The US Department of Agriculture has awarded $6.2 million in grants to more than two dozen small businesses and community groups to develop innovative uses for woody biomass, including renewable energy and new products, from national forests.
The grants will help create markets for small-diameter material and low-valued trees removed from forest restoration activities, such as reducing hazardous fuels, handling insect and diseased conditions, or treating forestlands impacted by catastrophic weather.
The Forest Service, a USDA agency, selected 26 small businesses and community groups as grant recipients. Awarded grants ranged from nearly $125,000 to $250,000. According to requirements, all 26 recipients provided at least 20 percent of the total project cost. Non-federal matching funds ranged from $62,500 to more than $2 million per project, for a total of almost $12 million.
A listing of all grant recipients can be found on USDA’s website.
Ethanol-enriched fuel was a clear winner at the 55th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring, the first time the renewable fuel was used in an endurance race format. The LMP2 class was won by Andretti Green Racing featuring the Acura ARX, while Corvette Racing took a first in the GT1 class. For the first time ever, both cars used a 10 percent ethanol-enriched blend.
A newly created renewable energy center at IUPUI has been named after Indiana Senator Richard Lugar.
A new study by the 
Feed prices have indeed increased significantly. As feed costs generally account for more than half of operating costs for industrial operations, higher prices can have an important impact on the bottom line for these companies. So too can low prices. Any discussion of today’s high prices should take into account the extent to which these same firms have benefited from many years of feed that was priced well below what it cost to produce. In the nine years that followed the passage of the 1996 Farm Bill, 1997-2005, corn was priced 23% below average production costs, while soybean prices were 15% below farmers’ costs. As a result, feed prices were an estimated 21% below production costs for poultry and 26% below costs for the hog industry. We estimate cumulative savings to the broiler chicken industry from below-cost feed in those years to be $11.25 billion, while industrial hog operations saved an estimated $8.5 billion. The leading firms gained a great deal during those years from U.S. agricultural policies that helped lower the prices for many agricultural commodities.
Not only can 
An aerial promotion campaign for ethanol in the Sunshine State took off this past weekend over the racetrack at Sebring, the theme parks in Orlando and the beaches of Fort Meyers.
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson agrees. “As we develop cellulosic technology in Florida, I think that’s what we are going to be the most well-known for,” said Bronson. “We working with the University of Florida to find out which crops will be most beneficial to produce ethanol.”
DaimlerChrysler was the sponsor of a recent summit that looked to gain widespread acceptance of 20% biodiesel by the makers of engines and vehicles. The auto giant also asked the group to come up with a viable fuel standard for the B20 finished blend. 
The Dow Chemical Company has announced what it characterizes as a “significant milestone in its pursuit of sustainable chemistries.” 
Today is National Biodiesel Day. It is also the birthday of Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine. Coincedence? No… early versions of Diesel’s engine in the late 1800’s ran on peanut oil, and in 1912, he said “the use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time.”
The National Biodiesel Board points out the increased demand for biodiesel today as the fruition of Diesel’s vision:
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