Tell us about your organization and it’s role in the advanced bioeconomy.

We are a financial sourcing company for GREEN renewable energy projects.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

We match the funder/investor with the project of their choice with a bit of our suggestions. Just matched a water project with a funder for about $300m. Seeking additional funders/investors for our WTE, Algae to Fuel and other renewable energy projects.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?

Funding by government sources to speed up renewable energy project developments to stop using oil, coal, and gas to save the earth.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change?

Lobbying by the oil, coal and gas monopolies.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you.

Getting rid of pollution by oil, coal and gas plants.

Where are you from? 

Salzburg, Austria.

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway? 

Merchant Academy Salzburg. BA and hotel management.

Who do you consider your mentors. What have you learned from them?

There were many people who lent a hand, gave advice and pointed my in the right direction.

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?

Stay in there, see it through and come out winning. If impossible make the best out of it and consider it a lesson learned.

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry? 

Living on the beach, photography and my parrot.

What 3 books would you take to read, if stranded on a desert island?

A good science fiction anthology, a Clive Cussler book and the manual to whatever stranded with me.

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?

Clive Cussler,David Baldacchi, Heinz G. Konsalik and Inga Clendennen with her fascinating book about the Azteks.

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?

Where I live,. San Diego, CA.

In Canada, it takes some cooking, but turning farm waste into biofuels is now possible and makes economic sense, according to preliminary research from the University of Guelph. Guelph researchers are studying how to make biofuels from farm waste, especially “wet” waste that is typically difficult to use. They have developed a fairly simple procedure to transport waste and produce energy from it.

Scientists have struggled to find uses for wet and green waste, including corn husks, tomato vines and manure. Dry farm waste, such as wood chips or sawdust, is easier to use for generating power. Often, wet farm waste materials break down before reaching their destination. Researchers led by engineering professor Animesh Dutta, director of the Bio-Renewable Innovation Lab (BRIL) at U of G, have found a solution: pressure cooking.

VecoPlan — complete systems for shredding, screening, separation, conveying, metered feeding of biomass prior to conversion to advanced biofuels

West Salem — Introducing WSM BioPrep — Biomass Feedstock Preparation Machines Systems

1 billion liters by 2024, vows Raizen. Record speed on start-up. What’s the story on the ground? The Digest investigates.

In Brazil, Iogen and Raízen announced they have begun production of cellulosic ethanol on schedule at Raízen`s newly expanded Costa Pinto sugar cane mill in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil.

Raízen broke ground on the $US100 million “biomass-to-ethanol” expansion just over one year ago. The new facility will convert biomass such as sugar cane bagasse and straw into 40 million litres per year of advanced, second generation cellulosic biofuel. It will also be the first large-scale commercial implementation of Iogen Energy’s cellulosic ethanol technology, which the company developed and has extensively proven in its Ottawa demonstration facility.

From the Front Lines

“We finished construction on schedule, and said we expected a Q4 startup, and we’re on time,” said Ziyad Rahme, SVP and General Manager for Iogen Energy. “We’ve had a short one-month ramp up, and started production and are making ethanol. Raizen right now have made 200,000 liters available and are selling cellulosic ethanol in Brazil. That’s also very exciting.”

How did it go, seen on the ground?

“The start up went very well,” Rahme said. “There are always the first of kind things. But our strategy was to focus on validating the technology – all with the express goal of having quick start up.. So we’re running in continuous mode right now as we speak.”

The ramp up to full production

“We’re getting very near the end of the harvest season,” said Rahme. “We’ll probably have one or two more weeks of run time, and then we’ll shut down as the harfvest comes to an end. That will wrap up the shakedown period – with a resumption in April or May of next year, when we ramp to full capacity.

Any shortfalls on rate or yield?

We are not hitting any significant hurdles, so far on the rate or yield side. What we are seeing is as per expectation, the pretreatment, hydrolysis and fermentation are all working as expected. Having said that there is always continuous improvement and fine tuning the process.”

