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Archive for the Alternative Energy Category

Japan to Make Ethanol From Rice ?

29. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

An opportunity for the Delta or the best example of the Food vs Fuel Debate ?

http://nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.22a.html

Japan to Make Ethanol From Super-Harvest Rice

Japan’s first commercial plant to produce ethanol for cars from locally grown rice will reach full capacity of 1,000 kilolitres a year by March 2009, a few months behind schedule.

The project in Niigata, central Japan, for which the Japanese government is paying half the plant construction cost of 1.6 billion yen (US$15 million), is one of Japan’s three such government-backed commercial production schemes.

It is managed by the National Federation of Agriculture Co-operative Associations (Zen-Noh) and will use non-food rice.

Ippei Koike, general manager of Zen-Noh’s farming planning department, said the delay is partly due to paperwork for construction approval.

He said farmers were planting two types of super-harvest rice in more areas than planned this year after the 2007 harvest of one type gave a lower-than-expected yield of 602 kg of brown rice, excluding broken rice, per 10 ares.

An are is 100 square metres (1,076 sq ft).

In Japan, the average rice farming household cultivates a rice area of 107 ares, or 1.07 hectares, with an annual revenue of 1.8 million yen (US$17,000).

“We had expected this type to consistently harvest 800 kg per 10 ares — 30 to 40 percent more than that of ordinary rice. But last year’s experience made us realise that’s hard to achieve,” Koike said in an interview.

“We won’t give up. Japanese farmers are accustomed to much tougher conditions,” Koike said, referring to unusually low temperatures in July last year that thwarted the development of rice kernels.

RICE PLANTING

The Niigata project involves engineering company Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co and Satake Corp, a food processing machinery maker based in Hiroshima, western Japan.

Japan lacks competitive farm produce to make enough ethanol to mix with gasoline and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But the project aims to use non-food rice planted in abandoned farmlands. A fall in domestic consumption of rice every year results in the Japanese government’s plan to reduce planting for food rice by some 100,000 ha in 2008 from 2007.

Zen-Noh has said it will buy rice from farmers at 20 yen a kg to make its auto fuel competitive with regular gasoline.

Ordinary food-quality rice costs well above 100 yen a kg and harvests 500 to 600 kg per 10 ares.

“Despite the loss-making process, farmers now think that the rice for ethanol is one of the forward-looking options to make the best use of the abandoned fields,” Koike said.

Zen-Noh, which retails gasoline mainly for farmers, plans to sell gasoline directly blended with 3 percent of the rice-origin ethanol at its 40 gas stations in Niigata.

Posted in Foriegn Agriculture, Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

40¢ a Gallon - Fuel From Crop Waste !

29. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

http://nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.18c.html

Syntec Biofuel to Make Biomass Ethanol for 40¢ a Gallon

Syntec Biofuel Inc., a company developing biomass to fuel conversion technologies, is pleased to announce that it has achieved a yield of 105 gallons of alcohol per ton of biomass (making the fuel cost about 40¢ a gallon to produce). This marks a major milestone for Syntec as this yield is equivalent to revenues in excess of $27 million per year for a 300 ton per day biomass processing facility.

“We are consistently seeing monthly improvements in our Biomass to Alcohols (B2A) Process,” says Michael Jackson, President of Syntec Biofuel Inc. “This level of achievement makes the B2A process profitable in relatively small scale facilities using a wide variety of waste biomass feedstocks in any combination.”

The Syntec B2A technology, initially developed at the University of British Columbia, is focused on second-generation cellulosic ethanol production. The Syntec process parallels the low-pressure catalytic synthesis process used by methanol producers. Syntec’s innovative technology uses any renewable waste biomass such as hard or soft wood, sawdust or bark, organic waste, agricultural waste (including sugar cane bagasse and corn stover), and switch-grass to produce syngas. This syngas, comprised of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, is then scrubbed and passed through a fixed bed reactor containing the Syntec catalysts to produce ethanol, methanol and higher order alcohols. The Syntec technology can also produce alcohols from biogas (sourced from anaerobic digestion of manure and effluent), landfill gas or stranded methane.

Recent media coverage on ethanol produced from food crops, such as corn, and the use of agricultural cropland for biofuel production, has prompted an international questioning of the ethics and “hidden costs” behind the production of such alternative fuels. “Syntec’s technology only uses sustainable waste biomass to produce its biofuel,” explains Mr. Jackson. “We believe strongly that fueling the worlds energy needs can be achieved without further impact to our environment, and that we possess the best and most ethical solution to bio-ethanol production.”

