It’s practice time here at the Iowa Speedway for the IndyCars. Here’s Jeff Simmons leaving the pits for the first session which was delayed this morning due to some foggy weather problems. Jeff had a great first practice session with the second fastest lap. They’re just now finishing up the second session. Jeff is having a pretty good year so …
Iowa Corn Growers Proud of Their IRL Involvement
Tim Recker is an Iowa corn grower and the president-elect of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. He says that corn growers are very proud of their work to bring the inaugural Iowa Corn Indy 250 to reality. I interviewed Tim after he and other ICGA leaders unveiled the trophy for this weekend’s race. He says that the Iowa corn growers …
Casey’s Pumps Discount Gas
One of the ethanol pump promotions coordinated by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council this week was held at Casey’s General Store in Newton, IA just down the road from the Iowa Speedway. The manager of the store is Shawn Retman pictured here on the right. Shawn says she’s really proud of her company for taking part in the effort …
Lack of Funding for Biofuels Research Concerns Ag Secretary
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns is disappointed with the 2007 Farm Bill he sees developing in the House Agriculture Committee for a number of reasons. One of them is lack of funding for cellulosic ethanol research. Johanns says the farm bill proposal put forth by the administration boosted cellulosic ethanol research funding by $1.6 billion and had over $2 billion in …
Biofuels Focus of Farm Improvement Act
Encouraging development of cellulosic ethanol is one of the main goals of the bi-partisan American Farm Improvement Act of 2007 introduced by Florida Congressmen Tim Mahoney and Adam Putnam. The bill seeks to jumpstart the alternative energy market by eliminating multiple, conflicting definitions of “biomass,” “cellulosic ethanol,” and other terms relating to the emerging biofuels market. The American Farm Improvement …
Hy-Vee Iowa Ethanol Promotion
Hy-Vee has been holding a couple of ethanol promotions here in Iowa during the IRL race week. One of them was held at a store in West Des Moines and Joe Miller, one of the store operations managers was on hand to talk about it. Joe says that he thinks ethanol is important and he’s glad to do what he …
Iowa Corn Growers Unveil Trophy
The Iowa Corn Growers just held a press conference here at the Iowa Speedway to unveil the trophy for Sunday’s Iowa Corn Indy 250. It’s a tall good looking trophy. The group show here consists of several board members and CEO, Craig Floss, speaking on the left. Craig made a short statement which you can listen to here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/epic/iowa-corn-07-icga-press-conf.mp3] Here’s …
Talking With Jeff Simmons
At today’s Kum & Go pump promotion I got a chance to interview IndyCar driver Jeff Simmons once again. Jeff was on hand to pump ethanol enriched gas for customers during this midday promotion. Jeff says this would be a great weekend for his first win and I and thousands of corn growers couldn’t agree more. You can listen to …
E is Indy
The slogan for the Indy Racing League is “I am Indy,” and that’s especially true for ethanol producers who are proud to be a part of this great sport. This month’s “Fill up, Feel Good” features comments from Tom Branhan of Glacial Lakes Energy, Don Endres of VeraSun Energy, Todd Lucey of Endress+Hauser, Team Ethanol car driver Jeff Simmons, and …
Blame Energy Prices for Higher Food Costs
According to a new analysis of food, energy and corn prices conducted by John Urbanchuk of LECG, LLC, “rising energy prices had a more significant impact on food prices than did corn.” In fact, rising energy prices have twice the impact on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food than does the price of corn, according to the report. “Energy …