Reaction from the partners

“Biofuel production at this facility represents the next step in our partnership with Iogen,” says João Alberto Abreu, agroindustrial director from Raízen. “We believe Iogen Energy has the most robust, well proven, and competitive technology platform in the cellulosic ethanol business. We see tremendous potential for this to meet the world’s growing demand for cleaner and more sustainable fuels, and we anticipate a long and profitable future.”

“We are very excited to have been able to make this start-up a success” says Brian Foody CEO of Iogen Corporation. “We have a great team of engineers, scientists and operators who’ve been working tirelessly with Raízen’s own excellent team. It has been a great partnership and we’re very pleased to be collaborating with a major ethanol industry player and committed partner like Raízen. Large scale commercialization in Brazil will open the door for global deployment of our technology.”

“Continuous commercial production will commence with the upcoming 2015 harvest season,” says Pedro Mizutani, Raízen’s Executive Vice President. Raízen has already announced that, given a success at Costa Pinto, it intends to deploy Iogen Energy`s technology in seven more Raízen sugar cane mills. “We plan to be producing up to 1 billion liters of cellulosic biofuel from bagasse and cane straw by 2024,” says Mizutani.

The Raizen ambition

In June 2012, Raizen announced that it would invest $7 billion in a program to reach 100 billion tonnes in cane crushing capacity, a 50 percent increase over current capacity. At the time, Raizen exec VP Pedro Mizutani said that the company, which now has 10 percent of the cane crushing capacity in Brazil, would increase production by 5 million tonnes at its current plants, and achieve the remainder of growth through new project, as well as acquisitions.

Raízen`s initial commitment to Iogen came in July 2012, after Raízen concluded that Iogen Energy had the most advanced cellulosic biofuels technology, ideally suited for building co-located commercial plants at Raízen’s sugar cane ethanol facilities.

“The technology being deployed has undergone extensive testing and validation work,” says Foody. “We have ten years of demonstration scale operating experience, and by operating over 6 months with Brazilian bagasse, we were able to troubleshoot problems, collect information, and adapt designs for reliable low-cost operation in Brazil.”

Iogen’s pivot to bagasse

Iogen’s switch in focus from Canada to Brazil for its first commercial project was a major news story in the past two years.

The rationale for bagasse can be summed up quickly: Raízen has a lot of it, and it is already aggregated and brought into the plant as part of the process for extracting cane juice from the cane. In other words, whether you are making sugar or ethanol, you have already paid to bring the bagasse into the plant.
But there’s cane straw to be considered, too. In traditional manual harvesting, the cane trash is burned in the fields. With the decision by the Brazilian government to require mechanized harvest by 2017, there’s been the question of what to do with all the straw.

How much? As a rough guide — and referring to dry tonnes — a cane field produces one third sugar, one third bagasse and one third tops and cane trash. Using that rough math, a 125 million (dry) tonne annual Brazilian cane harvest produces around 62 million tonnes each of bagasse and tops/cane trash. At 80-100 gallons per tonne, there’s enough biomass in Brazil’s current cane capacity (if all of it was used) for 10-12.5 billion gallons of ethanol, or 37-47 billion liters.

We put the practical figure at more like 40 percent of that – leaving the remainder to be used as biomass in the field for nutrient purposes, or burned for power generation.

The R8 and R9 technology

In many ways, the key decisions were taken in 2010, when Shell “announced a further investment in Iogen Energy, for the purpose of accelerating the commercial deployment of Iogen Energy’s process for making cellulosic ethanol from agricultural residue. As part of the ongoing joint development agreement between Shell, Iogen Corporation and Iogen Energy, Shell made a significant incremental commitment to fund research and development activities at Iogen Energy until mid-2012.”

At the time Iogen was using its R7 technology – the purpose of the new funding was to develop and demonstrate the R8 and R9 technology releases that were aimed at significantly reducing the capital and operating costs per gallon of cellulosic ethanol.

