biofuels & water resources mini-retreat

19 January 2007 Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat

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Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat

Sponsored by:Department of Biosystems Engineering

Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences ResearchWater Resources Research Initiative


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Husker Ag LLC (60)

ADM CornProcessing (110)

Cargill Inc(110)Midwest Renewable

Energy LLC (20)

Cornhusker EnergyLexington (80)

Trenton AgriProducts LLC (45)

KAAPA EthanolLLC (60) AGP Corn

Processing Inc (55) &Chief Ethanol Fuels, Inc (65)

Platte ValleyFuel Ethanol LLC (48)

Abengoa BioenergyCorp (55)

Nebraska EnergyLLC (35)

Nebraska Ethanol Plants

Ethanol plant data is from NDEQ (4-18-06; fromPaul Yamamoto). Plant capacity (parentheses) is in MGal/year.

Cropland data from National Agricultural Statistics Service Research and Development Division(NASS.USDA.gov/Research/Cropland/SARS1a.htm)

Urban data is US Census Tiger data (2000).

Legend 2005 NASS Cropland Corn

Urban

RailroadPlant StatusOperational

1:3,000,000

0 60 12030 Miles

0 100 20050 Km

(September 2006)

Created by Maribeth Milner

Capacity:

715 million gallons

Existing


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Husker Ag LLC (60)


Cargill Inc(110)Midwest Renewable

Energy LLC (20)





Platte ValleyFuel Ethanol LLC (48)








Urban

RailroadPlant StatusOperational

1:3,000,000

0 60 12030 Miles

0 100 20050 Km

(2006 Expanded)


Capacity:

+824 =1539

million gallons

6 plants being expanded,Completion expected in 2007


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(Dec. 2007)

NEDAK (20)

Elkhorn ValleyEthanol LLC (53)

Val-Ethanol LLC(118)

ASA Albion,LLC (118)

E3 Biofuels (20)

Mid-AmericaAgri Products (84)


Abengoa Bioenergyof Ravenna (80)

AdvancedBio Energy LLC (100)

Pioneer Trail Energy,LLC (118)






Urban

RailroadPlant StatusOnline 2007

1:3,000,000

0 60 12030 Miles

0 100 20050 Km

NEW


Capacity:

+815 =2354

million gallons

Completion expected in 2007Source: Ethanol Producer Magazine,December 2006


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Annual NE Ethanol Production Capacity and Corn Use

Status(as of10-2006)

Ethanol (Million gal)

Corn use* (Million bu)

Installed capacity 724 260 [20%]†

Under construction +866 570 [44%]†

Permitted +2,100 750

Total 3,690 1,320 [97%]†

*Conversion rate = 2.8 gallons ethanol per bushel†Percent of total corn production in NE: 1.28 (06), 1.31 (08), 1.36 (10) billion bu


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Mini-Retreat Goals

• To share information about faculty research projects and interests related to Biofuels and Water Resources

• Identify critical research areas for new projects

• Kick-start new initiatives and collaborations amongst UNL faculty, scientists at other institutions, and with the private sector– Interdisciplinary to tackle complex issues– Need for both biophysical and socio-

economic sciences


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Over time, water use by existing ethanol plants is becoming more efficient. The current average is about 4 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol produced from corn grain. New plants require about 3 gallons H2O per gallon EtOH.

D. Keeney. 2006. Water use by ethanol plants. [email protected]


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NEDAK (20)

Husker Ag LLC (60)

Elkhorn ValleyEthanol LLC (53)

Val-Ethanol LLC(118)

ASA Albion,LLC (118)


Cargill Inc(110)

E3 Biofuels (20)Midwest Renewable

Energy LLC (20)







Platte ValleyFuel Ethanol LLC (48)Abengoa Bioenergy

of Ravenna (80)


AdvancedBio Energy LLC (100)


Pioneer Trail Energy,LLC (118)






Urban

RailroadPlant Status

Online 2007Operational

1:3,000,000

0 60 12030 Miles

0 100 20050 Km


(Dec. 2007)

Potential Grain Consumption:

872million bushels

2007 Ethanol Capacity 2007 Ethanol Capacity is 70% of NE 2004-06 is 70% of NE 2004-06 Avg Corn ProductionAvg Corn Production


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Even though the ethanol industry will have the capacity to consume 70% of the state's corn grain by next harvest, this will likely highly depend on economics and how far these plants are pushed, since these numbers represent a maximum production level. Significant corn acreage increases in 2007 will boost production by perhaps ~10%.


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A Nebraska Water-Biofuel Perspective

• NE has ≈5 million acres of irrigated corn– Requires about 1.6x1012 gallons of

water/year, or roughly 1 million gallons per NE citizen

• New ethanol plants use about 3 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol produced– NE currently has about 1 billion gallons of

annual ethanol production capacity, which requires 3x109 gallons of water, which is <0.2% of water used to irrigate NE corn


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Mini-Retreat Program


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Bio-based energy analysis group: http://beag.ag.utk.eduhttp://beag.ag.utk.edu


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$200,000/year maximum award size per project;


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Newly added “area of special interest” in the 2007 RFP:

biofuels & water resources mini-retreat

Documents

water use

3x109 gallons of water

gallons ethanol

ethanol industry

existing ethanol plants

ne citizennew ethanol

bushels2007 ethanol

gallon of ethanol producedne