Biomass

After its official groundbreaking, the Northern Wood Power Project, New Hampshire's first non-hydro, commercial-scale renewable energy project, is now underway at the Schiller Station in Portsmouth. The US$75 million project, developed by Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH), will replace a 50 MW coal-fired boiler with a new boiler of equal size that will burn wood chips and other clean wood products. In addition to creating a market for woodchips from the state's many logging operations, the facility will become a major regional contributor of renewable energy.

ENER1 INC (ENEI) announced that it had received an award of $550,000 from the Florida Hydrogen Initiative to develop a renewable energy source that will power a rest area on an interstate highway. ENER1's 10 Kilowatt (KW) fuel-cell based energy source uses methanol created from Florida's two largest industries food waste from theme parks and orange peels from citrus processing. The project, known as the HyTech Rest Area, is an example of Florida's commitment to developing its hydrogen infrastructure. To be completed in 18 months, it will provide not only a demonstration and test-bed for the technology,...

AutoWeek has an article about one man's quest to travel the entire United States using anything but gasoline to power his variety of alternative fuel vehicles. Featured are bio-diesel Hummers and RVs, a solar-powered canoe, and an poop-powered scooter

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) has begun the final stages of construction on ITR's methane gas refinery located near Rupert, Idaho with the arrival today of the twin 35,000 gallon steel digester tanks. ITR notes that the system, a first of its kind, has generated considerable interest within the dairy and livestock industry nationwide. This reinforces the belief that demand for the proprietary anaerobic digester systems will remain robust; especially as abundant and reliable new energy sources are needed globally.

Jim Lane After the bizarre attempted heist detailed in The Great Algae Robbery, Roquette tries the US courts but comes up short, in its quest to get a hold of Solazyme’s (SZYM) algae tech. On a slow news day just before Christmas, those of us on the industrial biotechnology beat have no need to stop by the firehouse to ask if there is a breaking story to report, because we always have the lively docket of Judge Sue Robinson, Federal District Judge for the District of Delaware. This Christmas she did not fail us, for in our Christmas news...

Green Energy Resources, Inc. (NYIL) announced today that it has signed a new supply contract with Texas Energy Resource Management. Texas Energy has three locations in Eastern Texas including a chip mill facility in Crockett, a recycling facility in Buna and a recycling facility in Houston. This contract will supply approximately 500,000 tons annually of whole tree wood chips. The chips are exclusively for export to other NYIL customers throughout the EU.

Marc Gunther Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. It sounds simple. It’s not. Just ask Bill Caesar, who runs the recycling and organic growth units of Waste Management (WM), America’s biggest trash company, which has $13.3 billion in revenues last year. It’s hard to get many cities and towns to embrace recycling. It’s hard to get homeowners to figure out which plastics go into which bin. It’s expensive to build out the infrastructure needed to separate materials, and ship them to customers. And now, to make matters worse, the prices that buyers are willing...

by Debra Fiakas CFA Last week Brazilian agriculture technology developer Ceres (CERE:  Nasdaq) made formal plans to shift its focus to seed traits and the food and feed markets and away from energy.  Ceres is not abandoning biofuels as such, but with oil prices at historic low levels, it is not economic enough to justify working capital not to mention new investments.   The company is restructuring operations and reducing personnel in both its U.S. and Brazilian operations.  Ceres management estimates the changes will save between $6 million and $8 million next year. The question investors need to...

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) has received the gas conditioning equipment slated for use in creating pipeline quality gas from its Whitesides Biogas facility. The two semi loads of proprietary equipment will be installed over the next several weeks and brought into operation. The equipment is unique in that it can process a smaller gas stream from the existing two digester array, as well as the full ten digester array that is currently under construction. The cost of this gas conditioning equipment is equivalent to the entire book value of the existing plant, effectively doubling the...

American Biofuels (ABF), a biodiesel production company 35% owned by Green Star Products Inc (GSPI), announced today that its first container load of U.S. produced biodiesel is on its way to Asia. The ABF shipment is believed to be the largest order of biodiesel ever shipped from the United States to Asia. The oceangoing container carries approximately 6,000-gallons of biodiesel packaged in over 100-barrels. This is a first major step in opening Asian markets to U.S. produced biodiesel and biodiesel technology.

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) announced that its proprietary anaerobic digestion process may provide a significant benefit in conserving and recycling water in drought-stricken Idaho. Dr. Dennis Keiser, ITR's President, noted, ``Dairies are big users of water and water conservation is becoming a critical consideration for their sustained operations, particularly given the severe drought conditions that threaten the agriculture industry in southern Idaho and other parts of the country. Processing manure using ITR's system provides the potential to recycle significant volumes of wastewater back into beneficial reuse in a variety of agricultural or other applications.

Last week, I mentioned that I had attended a conference focused on opportunities in the biomass and bioenergy sectors. One of the article ideas I got from this conference was on the emerging market for wood pellets (tightly packed sawdust and other wood shavings) for heat and electricity. How interesting that, over the weekend, the magazine Science published an article suggesting that the US should ramp up its use of wood for small-scale heat and electricity production (the article is not available free of charge but you can find a summary here). The Wood (Pellet) Advantage It...

Renewable energy is still very much in its infancy, which means that companies in the space are either profitless or high-multiple startups, or divisions of much larger companies (GE Wind (NYSE:GE), or utilities such as FPL Group (NYSE:FPL) and Xcel (NYSE:XEL) which get much of their power from conventional generation.) This presents a dilemma for investors who understand the compelling drivers for the sector, but whose risk tolerance or financial needs indicate an income-based investing strategy. Canadian Income Trusts in Renewable Energy A few Canadian Income Trusts have historically gone some way towards filling this niche....

Jim Lane Ceres, Inc. (CERE) and Syngenta sign a major deal to stimulate sweet sorghum adoption. Brazilian producers seek paths for expanding ethanol production. What are sorghum’s chances of being the darling of the expansion story? In California, Ceres, Inc. (CERE) announced that it has signed a sweet sorghum market development agreement with Syngenta. The companies will work together to support the introduction of sweet sorghum as a source of fermentable sugars at Brazil’s 400 or more ethanol mills. Under the agreement, Syngenta and Ceres intend to collaborate on small-scale trials as well as larger demonstration-scale...

The announcement of a natural gas pipeline, built by Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV), in the heart of southern Idaho's dairy industry has one rural mayor pretty energized. Mayor Paul D. Isaacson in Wendell believes that the renewable energy company will not only bring to his community as many as 125 jobs, but it will measurably reduce the affects of the 350,000 head of milk cows and cattle that surround the area.

Nathaniel Energy Corporation (NECX) announces the successful gasification of refuse derived fuel (RDF) in Italy, proving that its patented technology is successful and viable on a commercial level. The Company successfully gasified and combusted RDF and produced over one megawatt of electricity with one of its Thermal Combustors(TM) in Cologna, Veneta, Italy.