News Release from Illinois EPA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 23, 2012

Illinois EPA Designates 15 Chicago Area “Green Fleets”

Oak Park—The Illinois EPA, in coordination with the Chicago Area Clean Cities coalition, designated 15 new Chicago area Green Fleets at an event held today in Oak Park.  The Illinois Green Fleets program provides for “Green Environment, Green Energy, & Green Economics for a Green Illinois,” through the use of clean alternate fuels, such as natural gas, biodiesel, ethanol, propane and electricity in their fleet vehicles, as well as retrofiting existing diesel trucks with clean technology options to reduce diesel particulates. Information regarding the program can be found at http://www.illinoisgreenfleets.org/.  “These are family-owned and larger businesses, as well as public bodies, that have seen the value in supporting clean air, energy independence, jobs and providing insurance against the concern about high prices for gasoline and diesel,” said Interim Illinois EPA Director John Kim. “These new Green Fleets join an elite fraternity of over 100 designated fleets throughout the state. We see more and more family-owned small businesses that are taking the initiative to purchase and convert their vehicles and equipment to run on a clean American fuel,” said Darwin Burkhart, program manager for the Illinois EPA and Chairman of Chicago Area Clean Cities. The 15 new Illinois Green Fleets are: Abt Electronics, a family-owned electronics and appliance store based in Glenview, uses biodiesel in its diesel truck fleet and has 30 vans that use E85 ethanol fuel and two vans that run on natural gas. In addition, the Abt family installed diesel oxidation catalysts on eight diesel delivery trucks to further reduce particulate emissions. Groot Industries, a family operated waste hauler based in Elk Grove Village, has 33 refuse trucks that run on natural gas and has installed two natural gas refueling stations to share with other fleets. Other waste companies being recognized are Waste Management in Wheeling and Veolia ES Solid Waste in Northbrook with 33 and 20 natural gas refuse trucks, respectively. Competitive Lawn Service, a small commercial lawn business in Downers Grove, is the first lawn and landscaping business in the country to convert many of its pickup trucks and mower equipment to propane.  Doreen’s Pizzeria, a family-owned business in Calumet City, has seven natural gas-powered delivery trucks that display “Green Pizza Machines” on the sides of the vehicles. Ozinga Ready Mix, a family-owned business in Mokena, is believed to be the first concrete company in the country to convert 14 of its mixing trucks to run on natural gas. SCR Medical Transportation, a family run paratransit service in the Chicago area, operates 20 natural gas vans and shuttles for people needing mobility assistance. In addition, GO Airport Express operates two propane and two natural gas-powered shuttle vans and Yellow Cab Chicago has 79 natural gas taxis; both companies operate from O’Hare and Midway airports. Other Green Fleets that are being acknowledged at the event are Northern Illinois University in DeKalb that uses E85, biodiesel, natural gas, and hybrid vehicles in many of its trucks, buses, campus police cars, and other campus vehicles and equipment; Chicago Park District that has E85, biodiesel, natural gas, hybrids and electric vehicles; Dillon Transport of Burr Ridge that uses E85 in the company’s flex fuel vehicles; Foodliner of Franklin Park that operates six Freightliner trucks on natural gas; and the DuPage County Division of Transportation that has nearly half its fleet running on E85, biodiesel, natural gas and electricity.    ###

Biofuels News from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Fill 'Er Up With Tobacco? Berkeley Lab-Led Team Explores New Path to Biofuels

ARPA-E funded project aims to produce fuel molecules in plant leaves

FEBRUARY 23, 2012

Dan Krotz   dakrotz@lbl.gov

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It'll take some doing, but Berkeley Lab's Christer Jansson and others hope to create a new recipe for biofuels. The idea is to take hydrocarbon-synthesizing genes from cyanobacteria (in the flask) and introduce them into tobacco plants. Jansson will discuss the project at the Feb. 27-29 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit.

Mention biofuels and most people think of corn ethanol. Some may think of advanced biofuels from switchgrass or miscanthus. But tobacco? Not likely.

That could change. A team of scientists led by a researcher from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is exploring a way to produce gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from the iconic plant of the South.

