Our weekly compilation of renewable energy news and information around the web. (Cut short this week due to travel to a conference of the ABA Public Utility Section in Aspen, Colo.).
Ethanol Revival
Murphy Oil bought a corn ethanol plant in North Dakota for $92 million, announcing that it would spend an additional $15 million to upgrade the plant. Biofuels Digest notes that this is the third similar announcement in as many weeks as other purchasers have taken up idle ethanol plants.
Is this the sign of a revival for ethanol? The recent fall in the price of corn suggests that what was once uneconomical may now be coming back into vogue if ethanol producers can find a way to run profitably.
EPA to Regulate the Emission of Greehouse Gases
The EPA has published a notice of proposed rulemaking entitled Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule. The proposed rule would establish a threshhold of 25,000 tons per year of CO2 emission as the level at which an emitter would become subject to regulation under Title V of the Clean Air Act. As Ethanol Producer magazine notes, this level would likely subject most commercial ethanol plants to regulation as a result. Indeed, the EPA recently confirmed that nearly all ethanol plants would be treated as “major emitters” under the new rule.
EIA: Home Heating to be Cheaper This Year
The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration is predicting that the cost of heating your home with heating oil will be roughly 8% cheaper this winter than last. The fall in cost is a combination of a warmer expected winter, lower oil prices and increased conservation. The home heating oil industry has vowed to have a biofuel content of at least 2% in heating oil sold after July 2010.
Coskata to Unveil New Ethanol Plant
Coskata is slated to unveil its new ethanol plant in Madison, Pa., in just a few days on October 15.
Coskata was founded in 2006 with funding from Khosla Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures and Great Point Ventures, and made a significant public debut in January 2008 when General Motors Corp. announced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit it would invest an undisclosed amount of money in the company.
Coskata employs a three-step process technology that is capable of converting multiple feedstocks including woody biomass, agricultural waste, energy crops and construction/industrial wastes into synthesis gas. The syngas undergoes bacterial fermentation using Coskata’s proprietary microorganisms, and is converted into ethanol without using enzymes.
Coskata describes the facility as “minimum-scale engineering,” meaning it is the exact size that will allow the company to scale to 50 MMgy and 100 MMgy facilities. The $25 million plant, located 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, is co-located with a pilot-plant gasifier owned and operated by a unit of Calgary, Alberta’s Alter NRG Corp.
GM will use the ethanol produced at the facility for testing in flexible-fuel vehicles at its Milford, Mich., proving grounds.
Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer today filed an emissions cap-and-trade bill to serve as the Senate’s version of Waxman Markey. The advance copy available here has not yet been assigned a bill number and is not yet available through Thomas.
The bill is more flexible on cap-and-trade than Waxman Markey and is thought to signal the administration’s willingness to deal of key terms in order to get some kind of emissions control bill passed.
In the first interview of the series, we interview Eric Taub, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Verus Carbon Neutral, the only aggregator of carbon credits in Atlanta, Georgia.
Before Eric founded Verus Carbon Neutral, he was a partner and portfolio manager at Juno Management of Atlanta. His career has taken him to London, New York, Mexico City and Chicago. Eric’s experience includes several years as Senior Vice President in portfolio management at Wachovia, Managing Director at SunTrust, Director of Emerging Markets at Bank of Montreal, and certification as a Chartered Financial Analyst.
You can find the complete interview here.
Congressman Ed Markey, co-sponsor of the epinomous cap and trade bill, said that passage of the Waxman-Markey bill would bring “a trillion dollars” in private investment into renewable energy. Congressman Markey was touring the Alameda, California labs of Aurora Energy at the time.
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