Posted in Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

“Super Synthetic Corn”: I’m not sure this is good news

29. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

For what it’s worth :

http://nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.27a.html

Research Breakthrough Could Lead to Super Synthetic Corn

Iowa State University researchers helped write the first draft of the corn genome sequence that will be announced Feb. 28, at the 50th Annual Maize Genetics Conference in Washington, D.C.

Patrick Schnable, a Baker Professor of Agronomy and director of the Center for Plant Genomics and the Center for Carbon Capturing Crops, and Srinivas Aluru, a Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering and a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, led the work at Iowa State and provided the project with expertise in corn genomics and supercomputing.

Schnable and Aluru led Iowa State’s work to refine assemblies of the genomic sequences generated by researchers at Washington University. In addition, they identified almost 100 genes which have nearly identical copies in the genome. Schnable said these nearly identical paralogs may have played important roles during the evolution and domestication of corn and may have contributed to the ability of breeders to mold this important crop species to meet human needs. The Schnable and Aluru teams also discovered several hundred new corn genes that are not present in other plants. Some of these genes may be responsible for unique attributes of corn.

The corn genome is an especially difficult jigsaw puzzle to put together, Schnable said. There are some 2.5 billion base pairs that make up the double helix of corn DNA. The corn genome also has long lines of repetitive code. And corn has 50,000 to 60,000 genes to identify and characterize. That’s about twice the number of genes in humans. Plus, 50 percent or more of the corn genome is made up of transposons or jumping genes. Those are pieces of DNA that can move around the genome and change the function of genes.

Solving all those assembly challenges took a lot of computing power and some new software technology. Aluru and his research team developed software called “PaCE” and “LTR_par” that runs on parallel computers — including CyBlue, Iowa State’s IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer capable of 5.7 trillion calculations per second. PaCE can generate draft genome assemblies in hours or days instead of months. LTR_par identifies retrotransposons, another mobile genetic element that can cause genome changes such as mutations, gene duplications and chromosome rearrangements.

Implications

Schnable said the resulting draft of the corn genome provides plant scientists with a lot of data to work with. He said it’s a lot like the collection of maps, diary entries, dried plants and animal specimens brought back by the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. The explorers gathered and assembled a great deal of basic information about the Louisiana Purchase that required years of subsequent analysis and study.

“This will enable so much exciting corn research,” Schnable said. “This will raise questions about the biology of corn and provide great tools to answer them.”

Those answers could help scientists modify and improve corn plants, Schnable said. The genome, for example, could help scientists:

• develop crops that can withstand global climate change
• add nutritional value to grain
• sequester more atmospheric carbon in agricultural soils
• or boost yields so crops can meet growing demands for food, feed, fiber and fuel.

“In addition, what we learn from the corn genome will allow us to better understand other grasses,” Schnable said.

The genome of corn is very similar to the genomes of rice, wheat, sorghum, prairie grasses and turf grasses. Therefore, Schnable said the draft of the corn genome can help researchers improve the other cereals and grasses.

Posted in Corn Soybeans & Wheat, Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Agrarianism, Difficult Issues in Agriculture & Rural Life, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

On Site Processing of Timber Waste Bio Fule ???

6. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

Could this be an opportunity for botom-up economic development ?

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.5c.html

New Chemical Process Turns Forest Waste into Bio-Crude

CSIRO and Monash University have developed a chemical process that turns green waste into a stable bio-crude oil.The bio-crude oil can be used to produce high value chemicals and biofuels, including both petrol and diesel replacement fuels.

“By making changes to the chemical process, we’ve been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world,” says Dr Steven Loffler of CSIRO Forest Biosciences.

“This makes it practical and economical to produce bio-crude in local areas for transport to a central refinery, overcoming the high costs and greenhouse gas emissions otherwise involved in transporting bulky green wastes over long distances.”

The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste, significant amounts of which are currently dumped in landfill or burned.

“We’ve been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world.”Dr Steven Loffler

“By using waste, our Furafuel technology overcomes the food versus fuel debate which surrounds biofuels generated from grains, corn and sugar,” says Dr Loffler.

The plant wastes being targeted for conversion into biofuels contain chemicals known as lignocellulose, which is increasingly favoured around the world as a raw material for the next generation of bio-ethanol.

