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A new USDA report says that about half of the cattle and hog operations in a 12-state Midwest region either fed ethanol co-products or considered feeding them to their livestock last year.

This story from Cattle Network.com says about 9,400 livestock operations in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin were surveyed.

Among dairy operations, 38 percent indicated that they fed co-products during 2006 and another 22 percent considered doing so. Among cattle on feed operations, 36 percent fed co-products and 34 percent more considered it. Among beef cattle operations, 13 percent reported that they fed co-products and 30 percent considered it. For hog operations, 12 percent fed co-products and 35 percent considered it.

Of the various types of co-products available to operations for feeding, corn gluten feed was used by 46 percent of beef cow operations and 38 percent of cattle on feed operations, while distillers dried grains were used by 45 percent of dairy cattle operations and 44 percent of hog operations Other co-products that the survey looked at included distillers dried grains with solubles, condensed distillers solubles, brewers grains and distillers wet grains.

The report goes on to say that for those who don’t use the ethanol co-products, the main reason is a lack of availability.

Sweden and Minnesota have a lot in common: Both are full of Swedes (OK, one more than the other), and both use a high percntage of E-85 ethanol.

This article from the Saab (another Swedish product) web site makes a comparison between the country and the state that saw massive Swedish immigration in the late 19th century:

Where Sweden is the leader in the Ethanol movement in Europe, Minnesota is clearly designated as the leader in the United States with over 300 stations strong and growing, totalling roughly one third of Sweden’s entire nationwide coverage. In Sweden, there are almost 900 E-85 filling stations covering the entire country according to the Swedish Ethanol Development Foundation. In Minnesota, this works out to about one E-85 pump per every 17,000 persons in Minnesota that has a population at just over 5 million people. In Sweden, there is roughly one E-85 pump per every 10,000 persons with their total country’s population totalling around 9 million people.

The author of the article goes on to wonder if when Saab’s BioPower vehicles, that run on more biofuels than traditional vehicles, do come to America in the near future whether Minnesota would be used as the test bed for those vehicles.

The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville has teamed up with Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc., the Georgia-based electrical, engineering, and automation giant, to speed up the development of alternative fuel technology.

This story from the Chemical Online web site says a 10-year agreement between the two will involve hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, software, and on-site simulation training at the unique NCERC:

The SIMATIC PCS 7 distributed control system and instrumentation from Siemens is now being used by the NCERC to help validate near-term technologies that are enhancing the economics and sustainability of renewable fuel production.

“We are the only organization in the world that offers both classroom training and hands on instruction to anyone,” Caupert says. “By collaborating with Siemens, we will be able to offer one-hour seminars and five-day process training sessions on the control system as well as training for the executives who will run the plants.”

Earlier this year, the center trained 45 recently-out-of-work autoworkers from Michigan.

The NCERC is the only facility of its kind anywhere in the world and works to help thecommercial development of ethanol, as well as training people to work in the bio-fuels fields.