Tag Archives: italy
World’s First Refinery Turning Farm Waste to Bioethanol Opens
CRESCENTINO, Italy, October 14, 2013 (ENS) – The world’s first commercial-scale refinery to produce bioethanol from agricultural residues and energy crops has opened in northern Italy. When fully implemented, the system will provide 75 million liters of bioethanol annually for the European market. Present at the opening Wednesday were Italy’s Economic Development Minister Flavio Zanonato, local and regional officials and representatives from the European Commission, as well as more than 500 stakeholders from around the world. Beta Renewables new cullulosic ethanol plant in northern Italy (Photo courtesy Novozymes) Situated in fields outside the city of Crescentino, the plant uses wheat straw, rice straw and arundo donax, a high-yielding energy crop grown on marginal land to produce cellulosic ethanol, using enzymes to convert the plant material into fuel. The facility is the result of a collaboration between Beta Renewables, a cellulosic biofuels company based in Tortona, Italy, and Novozymes, the world’s largest producer of industrial enzymes, headquartered in Denmark. The two companies formed a strategic partnership in October 2012, making Novozymes the preferred enzyme supplier for Beta Renewables’ current and future cellulosic biofuel projects. “The advanced biofuels market presents transformational economic, environmental and social opportunities, and with the opening, we pave the way for a green revolution in the chemical sector,” said Beta Renewables Chairman and CEO Guido Ghisolfi. “We will continue to commercially expand Beta Renewables’ core technology throughout the world, and we are very confident at this stage given the demand we see around the globe.” “The opening today presents a leap forward and is truly the beginning of a new era for advanced biofuels,” said Novozymes CEO Peder Holk Nielsen. “Here, at this plant, enabled by Novozymes’ enzymatic technology, we will turn agricultural waste into millions of liters of low-emission green fuel, proving that cellulosic ethanol is no longer a distant dream. It is here, it is happening, and it is ready for large-scale commercialization.” Lignin, a polymer extracted from biomass during the ethanol production process, fuels an attached power plant, which generates enough power to meet the facility’s energy needs. Any excess green electricity will be sold to the local grid. Since 2011, more than US$200 million has been invested in research and development of the technology used to produce cellulosic ethanol at the Crescentino facility with financing from the Texas Pacific Group. Beta Rewables new biorefinery uses waste straw to make bioethanol. (Photo courtesy Novozymes) Beta Renewables says its Proesa™ engineering and production technology used with Novozymes’ Cellic® enzymes represent “the most cost-competitive advanced biofuels platform in existence today.” Proesa belongs to the so-called “second-generation” technologies which allow the use of the sugars present in lignocellulosic biomass to obtain fuel and other chemicals with lower greenhouse gas emissions and at competitive costs compared to fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. “Investors interested in cellulosic ethanol often ask when the technology will be ready at commercial scale,” said Ghisolfi. “PROESA enables customers to produce advanced biofuel at a cost-competitive price relative to conventional biofuels – at large-scale and today.” “Our complete offering makes cellulosic biofuel projects bankable and replicable,” Ghisolfi said. “With the world’s first commercial plant up and running here in northern Italy, I very much look forward to an exciting journey of establishing an entirely new, and very promising, industry.” A recent study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance concludes that transforming agricultural residues into advanced biofuels could create millions of jobs worldwide, economic growth, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and energy security by 2030. But before this can occur, Ghisolfi and Nielsen say government support is necessary to accelerate the deployment of next-generation biorefineries. “Policy makers now need to send clear signals to encourage the necessary investments in advanced biofuels,” said Nielsen. “Stable and predictable blending mandates, incentives for the collection of agricultural residues, and investment support for the first large-scale plants will help move the world substantially in terms of reducing greenhouse gases, stimulating economies, and providing energy security. Continued reliance on fossil fuels is not viable.” Italy’s government is hearing this message. Zanonato and Environment Minister Andrea Orlando responded on the facility’s opening day with a decree that promotes the creation of new biorefineries. The decree simplifies the procedures for authorizing biorefineries, with the dual purpose of promoting them in Italy and facilitating investments in the industry. “The use of this type of biofuel,” said Orlando, “is the solution to get to reach the target of 10 percent to 2020 European directive. The government is working to implement the plan, approved in recent months by the CIPE [the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning], the decarbonization of the economy and the reduction of CO2 emissions, encouraging measures to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency, low-emission mobility, green chemistry and 2nd generation biofuels.” Continue reading
Pellet Production In Wisconsin’s North Woods