Their goal is to engineer tobacco plants that use energy from sunlight to produce fuel molecules directly in their leaves. The leaves would then be crushed, and the fuel extracted and separated. The scientists estimate that about 1000 acres of tobacco could yield more than one million gallons of fuel.

Why tobacco? It’s grown in large tracts throughout the U.S and in more than 100 countries. It generates multiple harvests per year, its large leaves could store a lot of fuel, and it’s amenable to genetic engineering.

But before you fill up with gas squeezed from tobacco, the scientists must first get through a long checklist of pioneering research. Success could give the nation a new source of transportation fuel.

If this sounds promising—albeit a bit of a long shot—that’s by design. The $4.9 million project is funded by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which focuses on “high risk, high payoff concepts—technologies promising genuine transformation in the ways we generate, store and utilize energy.”

The project is led by Christer Jansson, a plant biochemist with Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division. He’ll discuss the project at the 3rd Annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, to be held February 27-29 near Washington, D.C.

Can tobacco leaves hold fuel molecules? An ARPA-E funded project at Berkeley Lab is taking on the challenge.

Jansson will be joined at the summit by other Berkeley Lab scientists who’re pursuing ARPA-E projects, all potential game-changers. These include a way to quickly discover materials that capture CO₂ from power plant emissions, an innovative method to produce biofuel from microbes, and the development of a low-cost flow battery for the grid that could boost the adoption of renewables.
In the tobacco-to-fuels project, Jansson and his collaborators want to create a shortcut in the way in which solar energy is converted to biofuel. Today, one approach to advanced biofuel production requires deconstructing biomass and then using microbes to ferment the resulting sugars into fuel. In contrast, the team hopes to create a plant that grabs CO₂ from the air and converts the carbon into a fuel that’s almost ready for the tank.
“We want to bypass downstream processes like fermentation and produce fuels directly in the crop,” says Jansson. “After the biomass is crushed, we could extract the hydrocarbon molecules, and crack them into shorter molecules, creating gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel.”
To get there, the scientists will work to create tobacco plants that are optimized to take in CO₂, harvest sunlight, and produce hydrocarbon molecules.
For the latter, Jansson will start with cyanobacteria genes that encode for enzymes which produce alkane, a type of hydrocarbon. He’ll then make synthetic versions of these genes that are suited for expression in tobacco. In another approach, Tasios Melis, a UC Berkeley biologist, will conduct a similar exercise with green algae genes that produce isoprenoids, another type of hydrocarbon.

These genes will be introduced into tobacco plants grown by UC Berkeley scientist Peggy Lemaux. Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of the leaves by UC Berkeley chemist David Wemmer will enable the scientists to spot any carbon bottlenecks in the plant and refine their metabolic engineering. In addition, Cheryl Kerfeld, a scientist at DOE’s Joint Genome Institute, will search the genomes of hundreds of cyanobacteria species for other alkane-producing genes that could also prove useful.

The scientists also want to get as much carbon into the tobacco plant as possible to maximize hydrocarbon production. Ordinary tobacco “fills up” with CO₂ very quickly. To increase the plant’s carbon uptake, the team will again turn to cyanobacteria, which are very efficient at grabbing carbonate from the surrounding water and transporting it into the cell. Jansson hopes to insert cyanobacteria genes that facilitate this carbon transport into the chloroplasts of tobacco plants.

Melis and UC Berkeley scientist Kris Niyogi will also work to enhance tobacco’s use of light during photosynthesis. Melis will use a technique he developed that enables the manipulation of a plant’s light-harvesting mechanisms.

The team hopes to grow their first plant in about 18 months. Their ultimate goal is a plant in which between 20 and 30 percent of its dry weight is hydrocarbon. Promising plants will be grown in Kentucky in a pilot test overseen by the Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center, whose scientists will explore ways to optimize the plants’ growth and harvest conditions.

