Bio-Europe

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Christian Dannecker, CDM Consultant, South Pole Carbon Asset Management

Port Developers View: Gold Standard is Feasible

The Gold Standard project developing community gets a new momentum. South Pole Carbon Asset Management, a company focusing on Gold Standard project development, is convinced that many CDM projects would have the potential for Gold Standard certification. But why are many project developers still hesitating to capture the premium? First, the standard CDM process is perceived as complex and complicate. Therefore, many project developers have a general aversion against any additional requirements, irrespective of whether a small additional procedural effort would be outweighed by the premium gained. Second, Gold Standard specific requirements (e.g. additional stakeholder consultations) need attention of project developers regarding timing. However, an experienced Gold Standard project manager is able to fit GS requirements into a conventional CDM project schedule. Obviously, this requires a sound understanding of the GS procedures. Third, some argue that Gold Standard CERs will not yield a premium in the carbon market. Hence, any additional effort would not be justified. Gold Standard projects will remain a niche in the carbon market. However, South Pole is convinced that Gold Standard CERs will capture an interesting price premium. The market already started differentiating carbon credits regarding their contribution to sustainable development: bulk commodity and premium emission reductions.The expected price premium clearly outweighs the extra cost. Key factors to success include rigorous planning, well structured stakeholder consultations, and systematic screening of sustainability benefits.

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Julije Domac, BIOEN Head, Energy Institute of Croatia

Recent Developments in Croatian Biofuels Industry

After almost 15 years of continuous promotion of biofuels benefits and recent and still ongoing rapid development of biofuels industry in almost every European country, first amounts of biofuels are finally to be produced in Croatia. The first produced biofuel is biodiesel from modest capacity, but new and exciting large scale biodiesel and bioethanol projects are already under development followed by strong political support and government incentive measures. New projects include biodiesel from rapeseed and waste edible oils as well as bioethanol from corn and sugar beat. Within the framework of already developed Plan of placing biofuels on the domestic market in 2007, adopted by the Ministry of Economy, the prescription has been made regarding the share and amount of biofuels which fuel suppliers have to put on the domestic market, in order to achieve the national indicative target of 5,75% of biofuels in total fuel supply by the end of 2010. In order to achieve that target, it is proposed to define long term stable incentives for biofuels in the form of tax exemption and possibly other incentives for their production.This paper describes overall development of biofuels industry in Croatia, gives an insight of some relevant projects and describes their background. Finally, it concludes with identification of major barriers and government initiatives to overcome them in the near future. Authors were involved in all recent biofuels development projects in Croatia as well in preparation of relevant legislation and government strategic documents.

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Christian Grutte, Founding Partner, Leonardo Venablers

Investment Opportunities within Biofuels- Drivers and Challenges for an Emerging Sector

Fuelled by a favourable political environment and volatile crude oil prices investors ramp up their budgets to invest into biofuel projects across the world. This work will analyze the sources and drivers of capital flowing into biofuel projects and how developers can successfully raise funds. Different players will have varying drivers for their investment activity: For cooperatives, sugar companies, agro players this can represent a strategic diversification into a new line of business due to changing regulation in their core sector. Similar to utilities reacting towards political obligations with respect to renewable electricity ? Petrol & Oil companies will either embrace or reject biofuels depending on their judgment of a threat or a possibility of the new sector. Utilities and IPP will enter the biofuel sector in the context of an overall green corporate strategy and/ or requirements for green certificates. Financial investors will seek to support the build-up of pure play companies in an emerging sector with the option to stock list them or enter into corporate deals at a later stage. Main key success factors for successfully realizing a biofuel project are feedstock, location and sales. Investors are reluctant to enter projects without established and reliable long-term feedstock supply and off-take arrangements with defined quality and price corridors in a volatile commodity market. Choosing the right location with access to rail, road, water and utilities determines operational and initial investment cost. The work will show which challenges an investor is facing in realizing respective projects.

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Bart Koops, Technical Sales Manager of Grain Processing Business Unit, Genencor

Viscosity reducing Enzymes and Proteases in Fuel Ethanol Yield Optimization

In a dry mill process the various soluble fibers of small grains can cause high viscosities, and have a large influence on the efficiency of the process. Dry solid concentration is limited and consequently ethanol output is lower than it could be. Furthermore the efficiency in separation and evaporation is negatively influenced by a higher viscosity. For these reasons we have developed viscosity reducing enzymes that improve ethanol output, ethanol yield and separation and evaporation efficiency.

Because of the complexity of the non-starch polysaccharides (NSP), it is clear that not just one enzyme is able to efficiently hydrolyze the various fibers. For this reason we have developed multi-component enzyme preparations to ensure a maximal effect on viscosity reduction. This gives us the opportunity to optimize viscosity reducing enzymes for the various raw materials. In this presentation, the action of our OPTIMASH? range of enzyme for viscosity reduction will be presented.

A dry-mill process may seem to have only disadvantages judging from an enzyme point of view, but that is not the case. In a dry-mill process, proteins are present in fermentation and can serve as yeast nutrition, if hydrolyzed. It is well known that yeast needs addition of a nitrogen source during fermentation and that amino acids are more effective than many other nitrogen sources. In this presentation the influence of the acid fungal proteases GC 212 and FERMGEN? on ethanol yield improvement will also be shown.

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 Niels Langvad, Business Development Manager, BioGasol ApS

Operating Experiences from the Worlds first Fully Integrated Second Generation Bioethanol Pilot Plant

MaxiFuels is supported by public research funding from the Energy Research programme under the Danish Energy Authority, Technical University of Denmark, Novozymes and Energy E2. The MaxiFuels project is constructed to solve the major barriers for bioethanol production from lignocellulosic materials by cost efficient conversion of the raw material, maximizing the amount of biofuels and minimizing the disposal of process water. Efficient and optimized use of the raw materials with an environmentally friendly technology is the key to future success for the 2nd generation bioethanol production. Therefore the overall process outline for MaxiFuels has been defined to yield the maximum amount of bio-fuels per unit of raw material and to increase the process benefit by utilization of the resi-dues for further energy conversion and by-product refining. The main product is bioethanol - but the focus on production of other biofuels such as meth-ane (from a biogas process), hydrogen (from xylose fermentation) and other valuable by-products from the parts of biomass not suitable for ethanol production add full value to the overall process benefit. This focus exploits an environmentally friendly way of producing bioethanol where recirculation and reuse of all streams produced in the process have been fully integrated. For example, reuse of the process water is possible with the integration of the biogas process.

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Hank Madjeski, International Project Manager, Delta-T Corporation

How low can you go? How higher technology drives lower utilities and greater profits

Delta-T?s Hank Majdeski gives Expo guests an inside look at benchmarking fuel ethanol production technology today and where it's going in the future.  He'll answer tough, pivotal questions like:  How do you measure capital expenditures against the expected return on that investment?  What risks in new technology should be considered now?  What are the choices on balancing fresh water consumption and outside energy use in production?  How low can utility use and cost be driven?  What are cutting-edge technologies that can maximize your profits?  How do you use technology to maximize each of the plant's profit centers? Why is the biorefinery just the beginning?

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Jozef Mikulec, CEO, Slovnaft VURUP, A.S.

Some Remarks to the Standard 14 214

Every standard creates the strong foundation for the worldwide commercialization of the related products. It is in force to the standard EN 14 214 ?Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) for Diesel Engines - Requirements and Test Methods as well. The standard EN 14 214 contains 26 parameters, whereas the analogous American standard ASTM D 6751 contains only 14 parameters for determination of FAME. It is necessary for rationality and substantiation review of individual parameter. The ASTM standard doesn?t evaluate the FAME content, density, oxidation stability, iodine value, linolenic acid content, polyunsaturated acid content, MeOH content, MAG, DAG & TAG content, besides it requires distillation curve.

Discussion should be related to these two problem areas:

1. parameters which are doubled or those which are related to the same property

2. parameters which should be re-evaluated not to make an unreasonable limitation for using FAME as an alternative fuels. FAME sources are limited and requirements are high and ever-rising. It is necessary to use all accessible sources without fundamental quality reduction of FAME.

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Joan Plans, Prokurist, Schwarting-Biosystem GmbH

From the Organic waste to the Use of Biogas in Transport

Biogas is produced from the fermentation of such things as waste food, stable manure, industrial wastewater and sludge from sewage plants and consists mainly of methan and carbon dioxide. Other components can be water and sulphur, mainly hydrogen sulphide. In order to be used as vehicle fuel it has to be cleaned and upgraded. The carbon dioxide should be removed to raise the calorific value, and furthermore, in order to be used as a biofuel for transport it should be cleaned from particles, water and hydrogen sulphide to reduce the risk of corrosion achieving a gas with the same properties as natural gas, but with a renewable origin. Natural Biogas can replace petrol and diesel in all types of vehicles, buses, light and heavy lorries and cars. The major advantage in using methan is that the emission of environmentally damaging exhaust particles is dramatically reduced. Producing biogas is, however, not just a question of producing a fuel. It is also a way of dealing with organic waste in an environmentally sound way, something that is becoming increasingly important today. In the presentation it will be explained the experiences in Spain using upgraded landfill biogas and biogas from sewage treatment plant for transport. Cars and lighter commercial vehicles running on methane fuel are usually hybrids and can switch between methane fuel and petrol, which provides flexibility and long range. The fuel tank for methane fuel is integrated in the body of modern cars in the same way as the petrol tank.

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Rene Wismeijer, Program Advisor, SenterNovem

Biofuel Cities, European Partnerships for Biofuel Innovation at the Local Level

This presentation will introduce the Partnership to the public for 1st time internationally and will explain the purpose and gains to the attendees.The purpose of the Coordination Action Biofuel Cities European Partnerships (CAB-CEP) as funded by the EC is to demonstrate the use of new and innovative technologies that will permit extensive use of biofuels in cities covering the complete chain from feedstock to biofuels production, distribution and utilization in vehicle fleets. The CAB-CEP project aims to develop a European Partnership allowing organizations (local governments, companies, institutions, fleet owners and other stakeholders) that work on biofuels, or are interested to work with biofuels, to find and exchange information, find partners and start new initiatives. New and existing projects on biofuels will be invited to be part of Biofuel Cities, in order to coordinate efforts and actively contribute to reaching the targets of Directive 2003/30/EC.

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