Qi BioEnergy

We have now built a unique pilot-scale reactor that uses a hot sand medium (called a fluidized-bed reactor) to convert perennial grasses to bio-oil and have now tested the reactor on switchgrass. The reactor was able to use switchgrass as a feedstock and produce a quantity of bio-oil that was 60% of the weight of the switchgrass fed into the reactor. We tested the composition and fuel properties of the produced liquid and found that the energy content was about the same as the parent switchgrass but the density was more than 2.5 X greater.

Whole stalk harvest will allow a reduction in the cost of transporting the stover without increasing the
cost of transporting the grain. This will be accomplished by better utilization of the available transport
space. By transporting the grain and the stover together we will be able to average the density. For
example, about 42 pounds of corn fit in one cubic foot of space, while only 4 pounds of uncompressed
stover fit in a cubic foot of space.
The whole stalk harvest system solves several other problems as well. The first thing we should see is that
the conventional system is not treating the stover as a valued component of the corn crop. Presently the
stover is left strewn about the ground, driven over by all of the equipment involved in the grain harvest. A
whole stalk harvest could dramatically decrease or even eliminate dirt contamination, eliminate the need
and cost of plastic twine or wrap, improve our ability to target specific parts of the stalk for harvest and
open the stover harvest window, by eliminating stover contact with the ground.

The issue is demonstrating that we can take these biomass products and make them work as is,’ without adding additional cost by pelleting, etc.,says Benike, general manager of Northern Excellence Seed L.L.C. in Williams, Minn. The town of about 200 is about 20 miles east of Warroad and about 45 miles east of Roseau, Minn.

Soon, Benike will be part of a demonstration to study the effectiveness of electrical generation from perennial grass crops.

It was announced June 27 that Northern Excellence Seed - a handler of turfgrass seed to the nation and the world - will be one of the first commercialized applications of smaller-scale biomass energy in the U.S.

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, made the announcement. The $230,000 grant will go to the Giziibii Resource Conservation & Development Council in Bemidji, Minn., which channels the money to Northern Excellence to fund the equipment. It is one of a set of annual Conservation Innovation Grants issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service.

The project will use some of the 2 million pounds of screenings at Northern Excellence, as well as perennial grass seed straw from two specific producers in the Giziibii and Pembina Trail economic development areas. The biomass will be burned in a low-water use gasification system to produce syngas, or synthetic gas, to generate electricity for the plant.

The gasifier for the Northern Excellence Seed plant will produce 100 kilowatt hours - enough to take care of the electricity needs for the plant itself and perhaps a little extra that could be sold on the grid. The electricity would displace the seed company’s electric bill, which typically runs in the $50,000-per- year range. If successful, it would eliminate the $10,000 to $15,000 annual bill for burning the company’s waste screenings

Switchgrass could be a new crop for   farmers.   Photo: Warren Gretz, NREL

Tripling U.S. use of biomass for energy could provide as much as $20 billion in new income for farmers and rural communities and reduce global warming emissions by the same amount as taking 70 million cars off the road.

Many farmers already produce biomass energy by growing corn to make ethanol. But biomass energy comes in many forms. Virtually all plants and organic wastes can be used to produce heat, power, or fuel.

Biomass energy has the potential to supply a significant portion of America’s energy needs, while revitalizing rural economies, increasing energy independence, and reducing pollution. Farmers would gain a valuable new outlet for their products. Rural communities could become entirely self-sufficient when it comes to energy, using locally grown crops and residues to fuel cars and tractors and to heat and power homes and buildings.

Opportunities for biomass energy are growing. For example, several million dollars of federal incentives are available through the 2002 Farm Bill to develop advanced technologies and crops to produce energy, chemicals, and other products from biomass. A number of states also provide incentives for biomass energy.

Biomass Energy Sources on the Farm

Biomass Residues

Agricultural activities generate large amounts of biomass residues. While most crop residues are left in the field to reduce erosion and recycle nutrients back into the soil, some could be used to produce energy without harming the soil. Other wastes such as whey from cheese production and manure from livestock operations can also be profitably used to produce energy while reducing disposal costs and pollution.

Energy Crops

Crops grown for energy could be produced in large quantities, just as food crops are. While corn is currently the most widely used energy crop, native trees and grasses are likely to become the most popular in the future. These perennial crops require less maintenance and fewer inputs than do annual row crops, so they are cheaper and more sustainable to produce.

Grasses. Switchgrass appears to be the most promising herbaceous energy crop. It produces high yields and can be harvested annually for several years before replanting. Other native varieties that grow quickly, such as big bluestem, reed canarygrass, and wheat grass, could also be profitable.

