19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 1 Sponsored by: Department of Biosystems Engineering Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research Water Resources Research Initiative

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 2 (September 2006) Created by Maribeth Milner Capacity: 715 million gallons Existing

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 3 (2006 Expanded) Created by Maribeth Milner Capacity: +824 = 1539 million gallons 6 plants being expanded, Completion expected in 2007

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 4 (Dec. 2007) NEW Created by Maribeth Milner Capacity: +815 = 2354 million gallons Completion expected in 2007 Source: Ethanol Producer Magazine, December 2006

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 5 Annual NE Ethanol Production Capacity and Corn Use Status ( as of ) Ethanol (Million gal) Corn use* (Million bu) Installed capacity [20%]† Under construction [44%]† Permitted+2, Total3,6901,320 [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

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 6 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

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 7 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 H 2 O per gallon EtOH. D. Keeney Water use by ethanol plants.

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 8 Created by Maribeth Milner (Dec. 2007) Potential Grain Consumption: 872 million bushels 2007 Ethanol Capacity is 70% of NE Avg Corn Production

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 9 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%.

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 10 A Nebraska Water-Biofuel Perspective NE has ≈5 million acres of irrigated corn –Requires about 1.6x10 12 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 3x10 9 gallons of water, which is <0.2% of water used to irrigate NE corn

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 11 Mini-Retreat Program

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 12 Bio-based energy analysis group:

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 13

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 14 $200,000/year maximum award size per project;

19 January 2007Biofuels & Water Resources Mini-Retreat 15 Newly added “area of special interest” in the 2007 RFP: