Ethanol plants are cool in a lot of ways. They’re producing a domestic fuel solution to our energy problems and that lessens our dependency on foreign oil for example. But they can also make a pretty picture too. I was driving south through Missouri last night and passed through Laddonia and the POET plant there. This was a handheld snapshot …
Domestic Fuel on Twitter
Besides subscribing to the RSS feed of Domestic Fuel we’ve now got another option for you. Domestic Fuel has its own Twitter feed. If you’re not familiar with Twitter then you can learn more here. Basically, the news feed from Domestic Fuel will post updates to the Twitter feed. Additionally, we’ll use the Twitter feed for custom special text posts …
Growing His Own Fuel
This week I’ve had the opportunity to visit the Ohio State University’s annual Farm Science Review show. It’s all about midwest farming and that includes corn. While I was visiting the Ohio Corn Growers exhibit I found 5 time IHRA Funny Car Champion Mark Thomas. Here he is explaining his car, which runs on ethanol, to an FFA student. Mark …
Florida Farm to Fuel Summit Underway
This morning the Florida Farm to Fuel Summit got underway. I think this is the third one. We missed our old friend Charlie Bronson, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, although he’ll be here later this afternoon. We did see him on video though. Right now our U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, is speaking. I’ll add a link to some audio …
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference Wrap Up
To wrap things up here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy conference I spoke with board member, Cornelius Gallagher. He says the conference brought together world class leaders who were able to listen to some fantastic presentations. I’ve posted interviews with almost all of them so please scroll back through them. Corny, as he likes to be …
What We Need To Know
What we know and what we need to know was Peggy Caswell’s, USDA-ERS, topic here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy conference. She says we need to know things about how farmers or the providers of biofuels and feed stocks are going to have to change the way they do business. She used the example of having …
Chevron in Biofuels
We heard from Chevron here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference since according to Paul Bryan, the company has made a major commitment to biofuels. He says they created a biofuels business unit about 2 years ago. Their focus is on 2nd generation biofuels that use non-food crops. His talk focused on the integration in the biopetroleum business. …
Ethanol Investing Decline
The issue of investment and financing for ethanol plants and bio refineries in general was addressed today by Chris Groobey, Baker & McKenzie, LLP. He works on project financing with investors and lenders and mostly in renewable fuels. He painted a pretty bleak picture. In fact, he says the New York investment community is not interested in biofuels right now. …
More Bio Economy Research Needed
Our USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics is Gale Buchanan. He was here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference to talk about the need for research in a growing bio economy. In fact, he sees a need for a tremendous amount of research to address the opportunities presented by the whole energy picture. He also talked …
Trucking Corn For Ethanol
When it comes to infrastructure needs for a bio economy our rural road system is a key component. To speak about it here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference we heard from Frank Dooley, Purdue University. He sees a big increase in grain production, primarily in the midwest. With that comes a growing demand for transportation. He thinks …