Lignocellulose is both renewable and potentially greenhouse gas neutral. It is predominantly found in trees and is made up of cellulose; lignin, a natural plastic; and hemicellulose.

Posted in Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Family farm Opportunities, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

Farmland Price — Bubble ?

31. December 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

We can hope that we are wiser than we were in the boom of the 70’s & 80s, but . . . . .

Quite a Cash Crop: The map shows changes in farmland prices in the U.S. from the end of 2006 through August 2007. The states shaded darkest are those with the largest gains. Above, a snapshot of rising farmland and pastureland prices in less than decade. The cropland chart combines both categories of land.

Midwestern agriculture is on the cusp of unprecedented profitablility, or the brink of disaster. You pick.
We still have 7 million ‘good’ acres of CRP that ‘could’ be released for cellulosic, or grain, production.
Perhaps that would buy the Presidents farm bill signature.

BARRON‘S COVER

Don’t Bet the Farm

Farmland prices have soared, and bulls say underlying trends will keep the boom going. Sound familiar?

By JIM MCTAGUE

YOU’VE LIVED THROUGH THE TECH-STOCK BUBBLE. The dot-com bubble. The residential-real-estate bubble. Now, get ready for the cropland bubble. - At year-end 2007, farms — the latest count shows that the U.S. has 2,089,790 — are what Miami condos and San Diego McMansions were at year-end 2004: properties so hot that they’re likely to have a meltdown in their future. As city slickers in many parts of the nation see the market prices of their homesteads deflate faster than a New Year’s party balloon, farmers are watching the values of their land swell by annual double-digit percentages. Nationwide, farmland prices skyrocketed 50% over the past three years, to an average of close to $2,200 an acre through August, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While that’s the latest month for which federal data are available, there’s no doubt that prices are still sprinting ahead. - Ground zero for the phenomenon could very well be Iowa, which, like a newly active volcano, sits at the center of a massive dome of rising farm and pastureland prices stretching across America’s heart

and beyond, from Ohio to the Dakotas. Bidders for Iowa farmland have become almost as eager as the politicians scurrying around the Hawkeye State desperately stumping for next month’s presidential caucuses.

Mike Duffy, an economics professor at Iowa State University, calculates that the average year-end farm price in the state will be a record $3,908 an acre — $508 higher than the USDA’s August estimate (see map). Prices will have jumped an average 22% this year, he estimates.

THE PHENOMENON ISN’T confined to the Midwest. In some Eastern states, where residential development has squeezed farmland supply, prices have doubled over the past five years. (The costliest U.S. farms are in Rhode Island, averaging $12,500 an acre.) And in the West, states like Montana and Wyoming have seen prices of both farm- and pastureland soar.

Virginia Benz, a broker at Prairie Rose Real Estate in Steele, N.D., says that good, productive farmland is up 30% this year in her state, to the highest level she’s seen in her 30 years in the business. Even “the poorest, most unproductive land is selling for $600 an acre,” she marvels. Some purchasers are from Minnesota, where rural land is even pricier.

All bubbles have catalysts, real or perceived. The tech-stock boom was driven by the belief that technology was changing both our lives and investment realities. And the residential-realty boom was driven by faith that interest rates would stay very low and that the baby boomers’ wealth would keep the new, second- and vacation-home markets robust for decades.

The catalysts in the farmland bubble are federal subsidies to ethanol producers and the belief that ethanol demand will keep rising and that China’s and India’s new wealth will keep boosting global commodity prices.

Indeed, U.S. farmers are switching to corn from other crops, curbing supplies of food grains. Nationwide, from 2002 to 2007, the number of acres on which corn was planted rose 24%, to 86.1 million. And the energy bill recently signed by President Bush and strongly backed by both parties mandates that oil refiners eventually boost ethanol use as a gasoline additive to 36 billion gallons a year from the current seven billion gallons.

Aided by a drought that reduced food exports from Australia, net U.S. farm income will hit a record $87.5 billion this year. Americans spent $642.5 billion on food in 2006, up 4.5%. And warnings have begun appearing in print — see the Dec. 8 issue of The Economist — on TV and online about the end of “cheap food.”

Farm rents also are climbing, up more than 16% since 2003. Even so, an investor who buys land will have no problem finding tenants to work it for him, says agricultural-property auctioneer Rex D. Schrader of Fort Wayne, Ind., because, with commodity prices high, they believe they will still be able to make fat profits.

