NEWS Four states award biomass energy grants Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska and Wisconsin recently awarded grants for projects related to producing energy from biomass. The following projects were funded by the Iowa Power Fund: ► Renew Energy Systems in Osage, Iowa, received $250,000 to build a mobile biomass briquetter for densifying biomass on-site for industrial and commercial heat and power generation. ► Amana Farms Inc. in Amana, Iowa, received $1.08 million for an anaerobic digester to generate electricity from biogas using cattle manure and organic industrial waste as feedstocks. ► Iowa State University received $2.37 million to replace the natural gas used by ethanol plants with synthesis gas produced through biomass gasification, and to examine converting syngas to ethanol. The following projects were funded by the Advancing Colorado’s Renewable Energy program: ► Colorado State University’s Golden Plains Area Extension Service received
$50,000 to evaluate how energy crops should be rotated on northeastern Colorado dryland farms. ► The Flux Farm Foundation in Carbondale, Colo., received $50,000 to study the effects of applying biochar, a byproduct of pyrolysis, to western Colorado pastureland. ► The International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology in Lakewood, Colo., received $50,000 to work with students at the Colorado School of Mines to design a machine that would produce briquettes from a mixture of cattle manure and woody biomass. ► San Juan Bioenergy LLC in Durango, Colo., received $50,000 to study the chemical composition of syngas produced from gasifying sunflower hulls at the company’s oilseed crushing plant in Dove Creek, Colo. ► Stewart Environmental Consultants Inc. in Fort Collins, Colo., received $50,000 to catalog and quantify the feedstocks that might be available in northeastern Colorado for anaerobic
digestion and biogas production. The following projects were funded by the Nebraska Value-Added Agriculture program: ► Nebraska Renewable Energy Systems in Oakland, Neb., in partnership with Wayne State College in Wayne, Neb., received $8,000 to purchase technical reference materials and to market the Renewable Energy Training & Workshop Program, which gives college students hands-on training with renewable energy production systems. ► Tighe Biodiesel in Springfield, Neb., received $75,000 to build a farm-scale ethanol and biodiesel biorefinery that will also produce biogas through the anaerobic digestion of wastewater. The Wisconsin Focus on Energy program funded one project. Action Floor Systems LLC in Mercer, Wis., received $200,000 to replace the company’s natural-gas-fired boiler and 50-year-old wood-fired boiler with a woody biomass boiler. -Ryan C. Christiansen
States ratchet up RPS requirements, incentivize biomass utilization Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are being developed and proposed in Massachusetts and California, and Michigan passed a law that encourages biomass harvest, a possible step in meeting RPS goals. In January, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources released regulations that expanded support for renewable energy and alternative energy technologies mandated by the Green Communities Act, energy reform legislation enacted in July. The act called for changes to the state’s RPS that would double the rate of increase in the use of new renewable energy and create a new Class 2 RPS to support the continued operation of older (pre-1998) renewableenergy-generating facilities. Geothermal, hydroelectric and marine, and hydrokinetic energy are now eligible technologies under RPS Class 1. Liquid biofuels eligible for RPS Class 1 are required to meet life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions 20 BIOMASS MAGAZINE 3|2009
and other standards set by the Clean Energy Biofuels Act of 2008. This includes algaebased fuel. RPS Class 2 is limited to generation that began on or before Dec. 31, 1997. Utilities and other electricity suppliers are required to purchase renewable energy credits from Class 2 facilities equal to at least 3.6 percent of sales, or make alternative compliance payments (ACPs) per megawatt-hour to meet the Class 2 RPS obligation. The initial ACP rate is $25 per megawatt-hour for 2009 and will be adjusted each year with the Consumer Price Index. Staying consistent with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s executive order, which requires utilities to procure 33 percent of their electricity from renewable generation by 2020, Assembly Bill 64 was proposed in December. It would increase the current requirement of 20 percent renewable procurement by 2010 but maintain the
current standard for investor-owned utilities. It would also require publicly owned electric utilities to meet the 20 percent by 2010 target. Under current law, publicly owned utilities are required to have a plan in place for renewable procurement but are not required to meet a specific target. By 2015, utilities would be required to procure 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources, with the percentage increasing to 35 percent by the end of 2020. In Michigan, farmers who purchase machinery that can harvest biomass material will receive a sales tax exemption under Public Act 415 of 2008. Introduced by state Rep. Dick Ball, the law provides a sales tax exemption on machinery such as combines that can harvest grain and other crops while collecting the biomass residue used to produce alternative energy. -Bryan Sims