Trees. Some fast-growing trees make excellent energy crops, since they grow back repeatedly after being cut off close to the ground. These short-rotation woody crops can grow to 40 feet in less than eight years and can be harvested for 10 to 20 years before replanting. In cool, wet regions, the best choices are poplar and willow. In warmer areas, sycamore, sweetgum, and cottonwood are best.

Oil plants. Oil from plants such as soybeans and sunflowers can be used to make fuel. Like corn, however, these plants require more intensive management than other energy crops.

Protecting the Land

With thoughtful practice and management, perennial energy crops can improve the soil quality of land that has been overused for annual row crops. The deep roots of energy crops enhance the structure of the soil and increase its organic content. Since tilling occurs infrequently, the soil suffers little physical damage from machinery. One study estimates that converting a corn farm of average size to switchgrass could save 66 truckloads of soil from erosion each year.

Perennial energy crops need considerably less fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide than annual row crops. Reduced chemical use helps protect ground and surface water from poisons and excessive aquatic plant growth. Furthermore, deep-rooted energy crops can serve as filters to protect waterways from chemical runoff from other fields and prevent sedimentation caused by erosion.

Finally, perennial energy crops can create more diverse habitats than annual row crops, attracting a wider variety of species such as birds, pollinators, and other beneficial insects, and supporting larger populations. Furthermore, the long harvest window for energy crops enables farmers to avoid nesting or breeding seasons.

Converting Biomass to Energy

Most biomass is converted to energy the same way it always has been—by burning it. The heat can be used directly for heating buildings, crop drying, dairy operations, and industrial processes. It can also be used to produce steam and generate electricity. For example, many electric generators and businesses burn biomass by itself or with other fuels in conventional power plants.

This 50 MW biomass power plant runs on residues produced by the nearby forest products industry. Photo: Warren Gretz, NREL

Biomass can also be converted into liquids or gases to produce electricity or transportation fuels. Ethanol is typically produced through fermentation and distillation, in a process much like that used to make beer. Soybean and canola oils can be chemically converted into a liquid fuel called biodiesel. These fuels can be used in conventional engines with little, if any, modification.

Biomass can be converted into a gas by heating it under pressure and without oxygen in a “gasifier.” Manure too can be converted using a digester. The gas can then be burned to produce heat, steam, or electricity.

Other biogas applications are still in development, but show great potential. One promising technology is direct combustion in an advanced gas turbine to run a generator and produce electricity. This process is twice as efficient as simply burning raw biomass to produce electricity from steam. Researchers are also developing small, high-speed generators to run on biogas. These “microturbines” have no more than three moving parts and generate as little as 30 kilowatts, which could power a medium-sized farm. Several companies are also considering converting gasified biomass into ethanol as a less expensive alternative to fermentation.

Alternatively, biogas can be processed into hydrogen or methanol, which can then be chemically converted to electricity in a highly efficient fuel cell. Fuel cells can be large enough to power an entire farm or small enough to power a car or tractor.

An innovative experiment in Missouri provides one example of the possibilities. Corn is used to produce ethanol, and the waste from the process is fed to cows for dairy production. Cow manure fertilizes the corn and is also run through a digester to produce biogas. A fuel cell efficiently converts the biogas into electricity to run the operation. The end products are ethanol, electricity, and milk. All the waste products are used within the project to lower costs.

Potential

Biomass currently provides about two percent of America’s electricity, one percent of the fuel used in cars and trucks, and some of the heat and steam used by homes and businesses. With more energy crops and better conversion technology, it could gain a much larger portion of the market. Energy crops and crop residues could provide 14 percent of U.S. electricity use or 13 percent of the nation’s motor fuel.

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) study found that farmers could grow 188 million dry tons of switchgrass on 42 million acres of cropland in the United States at a price of less than $50 per dry ton delivered (see map below). This level of production would increase total U.S. net farm income by nearly $6 billion. ORNL also estimates that about 150 million dry tons of corn stover and wheat straw are available annually in the United States at the same price, which could increase farm income by another $2 billion. This assumes about 40 percent of the total residue is collected and the rest is left to maintain soil quality.

Opportunities

One opportunity for energy crop development is to use land that is currently idle or poorly suited for food crops, such as that in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). This program encourages farmers and ranchers to adopt long-term conservation practices on environmentally sensitive land. In 2000, more than 34 million acres were enrolled in the CRP. Much of this land is already planted in native grasses and trees to help reduce erosion, protect water quality, and provide wildlife habitat. With careful management, farmers could harvest energy crops on some of this land. This would allow them to earn an income and reduce subsidy payments, while still maintaining the environmental benefits of the program.

A co-op in Iowa is testing this concept. In the Chariton Valley, farmers have planted 5,500 acres of CRP land with switchgrass to be burned with coal in a large utility power plant near Ottumwa. If successful, the project will scale up to 50,000 acres, producing 200,000 tons of switchgrass each year and supplying five percent of the plant’s fuel.