By Tim Portz | September 23, 2013 A bit more than an hour north of the college town of Eau Claire, Wis., sits Ladysmith, the county seat of Wisconsin’s Rusk county. Nearly 30 percent of the county’s workforce of about 8,000 people makes a living in the manufacturing sector and, with 80,000 acres of forest land in the county, the forest products industry plays a vital role in the area’s economy. In 2009, looking to maximize on the area’s significant wood fiber assets, Illinois-based Indeck Energy Services Inc. broke ground on a pellet facility sized to produce nearly 90,000 tons of wood pellets annually when running at maximum capacity. Initially eyeing the area for the development of a biomass power plant, Indeck Energy Services and minority equity partner and feedstock aggregator Midwest Forest Products Co. pivoted their plans and brought this facility online to begin producing pellets in July 2009. Utilizing about equal portions of the area’s abundant sawmill residuals and whole round logs, the facility operates largely on hardwood fiber streams. “Predominantly what we are using is mixed hardwoods. The majority is medium- to high-density hardwoods. That includes red oak, hard maple, soft maple, ash and birch,” notes Darren Winchester, quality control manager at the plant. Feedstocks drive the facility’s final product quality, Winchester continues. “One good way to look at quality is consistency and the consistency does start on the front end. For us, we maintain a product recipe that calls for a certain percentage of our various wood species.” The facility’s wood yard is arranged into logical zones—evidence of its ability to accept and process both whole round logs and sawmill residuals. Whole round logs are received, debarked and fed into the facility’s 600 horsepower chipper. The chips are sorted by species by the yard’s radial stacker and the bark is sold to nearby boiler operators. While the Btu from the bark could be put to use on the premises to power the dryer, the air permit required to burn this higher moisture content material makes that option impractical. Instead, the plant utilizes about 10 percent of its dried furnish (wood fines) to run the dryer. Pellets are bagged and stacked on pallets for delivery to the plant’s significant roster of dealers. “There are more than several hundred outlets in the Midwest that carry our product, from various big boxes to a lot of independent and private dealers like wood yards and small mom and pop hardware stores. So there is a myriad of outlets for our product and we’re certainly always looking to increase that number,” reports Nunzio Maniaci, business development manager. The plant covets the growth opportunity afforded by landing critical bulk delivery customers. “Our bulk customers are some schools and municipal buildings that have pellet appliances that allow them to heat their facility by burning pellets. There aren’t too many of those and it is not growing fast enough, probably, to suit us,” Nunzio says. The plant is well-positioned to service bulk customers, being unique among Midwestern pellet facilities in boasting onsite rail access. Ideally, the facility would locate a utility deploying biomass cofiring to drive some major demand. The plant had some early traction in this effort and, Nunzio reports, “we had one test two years ago with a large utility here in Wisconsin that burned a large number of tons of pellets.” Those tests, however, never progressed beyond test fires and Nunzio is skeptical of near-term domestic utility demand for wood pellets saying, “That market just doesn’t seem to be maturing right now.” Not surprisingly, the entire management and operations team at Indeck are closely watching the maturing market for wood pellets in Western Europe, led by the demand from power plants in the United Kingdom. Moreover, foreign pellet buyers are reaching out to Indeck. “We get requests daily from them for large amounts of pellets to go different places: Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the U.K., specifically,” Nunzio says. “But we haven’t been able to get over the price hurdle, yet. Demand keeps going up and we think that will drive the price up and eventually we are going to get there.” Until that day, the team at Indeck Ladysmith LLC will continue to produce high quality pellets for their domestic buyers. Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine 651-398-9154 tportz@bbiinternational.com Continue reading
Property To Stabilise As Monetary Policy Normalises – UBS
22 August 2013 Property values are set to stabilise in many Eurozone markets this year and next as European monetary policy normalises, resulting in rising financing costs and risk-free rates, says UBS Global Asset Management. Retail should outperform. In its 2H13 Eurozone market outlook, signed by Head of Research Gunnar Herm, UBS said: “In 2013 and 2014, real estate investors will operate in a slightly improving but still subdued economic environment. UBS does not believe the European Central Bank’s monetary easing policy will continue further, which will result in higher risk-free rates and financing costs. debt availability will remain scarce for assets beyond core property. However, additional lending sources for value-add or opportunistic assets will emerge in the core Eurozone countries as well as for the prime segment in southern Europe. The retail sector will outperform office and logistics due to high income levels and stable capital value and rental growth in most markets from 2014. In the countries hit hardest by the financial crisis, stabilisation is expected for 2015. Best performers, on a total return basis, will be France and Ireland, worst Spain, Portugal and The Netherlands. Logistics remains attractive due to the high, relatively stable income returns in the current low interest rate environment. “We anticipate a broadening range of both returns and opportunities in the sector, with growing retail and manufacturing sector interest for new, tailored space in selective locations across Europe,” said the report. Occupiers will focus on regions and countries with a strong economic outlook. UBS sees Ireland and Norway as the most attractive options for a core portfolio over the next three years. In the office sector, cost-cutting continues as the main driver of leasing activity. Due to low development activities, vacancy levels in the prime segment have been falling, resulting in a supply shortage in CBD locations and rising prime rents. Outside the prime segment, UBS expects continued pressure on capital values. France and Finland are set to outperform on a total return basis, while Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and Italy are likely to underperform. “Even though we do not believe in improving occupier market conditions in the Dutch office market, counter-cyclical opportunities may arise in the prime office segment,” said the report. pie Continue reading
