During the “Truth about Ethanol” conference call last week (see previous post), I got to ask the guys to answer the critics who charge that ethanol and corn production rely too heavily on natural gas and nitrogen fertilizer. Bob Dinneen of Renewable Fuels Association, notes that the ethanol industry continues to evolve, “$11 natural gas is a great motivator to look at other technologies,” such as biomass gasification and methane digestors. “Our industry is unrecognizable from what it was five years ago, it will be unrecognizable again five years from now.” Jon Doggett with the National Corn Growers Association says farmers are using precision farming and precision fertilizer application, “we are producing the same units of corn with a third less fertilizer than we did seven years ago,” and seed companies are working on corn plants that use significantly less nitrogen than those being grown today.
The reporter after me asked the same question, so here is the complete Q and A on that topic. (2:20)