This example also shows that selling biomass feedstocks as a commodity to energy producers may be a more attractive option than producing biomass energy on the farm. Energy producers have greater access to capital and energy markets, can typically produce energy at a lower cost in larger facilities, and have the expertise to operate and maintain these facilities.

Since establishing an energy crop takes time and harvesting occurs over a number of years, long-term contracts with energy producers are likely to be necessary to make a profit. Long-term contracts also offer greater income stability by allowing farmers to avoid some of the fluctuations of commodity markets.

Another option is for farmers to form a local co-op to produce energy and other value-added products in jointly owned facilities. This approach can increase profits by achieving economies of scale and scope in production and by gaining access to low-cost financing. It can also help improve the viability of family farms and strengthen rural communities by creating new jobs and keeping money in the local economy. This approach has been particularly successful in Minnesota, which provides incentives for small community-based ethanol plants.

For More Information

U.S. Department of Energy
Biopower and Biofuels Programs
www.eren.doe.gov

Institute for Local Self-Reliance
1313 5th Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55414-1546
(612) 379-3815
www.carbohydrateeconomy.org

National Renewable Energy Laboratory
1617 Cole Boulevard
Golden, CO 80401
(303) 384-6979
www.nrel.gov/biomass

U.S. Department of Agriculture
2002 Farm Bill Renewable Energy Incentives
www.rurdev.usda.gov/rd/farmbill/9006resources.html

Regional Biomass Energy Program
www.ott.doe.gov/rbep/

American Bioenergy Association
209 Pennsylvania Avenue SE
Washington, DC 20003

Center for the Analysis and Dissemination
of Demonstrated Energy Technologies
www.caddet-re.org/technologies/search.php?id=12

BIOMASS is a renewable resource that can be used to generate electricity, heat, or liquid fuels such as ethanol. A successful perennial grass-based bioenergy system requires reliable establishment and persistence, knowledge of optimum cultural and production practices, high yielding cultivars, and appropriate conversion technology. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a land retirement program established by the Food Security Act of 1985. The main objectives of this program are to reduce soil erosion, reduce commodity surpluses, and to supplement farm income (Jewett et al., 1996). Native warm-season grasses such as switchgrass are permitted for use as permanent vegetation on CRP land. Rather than losing the environmental benefits and converting switchgrass CRP land to traditional crops when contracts expire, the herbaceous material could be used as a biomass feedstock.

 Study Favors Switchgrass

The study demonstrated that as farmers become more accustomed to growing switchgrass, production costs will go down, Perrin said. He added, the average cost of switchgrass production would be reduced by an additional 15 percent if results were extended to a 10-year period, a more likely scenario when considering commercially planted crops.

After factoring estimated local transportation costs of approximately 13 cents per gallon, a total cost of 73 cents per gallon means cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass could be a viable competitor for corn, which has an estimated total cost of $1.25 per gallon. “Of course, it’s unknown as to the cost to convert the cellulose to ethanol once at the plant, but we’ve got about 40 cents or so to play around with,” Perrin said. “The bottom line suggests that switchgrass in this area will be competitive with corn as an ethanol source.”

From North Dakota to Florida, switchgrass can be grown in a large area of the country, Perrin said. “It’s a very good crop for the Southeast,” he added.

A similar study is currently being conducted by the University of Tennessee.

Despite these favorable numbers, farmers hesitate to grow more switchgrass because there’s “nobody to buy it,” Perrin said. There are six subsidized cellulosic ethanol plants in various stages of development, but none are located in the central United States. Abengoa has a pilot-scale cellulosic ethanol facility in York, Neb., but it doesn’t use much feedstock.
As ethanol producers continue to eye commodity markets for feedstock cost relief, the first study to summarize the cost of biomass production has concluded that switchgrass can be produced on a commercial scale for $39 per ton.

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in conjunction with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, contracted with 10 farmers from Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota to grow switchgrass for five years to evaluate the actual costs of biomass production. The study results are significant to both growers and biofuel producers, said UNL Agricultural Economics Department professor Richard Perrin. “Ultimately, if it’s commercially viable, that means it’s got to be commercially viable the way farmers can do it, not the way it can be done on a one-meter-square plot of land on an experiment station somewhere,” he said. “A company thinking about establishing a cellulosic ethanol plant in this area can look at these numbers and pretty reliably evaluate what it’s going to cost them in order to produce it.”

At the end of the five-year study, the average cost of growing switchgrass was around $60 per ton. Two of the 10 contracted farmers had previous experience growing switchgrass and were able to produce the crop for $39 per ton. “We think that large quantities could be produced by farmers at $50 per ton or so,” said Perrin, the primary economic analyst for the study. “The cost of production depends on knowledge, experience and skills.”