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Norfolk Southern Deploys Renewable Diesel

News release from Norfolk Southern:

February 14, 2012

Norfolk Southern pens deal with Dynamic Fuels and Mansfield Oil
Norfolk Southern becomes first fleet user in the U.S. to deploy clean renewable diesel

NORFOLK, VA. - Dynamic Fuels, LLC and Mansfield Oil Company have signed an agreement to supply renewable diesel to Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE / NSC), one of the nation’s largest transporters of coal and industrial products. Norfolk Southern has primarily been using a 100% pure Dynamic Fuels renewable diesel at its Meridian, Mississippi rail yard since early January.

Dynamic Fuels, a 50/50 venture owned by Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE / TSN) and Syntroleum Corporation (NASDAQ / SYNM), recently signed commercial off-take and strategic alliance agreements with Mansfield to market renewable diesel to fleet customers. Dynamic Fuels, operator of the first commercial advanced biofuels plant in the United States, produces next-generation renewable and synthetic fuels from animal fats and greases. The company’s Geismar, La., plant produces renewable diesel as “drop in” fuel that can replace 100% of petroleum diesel in a diesel engine without engine modification.

“Norfolk Southern is pleased to be the first fleet user of renewable diesel in the United States,” said Gerhard Thelen, Norfolk Southern vice president operations planning and support. “Our locomotive engines are completely compatible with the pure renewable diesel provided by Dynamic Fuels and Mansfield. Together, they have provided seamless integration of renewable diesel supply into our Meridian, Miss., yard. Norfolk Southern has been at the forefront of the railroad industry in evaluating synthetic and renewable diesel fuels for many years. This effort exemplifies Norfolk Southern’s commitment to reducing carbon and other emissions, while further integrating sustainability throughout the operations of the company.”

“The contract with Norfolk Southern is the first manifestation of Dynamic Fuels’ partnership with Mansfield,” said Ron Stinebaugh, senior vice president of Syntroleum Corporation. "We look forward to working with Norfolk Southern to lower their emissions and increase the renewable content of the fuel they burn. Renewable diesel is a sustainable, ultra clean burning, high cetane fuel that reduces carbon emissions and significantly reduces particulates and NOx when combusted in existing diesel engines. Supplying a prestigious company like Norfolk Southern validates our belief that customers are looking for renewable options that increase sustainability and lower emissions without sacrificing fuel quality.”

Doug Haugh, president of Mansfield Oil Company added, “Mansfield and Norfolk Southern have had a strong relationship on the refined products side and we’re excited to supply them with a next-generation fuel like renewable diesel. We believe Dynamic Fuels is a leader in renewable diesel production and our partnership affords us the opportunity to further diversify our portfolio of transportation fuels for our customers.”

Norfolk Southern Corporation is one of the nation’s premier transportation companies. Its Norfolk Southern Railway subsidiary operates approximately 20,000 route miles in 22 states and the District of Columbia, serves every major container port in the eastern United States, and provides efficient connections to other rail carriers. Norfolk Southern operates the most extensive intermodal network in the East and is a major transporter of coal and industrial products.

About Mansfield Oil Company
Ranked as one of the Top 50 privately held companies in America by Forbes magazine and a multiple category finalist in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Platts Global Energy Awards, Mansfield defines the next generation transportation fuels company. Founded in 1957, the company has achieved double-digit growth for three decades by focusing on optimizing and controlling fuel-related costs for its customers using innovation, technology and high touch service. For more information, visitwww.mansfieldoil.com.

About Tyson Foods 
Tyson Foods, Inc., founded in 1935 with headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas, is one of the world's largest processors and marketers of chicken, beef and pork, the second-largest food production company in the Fortune 500 and a member of the S&P 500. The company produces a wide variety of protein-based and prepared food products and is the recognized market leader in the retail and foodservice markets it serves. Tyson provides products and services to customers throughout the United States and more than 130 countries. The company has approximately 115,000 Team Members employed at more than 400 facilities and offices in the United States and around the world. Through its Core Values, Code of Conduct and Team Member Bill of Rights, Tyson strives to operate with integrity and trust and is committed to creating value for its shareholders, customers and Team Members. The company also strives to be faith-friendly, provide a safe work environment and serve as stewards of the animals, land and environment entrusted to it. The Tyson Foods, Inc. logo is available athttp://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=3224.

