Biofuels from an international perspective was on the agenda at the World Ag Expo in California this week. International seminars on Tuesday included “The World of Biofuels” and “The California-Brazil Connection: Ethanol, Biodiesel, Electricity and Beyond.”
One of the panelists for the second seminar was Rahul Iyer of Primafuel, who spoke on international biofuel policy trends and the many opportunities and challenges facing American farmers. During a telephone press conference from the Expo, Iyer said there has been a dramatic shift globally toward a new type of biofuels policy. “It started back in 2005 in California when California adopted the Global Warming Solutions Act,” said Iyer. “The intention of this regulation was to create a technology-neutral market for low-carbon fuels.” Instead of stipulating percentages for ethanol or biodiesel use, the intent to reduce net carbon content of fuels by ten percent by the year 2020, “we don’t care what technologies you use to do it, you just have to prove to us that you’re doing it.”
He says this that creates a challenge for ethanol and biodiesel producers “to figure out what their environment footprint is, what they’re carbon reduction is, because at the end of the day it determines whether they have a valuable product or not.”
The new Renewable Fuels Standard in the energy bill, what Iyer calls RFS 2, also challenges the industry to create more advanced biofuels that give greater and greater life-cycle carbon reductions emissions.” And at the same time, the European Union is developing it’s own low carbon fuels standard, “which coincidentally, looks almost exactly like California’s,” said Iyer.
Basically, Iyer says that the market place is going to create a premium for low carbon fuels that will cause an increase in efficiency from the farm to the fuel tank with better technology.
Primafuels is “a company focused on finding low-carbon fuels for the international community.”
Listen to part of Iyer’s comments here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/audio/iyer-1.mp3]
According to 
John Deere is now offering “ethanol insurance” through their 
Last fall, Alabama Agriculture & Industries Commissioner Ron Sparks and Montgomery, Alabama Mayor Bobby Bright announced a partnership that would make used cooking grease into biodiesel to be run in the city’s vehicles. This week, they cut the ribbon on the new Center for Alternative Fuels Biodiesel Production facility.
The team that flew a Czech military jet on 100 percent biodiesel last October (see 
Four cabinet-level officials will be participating in the upcoming 
The Southern Waste Information eXchange and the Florida BioFuels Association are sponsoring the 1st Annual 
The conference will provide a forum for informing the public and private sectors of the economic and environmental benefits of converting waste materials to alternative fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol as well as energy recovery. 
The first E85 station for the state of Mississippi is scheduled to open later this month.
Ford’s Fuel off I-20 in Newton is pleased to be offering the fuel at 
Research into additional oilseeds to make into biodiesel is gaining more popularity, especially as the cost for soybean oil, currently the most commonly used feedstock, soars to record levels.
“We are hearing more and more positive talk when it comes to biodiesels, even more so than corn for ethanol,” Aakre said. “One of the advantages of biodiesel is the potential for individual farmers or a small group of farmers to produce their own fuel in a much simpler technology than ethanol.”