Perrin said participating farmers who had successfully grown switchgrass were “ecstatic” and look forward to the day when they can grow it commercially. “At this point, there’s nothing on the horizon that any farmer can see as a place to sell switchgrass to,” he said. “When the ethanol-producing industry becomes convinced that the renewable fuels standard is going to happen, they’ll start building some switchgrass plants in this area, and at the same time, they’ll be looking to sign some contracts with producers. Those two things will have to happen at the same time.”

“There is discussion about taking land out of CRP land and putting a portion into corn. Currently about 37 million acres are in CRP, but USDA/NRCS considers only about 7 million acres suitable for corn production.”

In the long-term, the United States will need much more than that to meet projected production of 32 million gallons of ethanol annually. “If we are to make ethanol from corn grain, we would need 68 million acres, which is 72 percent of the corn grown in the United States. I doubt very seriously that’s going to happen.”

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SunEthanol’s bio-processing technology is based upon a remarkable proprietary microbial “catalyst” that is uniquely capable of efficiently converting a wide range of cellulosic biomass directly to ethanol. By simplifying and consolidating the costliest aspects of current biomass-to-ethanol technology, SunEthanol can reduce both process and plant capital costs, making large-scale ethanol production from cellulosic biomass cost-effective.

A more economical process

Converting cellulose to ethanol is currently a complex, multi-step process. Cellulosic biomass - plant matter - is an abundant, low-cost source of stored energy. However, unlocking that embodied energy has presented a challenge. Cellulosic biomass is composed of highly ordered sugar polymers, which are shielded from enzyme attack by a matrix of other complex polymers. This makes biomass very difficult to break down into its constituent sugars, in order to ferment these sugars into ethanol.

Typically, cellulosic biomass must go through an intensive pretreatment step, after which enzymes are used to break down the biomass into simple sugars suitable for fermentation by yeast into ethanol. Enzymes, along with the intensive pretreatment required for their use, are the largest single cost component of cellulosic ethanol production. SunEthanol’s technology eliminates the need for a separate enzymatic conversion step, and broadens pretreatment options.

Like sugar materials, starchy materials are also in the human food chain and are thus expensive. Fortunately, a third alternative exists—cellulosic materials. Examples of cellulosic materials are paper, cardboard, wood, and other fibrous plant material.

Cellulosic resources are in general very widespread and abundant. For example, forests comprise about 80% of the world’s biomass. Being abundant and outside the human food chain makes cellulosic materials relatively inexpensive feedstocks for ethanol production.

Cellulosic materials are comprised of lignin, hemicellulose, and cellulose and are thus sometimes called lignocellulosic materials. One of the primary functions of lignin is to provide structural support for the plant. Thus, in general, trees have higher lignin contents then grasses. Unfortunately, lignin which contains no sugars, encloses the cellulose and hemicellulose molecules, making them difficult to reach.

Cellulose molecules consist of long chains of glucose molecules as do starch molecules, but have a different structural configuration. These structural characteristics plus the encapsulation by lignin makes cellulosic materials more difficult to hydrolyze than starchy materials.

Hemicellulose is also comprised of long chains of sugar molecules; but contains, in addition to glucose (a 6-carbon or hexose sugar), contains pentoses (5-carbon sugars). To complicate matters, the exact sugar composition of hemicellulose can vary depending on the type of plant.

Since 5-carbon sugars comprise a high percentage of the available sugars, the ability to recover and ferment them into ethanol is important for the efficiency and economics of the process. Recently, special microorganisms have been genetically engineered which can ferment 5-carbon sugars into ethanol with relatively high efficiency.

One example is a genetically engineered microorganism developed by the University of Florida that has the ability to ferment both 5- and 6-carbon sugars. This microorganism was issued US patent 5,000,000. Other researchers have developed microorganisms with the ability to efficiently ferment at least part of the sugars present.

Bacteria have drawn special attention from researchers because of their speed of fermentation. In general, bacteria can ferment in minutes as compared to hours for yeast.

A study from plant scientist Ken Vogel found cellulosic ethanol actually has positive net
energy yield. In a study for the federal government’s Agricultural Research Service in Nebraska, Vogel calculated all the energy that went in to producing cellulosic ethanol.
According to Vogel, the study included “the energy used to make the tractors, the energy used to make the seed to plant the field, the energy used to produce the herbicide, the energy used to produce the fertilizer, and the energy used in the harvesting process.”
His results?
For every unit of energy used to grow the feedstock, Vogel says he could get almost 5.5 units worth of ethanol. That’s even more efficient than making ethanol from corn.
And cellulosic ethanol emits far less carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, than corn-based ethanol. Cellulosic emits 80% less carbon dioxide than regular gasoline, while corn-based ethanol emits only 20 % less.

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