Indeed, this project checks in at $10 in capex per gallon — almost exactly the same capital cost that originally went into the 1 million gallon

Iogen’s long, long journey

The roots of the technology date all the way back to 1975, when Patrick Foody Sr. initiated work on a “steam explosion” process to improve cellulose digestibility for use as animal feed

1978 – US DOE contracts to investigate the performance of steam explosion for energy production. The process is found to deliver superior results compared with the prior state of the art pretreatments.
1980 – The company initiates research on enzymes and biotechnology.
1982 – The company builds an integrated 1 tonne per day cellulosic ethanol pilot plant, using wood as a feedstock.
1990 – Iogen enters the commercial enzymes business, focusing on producing enzymes that digest natural fiber.  In 2013, Iogen sold its commercial enzyme business to Novozymes.
1991 – Iogen forms an alliance with Amoco for the development of cellulosic technology, ending in 1995 when Amoco terminated alternative fuels development.
1999 – With $15.8 million investment from Petro Canada and $10 million from Technology Partnerships Canada, Iogen initiates construction of the world’s first demonstration-scale plant.
2002 – After a worldwide search for leading technology, Shell makes an initial commitment of $46 million to invest in developing Iogen cellulosic biofuel technology.
2004 – Iogen initiates commercial sale of cellulosic ethanol from its demonstration plant. Over the following years, Iogen invests in several rounds of demonstration plant upgrades, solving production scale-up issues.
2006 – Goldman Sachs invests $40 million in Iogen.
2007 – Volkswagen invests $10 million in Iogen, and studies the German potential.
2010 – Shell and Cosan announce the intent to form a Brazilian joint venture, and Shell transfers its holdings in Iogen Energy to Raízen.
2012 – Shell announces termination of its pursuit of a cellulosic ethanol project in Canada. 
2013 – Raízen begins construction.
2014 – Completion of construction  and start-up of ethanol production

in Q4.

In Washington, the US Senate passed the tax extenders bill, including the $1 per gallon biodiesel tax credit, 76-16.

The tax extender legislation including a one-year retroactive extension of four key advanced biofuels tax provisions as part of a larger package of tax credit extensions. These four advanced biofuels incentives include: (1) the Second Generation Biofuel Production Tax Credit;  (2) the Second Generation Biofuel Special Depreciation Allowance; (3) Incentives for Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel, and (4) Incentives for Alternative Fuels and Alternative Fuel Mixtures.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden voted against the bill in the end, stating that “this tax bill doesn’t have the shelf life of a carton of eggs. The only new effects of this legislation apply to the next two weeks.”

Two weeks? Yes, indeedy. The bill retroactively renews, for 2014 only, a list of 55 popular tax breaks. So, they all expire on December 31, 2014 — and if you’ve concluded that this gives almost no planning certainty to the US business that would result in a material increase in manufacturing or job creation, just a retroactive windfall, you’re not alone.

The hope all year had been for, at least, a two-year tax break deal with some tax breaks being made permanent, but a deal brokered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Ways and Means Committee chair Dave Camp failed to gain traction when President Barack Obama issued a veto threat over the lack of a provision for making a working families tax break permanent.

So, the Senate and House, as in the past, voted a one-year extension that will already have expired when Congress reconvenes in January.

One of the problems of the tax extenders is their very popularity in Congress. They are often “held hostage” by the Senate or House leadership and included n less popular bills as an incentive for votes.

Industry reaction

Advanced Biofuels Association President Michael McAdams

“We are encouraged by Congress’ decision to continue supporting the advanced biofuels tax incentives included in the tax extension legislation for another year, and simultaneously disappointed at how quickly these extenders will expire. These extenders send a significant signal to the advanced and cellulosic industry and to the markets regarding the sustained support at the federal level. Because these credits are vital to the ongoing development of the advanced biofuels industry, we urge members of Congress to consider extending these tax provisions for multiple years, to ensure stability in the marketplace and allow the advanced biofuels industry to reduce the cost of production and continue developing first-of-kind technologies on a level playing field with established competitors.”

Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy

“I commend the Senate for passing this legislation and sending it to the President’s desk to be signed into law. This retroactive tax package will help producers of next generation biofuels and cellulosic ethanol continue to grow and invest in the production of a cleaner burning fuel that is not only sustainable, but also helps significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improves our environment and reduces our dangerous dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels.

“These extenders are a critical step in creating competition against the entrenched fossil fuel industry that has been enjoying over a century of excessive subsidies, even though that industry is one of the most profitable across the globe.

“While I encourage the President to sign this into law as soon as possible, I am hopeful that the new Congress will reevaluate how these tax provisions are administered. Moving forward, I encourage Congress to provide certainty for producers in the form of proactive tax extenders to incentivize further growth in the industry.

Novozymes Americas President Adam Monroe

“When Congress creates stable and supportive tax policy, the biotech industry responds by investing in research and development, creating new jobs and building facilities that fuel innovation.

“The great thing about these tax credits is that they allow companies like ours to speed up our investments. That means we can put local people to work faster in our labs and our production plants. It means we can bring economic development more quickly to the community.

“Our research and development creates biotechnology that makes businesses more efficient. Second generation biofuel credits have allowed us to build an industry around cellulosic ethanol. Predictable long-term tax policy is crucial for this investment and innovation. In passing today’s legislation, Congress recognized the need to continue successful tax policy. We are disappointed, however, that they have chosen such a makeshift solution. Temporary fixes such as this create an uncertain investment outlook. Next year, Congress has a chance to provide the biotech industry with a long-term framework and we look forward to working with them.”

Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw

“While we greatly appreciate the retroactive extension of these tax credits that are vital to the production of cleaner-burning advanced biofuels for 2014, in only a matter of days they will lapse once again. We urge the next Congress to act swiftly to extend these important provisions for 2015 to provide the policy certainty necessary for advanced biofuel producers to continue building upon the air quality and energy security progress achieved to date.   The cloud of uncertainty for 2015 only grows darker when you factor in EPA inaction on the Renewable Fuel Standard and the upcoming 102nd birthday for permanent federal tax subsidies for petroleum products.”

Yes, it’s that time of year when I send out my list of 2015 solar marketing wishes and hope that you all will grant them within your own efforts. (If you missed my previous years, check out last year’s wishes, which includes links to other years.)

This year it’s one big wish, and that is that you will focus on marketing people in 2015 rather than marketing products and services.

This wish comes out of the fact that I think the entire industry is becoming more and more commoditized in the eyes of solar customers and installers. We’re giddy on how prices have dramatically come down and all of the new ways to finance solar, and that has made many of us promote how low we can go—albeit with quality, standards, and yada-yada features and benefits.

That’s great on one level, but…when everybody’s marketing on price and speed of installation and their definition of “quality,” and “service,” then that leaves price being the biggest differentiator again, doesn’t it?

However, what you can’t commoditize are people. That is, your staff and your customers will always be individuals that other prospects canrelate to as either examples or as people who they can trust in and around their home. And your employees are your ultimate spokespeople who can share their work-day and vouch for your company’s mission, whether that’s manufacturing or installing the best.

So, how do you market people and still provide information about your products and services?

For Solar Manufacturers:

Market the people who use your products. Here, your messaging in brochures, websites, and videos isn’t about the specs, but about how your installers used your products and had great results.

It’s part case study, but don’t forget that your customers have personalities that you can show, especially in creative share-worthy videos.