Rising rents appeal to Wall Streeters who want a piece of the hot action but don’t know a corn stalk from a pole bean. Schrader, who auctions off 50,000 acres a year in 38 states, says that 10% of his customers are investment groups of five or six people who want in on the current boom.

Farming has become so lucrative that households with more than $1 million in investable assets rose by 17% in both Dakotas from 2005 to 2006, versus 9% in New York and 10.5% in California, reports the Phoenix Affluent Marketing Service in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Nebraska’s ranks of millionaire households’ rose 16% in that span.

MANY FLUSH FARMERS are reinvesting their gains in additional acreage. This means that the market isn’t nearly as leveraged as was residential real estate, says Iowa State’s Duffy, and so is less prone to becoming a bubble. Furthermore, farmers can lock in profits on futures exchanges at current prices going out two or three years. Indeed, 2008 futures for corn, soybeans and wheat reached new highs in late-fall and early-winter trading.

Investors are so sold on this story line that they still are buying farmland in water-starved areas of Georgia. “People still strongly believe that land is a good investment,” says Ben Hudson of Hudson and Marshall Auctioneers in Atlanta. “The drought had no adverse impact on prices.”

Bruce Babcock, another Iowa State economist, e-mailed Barron’s that the passage of the ethanol provisions in the just-signed energy bill assured him that there is no bubble building. He went out and bought some corn acreage himself.

But the case for farmland isn’t airtight.

In fact, some smart money that invested in Iowa farmland in 2000 is bailing out, happy to have made a profit. According to Duffy, 56% of Iowa farmland was owned by farmers from 2000 to 2005. The other 44% was owned by investors. The split today is 60% farmers and 40% investors.

Steve Leuthold no longer owns farmland he picked up for a song in the last bust. Leuthold, chief investment officer of Leuthold-Weeden Investment Capital in Minneapolis, sees ominous parallels between today’s boom and those of the 1970s and 1980s, which saw farm prices soar. In Barron’s Aug. 9, 1982, issue, he wrote a cover story entitled “Grim Reapers,” which called the farmland market’s top. His prediction of a 50% correction was overly optimistic; he ended up buying two Iowa farms at $600 an acre, 75% below their peak prices.

THAT BOOM WAS TRIGGERED in 1972 when President Nixon signed a wheat deal with the former Soviet Union and also improved relations with China. The subsequent rise in U.S. farm exports lasted until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and President Carter canceled the wheat deal in protest. This couldn’t have occurred at a worse time, coming as it did in an era of fuel shortages and gas lines, inflation and soaring interest rates. Nonetheless, farm prices continued to rise, aided by easy financing. Few saw disaster arriving…until it arrived.

This time around, Leuthold sees a more moderate pullback — 15% to 20% in three to five years — because buyers are employing less leverage and interest rates are lower. His main concern is that the ethanol boom rests on shaky economic underpinnings. Without government subsidies, ethanol makes no sense, he maintains. And the subsidies could disappear because of a backlash against costs of producing the fuel — higher supermarket prices and huge demand on water supplies. The measure was opposed by groups representing the world’s undernourished and by competing agricultural interests like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Big Oil dislikes the program, too, and Big Oil has deep pockets to lobby Congress.

The rush for ethanol is easily the biggest factor behind rising farm prices. And a glut of ethanol could develop quickly as more and more farmers try to get rich quick by switching production to corn. In fact, the glut may be here. More than 130 ethanol plants now operate in the U.S., up from around 80 three years ago, while the number of gas stations selling ethanol is as underwhelming as the number of drivers demanding it. Recently, construction on three proposed U.S. plants was halted amid a growing oversupply of the fuel. Hart Energy Publishing reports that U.S. ethanol inventories climbed 12% from August through September, while average prices had slid from $1.91 a gallon to $1.67.

ETHANOL ENTHUSIASTS DISMISS such setbacks as temporary blips that will disappear with the help of the new mandate for greater use of ethanol. But the fuel does face major challenges. For one thing, while cheaper than gasoline, it contains less energy than that fuel, producing lower mile-per-gallon readings and forcing motorists to refuel more frequently.

In addition, the oil industry sees problems getting that corn crop to the distilleries and the resulting product from the distilleries to refineries. Because ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline, it can’t be shipped through gasoline pipelines.

What else could spoil the ethanol story? Ken Green, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says a significant decline in oil prices would burst the bubble. Scientific breakthroughs could hurt, too. Duffy says the $64,000 question is whether efforts to produce ethanol from seaweed will succeed.

