Renewable Diesel and Biodiesel

In the most recent two installments of Energy Tech Stocks' interview with me cover my views on transmission stocks, and biofuel stocks.  Readers of AltEnergyStocks know that I am a big fan of electricity transmission, a theme I keep coming back to.  You also know that I have a very ambivalent relationship with both ethanol and biodiesel.  So I liked Bill's transmission article, but I just wasn't able to convey to him the subtleties of how I feel about biofuels.  But he got one thing right: the owners of biofuel feedstock are likely going to be the biggest winners....

Jim Lane “On the way” forever, talked up by all, deployed by some – technologies that handle high free fatty acid feedstocks like used cooking oil are coming into their hey-day, via players like REG, Novozymes, Pacific Biodiesel, Blue Sun, Piedmont, COMAC and more. Christmas come early for advanced biofuels? One of the most alluring targets in advanced biofuels although cruelly mis-named is in the world of free fatty acids. Most of the oils currently used for biodiesel are sourced from soybeans, palm or rapeseed, and precisely because they contain less than 0.5%...

Until algae farms move from the research and demonstration stage, biodiesel usage is going to be tightly constrained by available feedstock.  The feedstocks for biodiesel are oils and fats, which naturally occur in quantity only in animals or the seeds of plants.  As such, the quantity of oil available is much smaller than the sugars, starches, and cellulose which occur not only in the seeds and fruits of plants, but also in the stems and leaves, and can be used to make ethanol.  Because sugarcane contains the best ethanol feedstock, sugar in the stem (not just the...

by Jim Lane It’s been a very busy week in Washington DC, the high point being a letter to seven senators sent late Thursday by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who took significant (and as of a few days ago, unexpected) steps toward strengthening the foundation for ethanol and renewable fuels. The truth? It’s a Trump Administration back-down. EPA overreached on de-clawing the Renewable Fuel Standard on behalf on some grumpy oilpatch donors (known as GODs), and the Trump Administration managed to revive a Grand Alliance around renewable fuels — one that now includes almost 40 members of the United States Senate,...

Green Star Products Inc (GSPI) announced its plans to construct total Bio-Refinery Complexes for production of both biodiesel and biomass ethanol at each facility. The first Bio-Refinery is planned to be in North Carolina (see GSPI press release dated April 20, 2006) and the location of the second facility is to be announced soon in the northwestern sector of the United States. Each GSPI-designed Bio-Refinery will have a start-up production of between 10 or 20 million gallons per year with quick expansion capabilities. The facility infrastructure will be capable of expanding to 60 million gallons per year...

By Jim Lane Over the years we’ve all seen a lot of curveballs in the advanced bioeconomy. You see companies like Valero, which lobby the United States Congress with unbridled intensity to get rid of the Renewable Fuel Standard, on the verge of becoming the single-biggest producer of RINs in the United States (with news that they might take capacity at Diamond Green Diesel up to 540 million gallons). You see companies like Solazyme which love the Renewable Fuel Standard and drive up to nearly a billion-dollar post-IPO valuation based on delivering fuels at volume, then announcing that there are even...

Green Star Products Inc (GSPI) announced that they have developed and successfully commercially tested their advanced biodiesel reactor. GSPI reactors require an amazing two minutes to complete the biodiesel conversion reaction versus over one hour for the rest of the industry. This means that GSPI's processing rate through the reactor is at least 30 times faster than the rest of the biodiesel industry.

by Debra Fiakas CFA Last week the president of renewable chemicals producer FutureFuel Corporation (FF:  NYSE) turned in his resignation.  Lee Mikles is around sixty and seems a bit young for retirement.  He had been with the company from day one and served as the chief executive officer through the end of 2012.  He owns 2.3 million shares of FutureFuel stock or about 5% of the outstanding shares.  Maybe Mikles is just looking for a better paycheck.  The last time the company disclosed compensation, Mikles was down for $36,000 in compensation as a director.  Along with...

Jim Lane Filling up with Biodiesel in 2007.  Photo source: Tom Konrad Darling of the mid-2000s, still beloved by its many fans biodiesel is increasingly a key to delivering advanced biofuels volumes now and even more so between now and 2022. Presentations by NBB CEO Joe Jobe and REG CEO Daniel Oh at ABLC 2013 explained the how and why. In the excitement over cellulosic biofuels and drop-ins, it is easy to forget that the backbone of advanced biofuels in the US and around he...

Finland’s Neste Oil Corporation (NEF: F) brought its fourth renewable diesel plant on-line in September 2011, earning bragging rights to the world’s largest facility of its kind.  Located at the Port of Rotterdam, the plant has the capacity to produce 800,000 metric tons of renewable diesel that Neste brands NExBTL and claims is the “cleanest and highest-quality renewable diesel on the market today.”  Along with Neste’s three other plants already in operation in Finland and Singapore the fourth plant in Denmark brings Neste’s total production capacity to 2.0 million metric tons per year.

On January 29th, M~Wave and private vertically integrated Biodiesel distributor Blue Sun Biodiesel announced a merger between the two, with Blue Sun becoming a division of M~Wave, and the merged company being renamed Blue Sun Holdings. Managerial control will also pass to "certain directors and the officers of SunFuels." If this merger goes through as planned in the second quarter of 2007, US investors will have their first opportunity to invest in a stock focused on a biofuel which is much less controversial among environmentalists than corn-based ethanol. Estimates of the well-to-wheels Energy Return on Energy Invested...

by Jim Lane In Washington, the US Congress passed its budget deal, and among the items in the deal was a retroactive restoration of the $1 per gallon biodiesel tax credit for 2017. The bill did not include a provision for 2018 and future years. The budget compromise had run into headwinds in the Senate, in the form of a voting delay imposed by Rand Paul of Kentucky, while opposition in the House from a group of Democrats and hardline conservatives had put the bill into some degree of jeopardy.Renewable Energy Group CEO Randy Howard said “We are pleased that Congress recognized...

This entry continues a series on companies I sold as part of a portfolio cleanup prompted by the mess on Wall Street.  In the first entry I described what I plan to do with the cash, followed by the reasons why I sold Carmanah Technologies and Pacific Ethanol.  UQM Technologies was one I didn't sell.   I have not  mentioned Dynamotive Energy Systems (DYMTF) before.  I have mixed feelings about the company.  They use fast pyrolysis to make cellulosic biofuels, which I believe will prove to be one of the more economic pathways to cellulosic biofuels.  However, I believe that...

In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final Renewable Fuel Standard renewable volume obligations for 2018. The agency finalized a total renewable fuel volume of 19.29 billion gallons , of which 4.29 BG is advanced biofuel, including 288 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel. As the Renewable Fuels Association explained: “That leaves a 15 BG requirement for conventional renewable fuels like corn ethanol, consistent with the levels envisioned by Congress in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. The 2018 total RFS volume finalized today represents a minor increase (10  million gallons) over the 2017 standards, and a modest increase...