Here is an interesting new GERS patent application I just stumbled on. The application is now on the US Patent and Trademark Office website. The patent was filed on September 14, 2009 and was published on 7 January 2010 - only two days ago.
It has some interesting estimates of costs and benefits. This adds to the previous allowed patents and claims another 15% improvement in efficiency. The way I read the paragraph below, it seems the COES are claiming wealth generation at a rate of $460.46 per hour. 24/7 that is over $4M a year. Earning a 20% commission on that is over 800K per COES with minimal revenue costs???
This would seem to jive with Greenshifts recent announcement of its new License offering:
"Integration of GreenShift’s patented Method I corn oil extraction technologies into a 100,000,000 gallon per year ethanol production facility will result in the production of between 1,500,000 and 3,000,000 gallons (11,400,000 to 22,800,000 pounds) per year of corn oil, and about $2,300,000 to about $4,500,000 in additional net income to the ethanol producer at the current market price of corn oil (not including the impact of energy savings) – net of GreenShift’s 20% royalty."
These figures seem to blow a gaping hole in the whole financial board generated theory that the COES cost more to run than the wealth they produce. But really, would some 20% of the industry have already invested in, and/or risk patent infringement on something that was not a money maker? In retrospect that argument falls flat on its face.
On the other hand, old board rumors of trouble with filters plugging seems to have had a kernel of truth. It appears that this application is "in part" an improvement on one of the limitations of "an option" described in the '182 patent. Here we also get a mention of what else they are trying to recover besides the corn oil: "lactic acid and glycerol"
"U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,182 (the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference) describes the use of filters for removing substantially all solids and recovering lactic acid and glycerol from the thin stillage without the need for evaporation. Despite eliminating a step in the conventional process, the proposal results in a more complicated arrangement requiring multiple filtration steps. Wholesale elimination of the evaporator in the vast majority of existing plants is also unlikely and otherwise uneconomical. Filters, and especially the microfiltration and ultrafiltration types proposed in this patent, are also susceptible to frequent plugging and thus disadvantageously increase the operating cost. For these reasons, the filtration process proposed in this patent has not gained widespread commercial acceptance."
::::::::::::::::::::
20100004474 Methods Of Processing Ethanol Byproducts And Related Subsystems 01-07-2010
As a result, the cost per hour of drying this syrup when combined with the distillers wet grains to achieve an end product having a moisture content of less than 10% is only $158.92, or approximately 40% less. Assuming a savings in dryer efficiency of 10%, the product value per hour ($678.46) less the estimated dryer operating cost ($143.03 per hour) and less the estimated evaporator operating cost ($74.96 per hour) is $460.46 per hour. This represents an approximate 15% increase over the corresponding value calculated for Example 1.
Cash -
Cheese and crackers
Milk and Cookies
Hamburgers and fries
Steak and lobster
Need I say mooooo re?
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Its tough to get access to the images without special software. So go here for preferred SkunK's blog reader's access. I put them on google documents as a pdf file. Sorry, it's in two parts.
First seven pages and images
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B_ch8gAs4lCcYjk1NDNhZjktNjg2NC00YTZkLThmOWEtNmI4NWVkZmM1NTE4&hl=en
Last page
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B_ch8gAs4lCcYjExOTE2NzMtYzEyMy00MWRjLTg4ZWYtNWZhMjhiOGY2YTNj&hl=en
::::::::::::::::
For those who believe (like me) "Trust, but verify" here is the Patent Application on the official Government site:
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20100004474&OS=20100004474&RS=20100004474
SkunK
It has some interesting estimates of costs and benefits. This adds to the previous allowed patents and claims another 15% improvement in efficiency. The way I read the paragraph below, it seems the COES are claiming wealth generation at a rate of $460.46 per hour. 24/7 that is over $4M a year. Earning a 20% commission on that is over 800K per COES with minimal revenue costs???
This would seem to jive with Greenshifts recent announcement of its new License offering:
"Integration of GreenShift’s patented Method I corn oil extraction technologies into a 100,000,000 gallon per year ethanol production facility will result in the production of between 1,500,000 and 3,000,000 gallons (11,400,000 to 22,800,000 pounds) per year of corn oil, and about $2,300,000 to about $4,500,000 in additional net income to the ethanol producer at the current market price of corn oil (not including the impact of energy savings) – net of GreenShift’s 20% royalty."
These figures seem to blow a gaping hole in the whole financial board generated theory that the COES cost more to run than the wealth they produce. But really, would some 20% of the industry have already invested in, and/or risk patent infringement on something that was not a money maker? In retrospect that argument falls flat on its face.
On the other hand, old board rumors of trouble with filters plugging seems to have had a kernel of truth. It appears that this application is "in part" an improvement on one of the limitations of "an option" described in the '182 patent. Here we also get a mention of what else they are trying to recover besides the corn oil: "lactic acid and glycerol"
"U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,182 (the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference) describes the use of filters for removing substantially all solids and recovering lactic acid and glycerol from the thin stillage without the need for evaporation. Despite eliminating a step in the conventional process, the proposal results in a more complicated arrangement requiring multiple filtration steps. Wholesale elimination of the evaporator in the vast majority of existing plants is also unlikely and otherwise uneconomical. Filters, and especially the microfiltration and ultrafiltration types proposed in this patent, are also susceptible to frequent plugging and thus disadvantageously increase the operating cost. For these reasons, the filtration process proposed in this patent has not gained widespread commercial acceptance."
::::::::::::::::::::
20100004474 Methods Of Processing Ethanol Byproducts And Related Subsystems 01-07-2010
As a result, the cost per hour of drying this syrup when combined with the distillers wet grains to achieve an end product having a moisture content of less than 10% is only $158.92, or approximately 40% less. Assuming a savings in dryer efficiency of 10%, the product value per hour ($678.46) less the estimated dryer operating cost ($143.03 per hour) and less the estimated evaporator operating cost ($74.96 per hour) is $460.46 per hour. This represents an approximate 15% increase over the corresponding value calculated for Example 1.
Cash -
Cheese and crackers
Milk and CookiesHamburgers and fries
Steak and lobster
Need I say mooooo re?
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Its tough to get access to the images without special software. So go here for preferred SkunK's blog reader's access. I put them on google documents as a pdf file. Sorry, it's in two parts.
First seven pages and images
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B_ch8gAs4lCcYjk1NDNhZjktNjg2NC00YTZkLThmOWEtNmI4NWVkZmM1NTE4&hl=en
Last page
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B_ch8gAs4lCcYjExOTE2NzMtYzEyMy00MWRjLTg4ZWYtNWZhMjhiOGY2YTNj&hl=en
::::::::::::::::
For those who believe (like me) "Trust, but verify" here is the Patent Application on the official Government site:
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20100004474&OS=20100004474&RS=20100004474
SkunK
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