Ethanol, of course, isn’t the only force pushing up farm prices. A global commodities boom has been under way for several years now, lifting prices for a broad variety of foods. But contrary to the assurances of farmland promoters, demand for food isn’t endlessly elastic. Food expenditures in the U.S. dropped three times since World War II — in 1974, 1981 and 1992, years when consumers were pinched. At some point, possibly soon, rising prices for some crops will trigger declines in per-capita consumption.

Meanwhile, other countries are providing more and more competition for American farms. The U.S. share of the global corn market, now about 60% or 70%, is headed to 55% or 60%, says the USDA. And high prices encourage farmers to keep ramping up production, ultimately leading to a glut of whatever crop is hottest — and lower prices.

Marc Faber, a Barron’s Roundtable member who manages investments from Hong Kong, bought farmland in New Zealand some years back in anticipation of growing global food demand. But he considers U.S. farmland wildly overpriced and, as a result, sees arbitrage opportunities in farmland-rich Russia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The Russian embassy in Washington says that farmland around Moscow sells for about $1,000 an acre, while in the hinterlands the price is about $400. Peer Voss, a farmland broker in Uruguay and Paraguay, says prices are still relatively low in those countries despite rapid appreciation in the past two years. He says land in Uruguay has risen 250% and now ranges from $800 an acre in the least desirable areas to $1,700 in the best.

The most imminent threat is the housing meltdown. Leuthold says that, historically, a convulsion in one part of the realty market eventually has affected all others.

In the agricultural sector, ranchland and recreational farmland already have been quietly hit, having peaked in 2006, according to brokers. Jack Horton of Vale, Ore., who has been selling rangeland for 36 years, says prices are down 10% on average, and as much as 20% to 30% in some areas of his state. Recreational plots, bought by sportsmen, have also tanked, he adds. The drought in the West also is hampering demand for working ranches, as is the high cost of cattle feed, resulting from — what else? — the ethanol boom.

BROKERS TOOK HEART WHEN Louis Bacon of Moore Capital Management spent $175 million recently on the 250-square-mile Forbes Ranch in Southern Colorado for a holiday retreat. “It’s the American dream to own part of the West,” Doug Hall of Hall & Hall a multi-state brokerage company located in Billings, Mont., says. “There are an awful lot of people who made a lot of money who want to enjoy it while they have it.” But smaller places — under 5,000 acres — away from the mountains are harder sells, he acknowledges.

John Stratman, a broker for the Mason & Morse Ranch Co. in Glenwood Springs, Colo., concurs that the lower end of the market has slowed. “I don’t think the buyers have gone away. They’re on the sidelines because of all the negative publicity about the residential and subprime markets; and they’re sitting there waiting to see which way the economy goes.”

If the economy does teeter into a recession, that would make continuation of the farmland boom all the harder. At this stage, any investor should be wary of betting the farm on a farm. A Miami condo might be a better deal. After all, you can buy a nice one now for just 60% or so of what you would have had to shell out three years ago.

Posted in Farmland Prices, Difficult Issues in Agriculture & Rural Life, Farm Subsidies, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

Could Algae become the Ultimate Alternative Crop for Family Farms ?

22. December 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

33000 gallons of oil per acre — sounds like a profitable farm enterprise for some enterprising farm family . ..

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news12.17c.html

High Density Algae Test Delivers 33,000 Gallons of Oil Per Acre
The Vertigro Joint Venture has released initial test results from its high density bio mass (algae) field test bed plant located at its research and development facility in El Paso, Texas.

During a 90 day continual production test, algae was being harvested at an average of one gram (dry weight) per liter. This equates to algae bio mass production of 276 tons of algae per acre per year. Achieving the same biomass production rate with an algal species having 50% lipids (oil) content would therefore deliver approximately 33,000 gallons of algae oil per acre per year.

The primary focus of the 90-day continuous production test was determining the robustness of the field test bed. Other secondary tests were also conducted including using different ph levels, CO2 levels, fluid temperatures, nutrients, types of algae, and planned system failures. It is important to note that the system has not been optimized for production yields or the best selection of algae species at this time.

The next phase of development will include increasing the number of bio reactor units from 30 to 100 and then continuing a number of production tests that may further increase production as well as initiating various extraction tests. The results released today are in keeping with data previously announced from the Joint Venture’s laboratory proof of concept test bed. Subsequently, the joint venture intends to build out a one acre pilot plant with engineer design work underway at this time.