About Syntroleum 
Syntroleum Corporation owns the Syntroleum® Process for Fischer-Tropsch (FT) conversion of synthesis gas derived from biomass, coal, natural gas and other carbon-based feedstocks into liquid hydrocarbons, the Synfining® Process for upgrading FT liquid hydrocarbons into middle distillate products such as synthetic diesel and jet fuels, and the Bio-Synfining(R) technology for converting animal fat and vegetable oil feedstocks into middle distillate products such as renewable diesel and jet fuel using inedible fats and greases as feedstock. The 50/50 venture -- known as Dynamic Fuels -- was formed to construct and operate multiple renewable synthetic fuels facilities, with production on the first site beginning in 2010. The Company plans to use its portfolio of technologies to develop and participate in synthetic and renewable fuel projects. For additional information, visit the Company's web site at www.syntroleum.com.

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Clearing a Potential Roadblock to Bisabolane

From the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:

Clearing a Potential Roadblock to Bisabolane

Joint BioEnergy Institute Researchers Identify Key Enzyme Structure

January 09, 2012

Lynn Yarris (510) 486-5375  lcyarris@lbl.gov

JBEI researchers determined the structure of the AgBIS enzyme and found it to consist of three helical domains, the first three-domain structure ever found in a synthase of sesquiterpenes. This discovery holds importance for advanced biofuels and other applications.

The recent discovery that bisabolane, a member of the terpene class of chemical compounds used in fragrances and flavorings, holds high promise as a biosynthetic alternative to D2 diesel fuel has generated keen interest in the green energy community and the trucking industry. Now a second team of researchers with the U.S Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has determined the three-dimensional crystal structure of a protein that is key to boosting the microbial-based production of bisabolane as an advanced biofuel.

The JBEI research team, led by bioengineers Paul Adams and Jay Keasling, solved the protein crystal structure of an enzyme in the Grand fir (Abies grandis) that synthesizes bisabolene, the immediate terpene precursor to bisabolane. The performance of this enzyme – the Abies grandis α-bisabolene synthase (AgBIS) – when engineered into microbes, has resulted in a bottleneck that hampers the conversion by the microbes of simple sugars into bisabolene.

“Our high resolution structure of AgBIS should make it possible to design changes in the enzyme that will enable microbes to make bisabolene faster,” says Adams, a leading authority on x-ray crystallography. “It should also enable us to engineer out inhibition effects that slow throughput, and perhaps also  engineer the enzyme to produce other kinds of fuels similar to bisabolane.”

Adams, who heads JBEI’s Technologies Division, is the corresponding author of a paper describing this work in the Cell Press journal Structure. The paper is titled “Structure of a Three-Domain Sesquiterpene Synthase: A Prospective Target for Advanced Biofuels Production.” Co-authoring it with Adams and Keasling were Ryan McAndrew, Pamela Peralta-Yahya, Andy DeGiovanni, Jose Pereira and Masood Hadi.

JBEI is one of three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers established by DOE’s Office of Science to advance the technology for the commercial production of advanced biofuels. It is a multi-institutional partnership led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and headquartered in Emeryville, CA.

This past fall, JBEI researchers identified bisabolane as a potential new advanced biofuel that could replace D2 diesel, today’s standard fuel for diesel engines, with a clean, green, renewable alternative that’s produced in the United States. Using the tools of synthetic biology, the researchers engineered strains of bacteria and yeast to produce bisabolene from simple sugars, which was then hydrogenated into bisabolane. While showing much promise, the yields of bisabolene have to be improved for microbial-based production of bisabolane fuel to be commercially viable.

“The inefficient terpene synthase enzyme is one of the bottlenecks in the metabolic pathway used by the engineered microbes,” says Peralta-Yahya, a lead member of the earlier JBEI team as well as the current team. “Knowing the AgBIS crystal structure will guide us in engineering it for improved catalytic efficiency and stability, which should bring our bisabolene yields closer to economic competitiveness.”

