Biomass

Green Energy Resources, Inc. (GRGR) met coal producers to discuss cofiring and development of premixed fuels. Cofiring is an environmentally friendly application of mixing wood biomass with coal, to reduce harmful green house emissions. Biomass is the 4th largest energy source in the world, with potential application in 65% of the US and world power generation markets. Retrofitting existing coal burning power plants (for cofiring) would elevate biomass into the top three energy sources in the world. Barrons featured Green Energy Resources in this weeks edition, reporting its 1st qtr profit and forecasts for growth in 2005. ...

GE Global Research, the centralized research organization of the General Electric Company (GE), announced that it was selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to lead $11 million of research projects in the development of hydrogen as a fuel source. The programs are focused on near and long term solutions for the production of hydrogen with sustainable, clean technologies. GE Global Research will contribute approximately $2.5 million to the projects with the balance coming from DOE and other industry partners. This project plans to study the creation of hydrogen from solar water splitting, naturual gas/bio production, and...

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) announced today that they have received multiple offers from recognized buyers on their Montana gold property located near the ghost town of Garnet in southwestern Montana. This sale will allow ITR to appreciably escalate their build out of anaerobic digester plants in southern Idaho and will result in accelerating the expansion of the nearly completed Whiteside refinery and allow construction to begin on the second methane refinery as early as the end of 2004. The sale of the Garnet mine will have a substantial and materially significant effect on ITR's ability to...

Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. (IESV) announces that its biogas facility at the Whitesides dairy has achieved its production goal two months after starting up the plant. The flow of biogas significantly exceeds the 30 cubic feet per minute yield the company had predicted for the two-digester tank system. This is a significant milestone in the company's business plan. Specifications for gas conditioning equipment, that will bring the Methane to pipeline quality, are now being established based on actual gas yields. Preparations are underway to begin using produced biogas as process heating for the digesters, eliminating the use...

Environmental Power Corp (POWR) announced today that it has signed an agreement with Seifert Dairy Farms of Acampo, CA for the on-farm location of an animal feed production system based on Microgy's anaerobic digester ("AD") technology. The Seifert Dairy project is the second such facility proposed for development under Microgy's Feed System Project Development Agreement with The Scoular Company ("Scoular"), a $2.3 billion in sales merchandiser of agricultural commodities. As previously announced, this Development Agreement anticipates Microgy constructing up to 50 systems designed to use an efficient, environmentally sound process to produce animal feed.

"Experts generally agree that our current reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable. Already oil is near $50 per barrel, and the great millions of Chinese and Indians destined to take to the road in the next decades have not yet gotten behind the wheel." This week Newsweek has written several special reports about alternative energy in all its forms. All of these reports can be found at the following link.

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) 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.

Green Energy Resources, Inc. (GRGR) announced today the opening of a port facility in Philadelphia. The port will export up to 1 million tons annually of wood biomass internationally. The renewable energy industry has created an opportunity for the United States to become energy exporters. Philadelphia joins several other cities exporting wood biomass, including Cape Canaveral, Fla., Mobile, Ala., Wilmington, N.C., and Baltimore, Md. Green Energy Resources is looking to open facilities in New York, Tampa, Fla., and California in the future.

by Debra Fiakas CFA A shareholder group has taken aim at alternative energy and fertilizer producer Rentech, Inc. (RTK:  Nasdaq), offering a slate of nominees for the next election of directors.  They claim Rentech management is overpaid and doing a very poor job of executing on the company’s strategic plans.  The nominees were a focus of discussion in the last post.  Now we will take a closer look at Rentech’s operations. The majority of Rentech’s revenue is generated from the sale of fertilizer products from the Company’s plants in Dubuque, Iowa and Pasadena, California.  Rentech earns...

Jim Lane Green Plains In Nebraska, Green Plains (GPRE) announced net income for the quarter was $42.2 million compared to net income of $25.5 million for the same period in 2013. Revenues were $829.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to $712.9 million for the same period in 2013. Net income for the full year was $159.5 million compared to $43.4 million for the same period in 2013. Revenues were $3.2 billion for the full year of 2014 compared to $3.0 billion for the same period in 2013. Fourth quarter 2014 EBITDA was $90.7 million compared to...

Jim Lane  As the first wave of cellulosic biorefineries launch is there really enough affordable feedstock for the next wave? Can growers make enough money to justify the switch…and risk? For several years, the questions that have perplexed actors in the advanced bioeconomy have revolved around policy stability and the effectiveness of the new technology: can new advanced fuels be affordably produced and will there be a market for them? Years ago, these were the same questions that were asked about petroleum. Today, when people talk about petroleum and long-term availability (when they choose not to...

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.

Green Energy Resources, Inc. (NYIL) announces it has agreed in principle to merge with Italiana Commissionaria Legnami (ICL) of Monza , Italy. ICL has offices in New York and Brazil. The terms of the merger have not been disclosed. ICL is the largest importer of woodfiber fuel in Italy. In 2003 ICL supplied approximately 80,000 tons of woodchips per month to the Italian market. The proposed merger will seek to capture the vertical market from procurement, to transportation, to power generation plants and would create one of the largest international biomass/ renewable energy companies in the world today....

Tom Konrad CFA Dumpster diving for high yielding gems. An earlier version of this article was written at the end of July and published on my Forbes blog, before the August market implosion. I've updated it here to reflect the new stock prices and some recent company news. Renewable energy has many advantages over fossil energy.  One of the most important is that it's renewable.  As supplies of Oil and other fossil fuels are used up, they become harder and more expensive to extract, while renewable energy is generally getting cheaper over time,...