Proceedings - Biomass South 2008

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Ron Barmore, Director of Project Development, Range Fuels, Inc.

Ron Barmore is the Director of Project Development for Range Fuels, Inc. In this role he leads the company's efforts in the siting, development and permitting of new projects and the sourcing of feedstock materials. Mr. Barmore is a member of the Council of Sustainable Biomass Production, serves on the executive committee of the Pine 2 Energy Coalition and is a frequent speaker at Bio-Energy conferences on issues that are critical to the development of the advanced Biofuels industry. Mr. Barmore has spent the majority of his career developing projects in the alternative energy field, primarily in the waste-to-energy industry (municipal solid waste to power). Most recently he spent six years as the senior executive in charge of business development efforts for Barlow Projects, Inc. His career also includes five years with ABB Resource Recovery Systems as a Regional Manager of Business Development and a number of years as an independent consultant. He began his career with one of the leaders in the waste to energy industry, Wheelabrator Technologies, Inc., a pioneer in the alternative energy field.

Biomass to Energy: Inventing the New Oil

• Slide Presentation in PDF format (will open in new window)

Notes:

• Range Fuels is funded by private equity and government grant match, initially formed in 2006 to commercialize cellulosic ethanol
• The path to success
  • Proven conversion process
• Low cost, abundant & sustainable biomass supply (sighting and source)
• Accessible biofuel markets (low transportation costs) - approximately 1/2 cost of delivering chips is diesel fuel
• Legislative & regulatory support and clarity
• A sustainable system
• Thermochemical:
• step 1: solids to gas
• step 2: gas to liquids
• ethanol for transportation, methanol for many users, and some higher "ethanols"
• process in not biological, so very versatile and can use a variety of feed stocks (switchgrass to wood)
• Existing forestry resources (starting with excess)
• Pulpwood
• Fuel chips
• Mill residuals
• Phase II: increase yield per acre
• Phase III: purpose grown trees & energy crops
• CERES: energy group company
• Accessible market:
  • Higher blends: 20% is achievable in existing vehicles
• Wider distribution, E85 station
• Regulatory support
• Cellulosic biofuel
• Corn-based ("we need them", they established the infrastructure and technology and are currently making changes)
• Definition of renewable biomass needs to be inclusive
• Farm Bill
• $1.01 per gallon cellulosic biofuel tax credit (most goes to gas company, refiner, and blender; very little to producer)
• Title IX- energy programs for 1) Biorefinery Assistance and ) Bioenergy Crop Assistance
• Sustainable development
  • Need to improve net energy balance
  • corn < sugar cane (especially Brazil) < cellulosic ethanol (goal 10:1 gas use)

Key Quotes:

Logger: "When you start proving that your checks don't bounce, then we'll start making some changes in how we log timber."

Thanks to Sarah Ashton, Rachel Cook, Lindsey Hannum, James Jeuck, Liwei Lin, James McCarter, Susan McIntyre, and Mark Megalos for providing notes and summaries for presentations.