Market the people who make your products. If people relate to people and you want to build brand loyalty, installers aren’t going to fall in product love with your logo and spec sheets, but with your great story telling, they may come to appreciate the people who make your products. In other words:

• Tell stories about how your product is made through employees’ eyes.
• Show how employees care about their job function and what their roll means to the manufacturing process. Every job function is important, but why is their role specifically important? Tell those stories.
• Show how employees understand the challenges that solar installers face every day and why they think your solar product meets the customer’s challenges.

Every employee and customer story are going to be different, and if new prospects relate to these “people “stories (using your products and services), that will build solar brand trust that goes beyond competitive pricing.

For Solar Installers:

It’s largely the same ideas for installers:

Market the people who use your installation services. Whether you’re a residential, commercial, or a utility installer, these customers should be your solar heroes and examples to others, so tell their stories about going solar.

• What made them decide to go solar?
• Tell a story about their process of going solar.
• How do these customers feel now that they’ve gone solar?
• How do these customers feel about your crew installing solar on their home or business?

Document and promote all that. Similarly:

Market the people in your installation team. You might think that customers won’t care about the personalities of your installers or your warehouse people, but once again, if your price is competitive, it’s trust (and perhaps great Yelp reviews) that are going to win the bid in a competitively priced solar market. So, you must build trust, and you can do that through shining a solar light on the people that contribute to installing solar systems.

Consequently, my 2015 wish is that you make your entire team heroes too, but in a different way than customer heroes:

• Explain and show everyone’s job function and what it means for a quality installation.
• Show how team members care about your company and helping people to go solar.
• Tell stories about the day in the life of the solar installer.
• Do an origin story featuring your owner (and their family) and why they got into this difficult but rewarding business.

You can do all of this with videos, blogs, Facebook posts, e-newsletters, and other content marketing channels. If it’s great story telling, it will resonate.

Prospects who relate to your profiles of people will be inspired to change their product choices or dirty utility habits because the stories about your customers and your employees reflect their values. That’s ultimately why they will choose you over a lower priced product or service.

So that’s my Solar Fred marketing wish for 2015: Celebrate and market solar people, not solar products and services. It will take some creative effort, and people are going to have to get over being camera shy, but in the end, it will be worth it.

As usual, this list is my last post for the year. Wishing all my readers a terrific holiday and great solar success in 2015. –Oh, and of course, please … UnThink Solar in 2015.

Tor Valenza a.k.a. “Solar Fred” is the founder and CMO of UnThink Solar, and the author of Solar Fred’s Guide to Solar Guerrilla Marketing. For more solar marketing info, sign up for the UnThink Solar newsletter or follow @SolarFred on Twitter.

In what appears to be the final round of trade action against solar imports from Asia, the U.S. Commerce Department Tuesday affirmed its preliminary determination in July to impose anti-dumping duties ranging between 26.71 percent and 165.04 percent on…

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The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, rebounded strongly, up 3.47 percent to 61.07 as advanced biofuels soared. For the day, Solazyme (SZYM) surged 12.96 percent to $2.44, while Codexis (CDXS) rallied 13/10 percent to $2.59. Among other equities, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) gained 10.01 percent to $10.66. Overall, advances led declines 5 to 1 for the day.

In Canada, Iogen and Raizen announced they have begun production of cellulosic ethanol on schedule at Raizen’s newly expanded Costa Pinto sugar cane mill in Piracicaba, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Raizen broke ground on the $100 million “biomass-to-ethanol” expansion just over one year ago. The new facility will convert biomass such as sugar cane bagasse and straw into 40 million litres per year of advanced, second generation cellulosic biofuel.

It will also be the first large-scale commercial implementation of Iogen Energy’s cellulosic ethanol technology, which the company developed and has extensively proven in its Ottawa demonstration facility.

In Iowa, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) announced Iowa motorists purchased 3,341,822 gallons of E85 in the third quarter of 2014, according to data released by the Iowa Department of Revenue. The more than 3.3 million gallons of E85 sold is the third highest E85 sales in any quarter on record, and a more than 350,000 gallon increase (12 percent) over the second quarter of 2014.