Peralta-Yahya and her colleagues determined that the AgBIS enzyme consists of three helical domains, the first three-domain structure ever found in a synthase of sesquiterpenes – terpene compounds that contain 15 carbon atoms. The discovery of this unique structure holds importance on several fronts, as co-lead author of the Structure paper McAndrew explains.

“That we found the structure of AgBIS to be more similar to diterpene (20 carbon terpene compounds) synthases not only provides us with insight into the function of these less well characterized enzymes, it also provides us with clues to the evolutionary heritage as the archetypal three-domain terpenoid synthases became two-domain sesquiterpene synthases in plants. Furthering our knowledge of the structures and functions of terpenoid synthases may prove to have abundant practical applications aside from advanced biofuels because these enzymes produce a wide variety of specialized chemicals.”

Solving the three-dimensional crystal structure of AgBIS was made possible by the protein crystallography capabilities of Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS), a DOE Office of Science national user facility for synchrotron radiation, and the first of the world’s third generation light sources. For this work, the JBEI team used three of the five protein crystallography beamlines operated by the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology (BCSB) – beamlines 8.2.1, 8.2.2, and 5.0.3.

“We needed to use multiple beamlines because we collected data on several crystals – the protein by itself, and the protein with different inhibitors/cofactors,” says Adams, who headed the  BCSB from 2004 to 2011. “Also, the approach we used to solve the AgBIS structure required high flux tunable x-rays such as those provided at 8.2.1 and 8.2.2, which are superbend beamlines.”

This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

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Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

The following was gleaned from a January 10 New York Times article with the above title.

Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, aimed at reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, its reliance on oil imported from hostile places and the export of dollars to pay for it, includes provisions to increase the efficiency of vehicles as well as incorporate renewable energy sources into gasoline and diesel.

It requires the use of three alternative fuels: car and truck fuel made from cellulose, diesel fuel made from biomass and fuel made from biological materials but with a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Only the cellulosic fuel is commercially unavailable. As for meeting the quotas in the other categories, the refiners will not close their books until February and are not sure what will happen.

The goal set by the law for vehicle fuel from cellulose was 250 million gallons for 2011 and 500 million gallons for 2012.  Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties.

The standards for cellulosic fuel are part of an overall goal of having 36 billion gallons of biofuels incorporated annually by 2022. But substantial technical progress would be needed to meet that — and lately it has been hard to come by.

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EPA Finalizes 2012 Renewable Fuel Standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent this out today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 27, 2011

EPA Finalizes 2012 Renewable Fuel Standards

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today finalized the 2012 percentage standards for four fuel categories that are part of the agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard program (RFS2). EPA continues to support greater use of renewable fuels within the transportation sector every year through the RFS2   program, which encourages innovation, strengthens American energy security, and decreases greenhouse gas pollution.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) established the RFS2 program and the annual renewable fuel volume targets, which steadily increase to an overall level of 36 billion gallons in 2022. To achieve these volumes, EPA calculates a percentage-based standard for the following year. Based on the standard, each refiner and importer determines the minimum volume of renewable fuel that it must ensure is used in its transportation fuel.

The final 2012 overall volumes and standards are:

Biomass-based diesel (1.0 billion gallons; 0.91 percent)
Advanced biofuels (2.0 billion gallons; 1.21 percent)
Cellulosic biofuels (8.65 million gallons; 0.006 percent)
Total renewable fuels (15.2 billion gallons; 9.23 percent)

Last spring EPA had proposed a volume requirement of 1.28 billion gallons for biomass-based diesel for 2013. EISA specifies a one billion gallon minimum volume requirement for that category for 2013 and beyond, but enables EPA to increase the volume requirement after consideration of a variety of environmental, market, and energy-related factors. EPA is continuing to evaluate the many comments from stakeholders on the proposed biomass based diesel volume for 2013 and will take final action next year.

Overall, EPA’s RFS2 program encourages greater use of renewable fuels, including advanced biofuels. For 2012, the program is implementing EISA’s requirement to blend more than 1.25 billion gallons of renewable fuels over the amount mandated for 2011.

More information on the standards and regulations: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/regulations.htm

More information on renewable fuels: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/index.htm

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