Maynard Helgass and his 10 pound beet.
A few brave farmers up in North Dakota have taken on the fight of a lifetime. The brave folks at Green Vision Group have been working with a high potential new advanced biofuel feedstock, sugar beets.
Here are a few facts my friend Maynard Helgass sent me about the benefits of these beautiful plants.
1. The sugar beet has to be considered the lowest cost of all biofuel processing. You go right from sugar to biofuels.
2. The production process requires grinding and pressing the fine juice for the fermentation process. The waste from the fermentation process (which is a high organic material) is spray dried and fed into the boilers,which produces a higher temperature than traditional coal or natural gas in these boilers. When it is complete, all that remains as waste is potash which is sold as a fertilizer.
This thermal energy provides 70-75% of the total thermal energy required by the production plant. We are currently doing a commercial burn test of the material and expect the results any day. This test is being conducted by a certified boiler company and will provide us with boiler design and material to manage the higher temperatures and commercial application for processing biofuels.
3. In 2008, sugar beets and sugar cane were classified as advanced biofuel feedstock. However in 2009 sugar beets were not listed, only sugar cane was listed as feedstock for advanced biofuels. We don’t know why, but it may be that there was no request for sugar beets to be listed in the new Renewable Fuel Standard.
Now, we have to apply by application to be classified as an advanced biofuel feedstock. It may be to an advantage, as energy beets could now be be classified as a cellulosic feedstock, based on a successful burn test, and qualify for higher equivalency value in the proposed RIN marketing program.
4. There are significant soil and nutrient benefits from energy beets in a four year farming rotation practice. In fact there may be enough benefits to result in higher yields in the other three rotational crops to offset the entire use of energy beet acreage for biofuels.
How is this? Energy beets have tap roots that grow as deep as eight to ten feet into the soil structure. They grow through hard pans, fracturing them so water can freely move through the soil formation creating excellent internal water drainage. The deep tap root also provides for the plant's ability to withstand drought conditions.
In addition, the deep tap roots act as a mop in sweeping up plant nutrients that escape other shallow rooted rotational crops unable to reach these nutrients moving down through the soil structure. These nutrients would eventually end up as contamination to our ground water.
5, The energy beet plants are designed to be 20MGY plants whereby growers would not be required to transport beets over 20 miles for processing. Since they are water neutral and the waste is sold as fertilizer, very little investment in infrastructure would be required for processing.
This design requires low capital investment per gallon biofuel produced and would employ 15-20 employees. We would like area producers of energy beets to have some ownership in processing to participate in the profitability of the plant in contributing to the prosperity of the community. There could be 10-20 plants in the state of North Dakota and perhaps twice that many in the state of Iowa, where our partners Heartland Renewable Energy, LLC are located.
6. We are currently involved with research at North Dakota State University that will further improve on a already profitable plan. Syngenta Seeds and Betaseed are highly involved with our project. They have a strong focus on the energy beet genetics in improving yields and sugar without having to deal with the genetic impurities involved in sugar beet for food production.
They believe they can improve yields up to 20% in the next few years through their genetic pool and breeding programs. We already have irrigated yields in excess of 40 tons per acre at 18% sugar, and sugar makes biofuels.
So, it may be time for America to get out of research mode and get to work making biofuels now.
Tags: Green Vision Group, Heartland Renewable Energy LLC, Syngenta, advanced biofuel, beet biofuel, bioeconomy, clean energy transportation, North Dakota, second generation biofuels, sugar beets, U.S biofuels, biofuels, energy, food, fracturing, Iowa, Maynard Helgass, North Dakota, North Dakota State University
Tags: Green Vision Group, Heartland Renewable Energy LLC, Syngenta, advanced biofuel, beet biofuel, bioeconomy, clean energy transportation, North Dakota, second generation biofuels, sugar beets, U.S biofuels, biofuels, energy, food, fracturing, Iowa, Maynard Helgass, North Dakota, North Dakota State University
Source: energyboom.com
