U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland toured the POET Biorefining plant in Marion, Ohio today and talked ethanol with industry stakeholders.

Vilsack and Strickland took part in a roundtable discussion with representatives from POET, the Ohio Corn Growers Association, Ohio Ethanol Producers Association and the Ohio Department of Agriculture as well as the federal Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service.

During the visit, Vilsack voiced support for increasing the ethanol blend level to 15 percent. “We are working at USDA to develop a roadmap for how to build that [ethanol] nationwide industry,” he said. “We understand it starts with allowing the capacity we have today to maximize its input. That means increasing the blend rate to 15 percent. I have been advocating for that, will continue to advocate for that, and I believe it will happen. Obviously I wish it had had happened now, but I believe it will happen sometime this fall.” Vilsack also stressed the need for increasing blender pumps and getting more flex fuel vehicles on the road.

Yesterday, Vilsack toured Quasar Energy Group in Wooster, Ohio to observe new technologies being utilized to generate larger supplies of biogas derived from cellulosic biomass. USDA, along with the State of Ohio, provided funding to support the development of the new facility.

The funding was used to install an anaerobic digester that processes 25,000 wet tons per year of organic biomass including food wastes from local food producers, crop residuals, grass and manure from livestock operations of the Ohio State University-Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI). Based on its electric generation capacity, this bio-digester can supply roughly one-third of the electricity needs of the Ohio Agricultural Research & Development Center (OARDC) campus.