As a comparative, food crop such as soy bean will typically produce some 48 gallons oil per acre per year and palm will produce approximately 630 gallons oil per acre per year. In addition, the Vertigro Bio Reactor System is a closed loop continuous production system that uses little water and may be built on non arable lands.

Glen Kertz and Dr. Aga Pinowska, who head the research and development program, commented, “This is a major milestone for us as we have demonstrated the robustness of the Bio Mass System with satisfactory production results from a system that has not yet been optimized for algae production, which will become part of the next phase of testing.” They also noted, “We have learned how to produce a very large algal bio-mass under varying environmental and operating conditions in our continuous process photo bioreactors. We believe these initial results are amongst the best achieved to date, and we are confident we can now increase the productivity.”

“We are extremely pleased with the robustness and performance of the Vertigro technology in sustainably producing commercial quantities of algae biomass,” states Doug Frater, Global Green Solutions CEO. “Over the coming months we will further optimize the technology and demonstrate economic algae production for biofuel feedstock purposes.”

The Vertigo system may be a solution to the renewable energy sector’s quest to create a clean, green process which uses mainly light, water and air to create fuel. The Vertigro technology employs a proprietary high-density vertical bio-reactor that produces fast growing algae which may yield large volumes of high-grade algae oil. This oil can be refined into a cost-effective, non-polluting diesel biofuel, jet fuel and other applications. The algae derived fuel may be an energy efficient replacement for fossil fuels and can be used in any diesel powered vehicle or machinery. In addition, 90% by weight of the algae is captured carbon dioxide, which is “sequestered” by this process and so contributes significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Posted in Rural Development, Family farm Opportunities, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

Fuel from Timber Wastes

22. December 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Mississippi researchers at USM & MSU have been working on similar concepts. It would be nice to see someone in the private sector come up with model that could be profitable for family businesses in rural areas of our state.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news12.21a.html

Quote:

Biomass Harvester Eats Trees to Make Bio-diesel A new machine to harvest forest underbrush for use as fuel had its first public demonstration Wednesday in woods east of New Bern.

About 50 people in hard hats watched as the machine gobbled trees in the forest off County Line Road. Those watching the one-of-a-kind bush eater represented the gamut of public and private forest-related industries and service in North Carolina.

The big red processor, pushed by a tractor on treads, uses carbide teeth to pulverize everything in its six-foot path. As the 56,000-pound behemoth cuts a trail, a belt-driven vacuum sucks the ground-up cuttings through an extended chute over the cab and into an agricultural silage wagon hitched to the tractor.

Despite its weight, the machine produces ground pressure of only 7.1 pounds per square foot, so it moves easily over soft forest bed and pocosin.

The biomass harvester is being developed by North Carolina State University for Fecon Inc., manufacturer of the heavy equipment and attachments including Bull Hog commercial mulchers, in cooperation with Tim Tabak, a Craven County forestry management consultant.

The new harvester allows more of the forest’s organic products — bushes, leaves and needles, and trees under 6 inches in diameter — to be used for bio-diesel and ethanol in addition to its present market in steam-generated electric production, Roise said.

“It is powerful,” he said. The machine has a 440-horsepower engine.

When perfected, it is expected to be used mostly for plantation thinning in tree farming, for clearing between the rows, and for forest management, said Roise.

Roise has been working since the summer with Tabak and NCSU Forestry graduate students Lindsay Hannum and Glen Catts to correct design flaws.

But Roise said the work thus far has produced “results much better than we ever thought. It’s done remarkably.”

Croatan National Forest District Ranger Lauren Hillman sees potential for forest management in fire prevention and habitat preservation or restoration.

Camp Lejeune’s efforts to restore habitat for red-cockaded woodpeckers might be able helped by the machine, said Danny Marshburn, base forest manager.

John Duff of Rankin Timber Company in New Bern said, “I think it will be useful tool on a lot of forest land that is tough to manage.”

The machine can now harvest between two and four tons of forest bulk an hour and it’s real profitability lies in harvesting brush for bio-diesel and ethanol. Its advantage for that use is that it blows underbrush upward without picking up the dirt.

The product saved from just being mulch on the forest floor contains both oil and sugar, said Roise and fellow NCSU professor Dennis Hazel.

The oil would be used for bio-diesel or the sugar for ethanol. The professors are already debating which element of the biomass grabbed by the harvester will make it pay off first.

_________________

Posted in Rural Development, Family farm Opportunities, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »