In honor of Earth Day, racing is shifting gears this month to focus attention on environmental awareness with the NASCAR RACE TO GREEN™ campaign and American Ethanol is part of the effort. The campaign is hosting a National Tree Planting initiative this month encouraging racing teams, tracks, drivers, partners and fans to pledge to plant some trees today – Earth …
Get Your Green on with Biofuels
According to Fuels America, the biofuels industry is getting its green on with improved sustainability measures adopted throughout the biofuel chain. The chain – from farm to fiber to fuel– is meeting needs for energy, food and fiber in a more environmentally sensitive manner each day. During a press call this week, farmers and ethanol industry experts gave a briefing …
USDA Increases Corn for Ethanol Use
The latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate released this week increased 2012-13 year-ending corn stocks and corn use for ethanol. Domestic corn use for 2012/13 is projected 100 million bushels lower as a 50-million-bushel increase in corn used to produce ethanol partly offsets the lower projection for feed and residual disappearance. Larger-than-expected March 1 corn supplies, lower corn prices, …
More Corn Could Mean More Corn Oil for Biodiesel
As we reported earlier this week, the latest USDA 2013 Prospective Plantings report says corn acreage will be at its highest level ever, but soybeans are expected to be lower. You would think that could be bad news for biodiesel makers, who make the green fuel primarily from soybeans. But Biodiesel Magazine points out that biodiesel refineries are already clamoring …
Ethanol’s Enviro Benefits Keep on Growing
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has developed a comparison of the environmental impacts of ethanol and petroleum as transportation fuels. Using scientific data, the side-by-side comparison examines a wide array of environmental factors. Most know today that petroleum, made from oil, is not “renewable”. Created over millions of years, it will takes thousands of years for more oil to …
Farmers Expect to Plant Most Corn and Soybeans Ever
According to the USDA 2013 Prospective Plantings report, farmers intend to plant a little more corn and a little less soybeans this year, for a total of 174.4 million acres. “This will be the highest total amount of acres for those two crops that we have on record,” said USDA chief economist Joe Glauber. Corn growers intend to plant 97.3 …
Stover Harvesting Requires Careful Management
According to Purdue University researchers, removing corn stover from agricultural fields to produce cellulosic ethanol requires careful management to avoid adding greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion to the environment. However, environmental impacts from stover removal can be reduced by switching to no-till corn or adding winter cover crops, but these practices likely would increase production costs, researchers reported in …
Ethanol Producers Respond to Market Conditions
Corn oil recovery is helping the bottom line of ethanol producers with tight margins, according to a new report from the Energy Information Administration. Beginning in summer 2012, the prices of ethanol and corn reached levels where production costs at relatively simple ethanol plants exceeded revenue. These simple plants, which are not able to recover corn oil, make up a …
Corn Use for Ethanol Steady
Projected 2012/13 U.S. corn ending stocks were unchanged in the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate report out Friday, lowering exports but increasing feed use and keeping corn use for ethanol the same. Projected corn use for ethanol this season remains unchanged at 4.5 billion bushels, which is down 10 percent from last year on lower gasoline use, according to …
ENOGEN: Profitable for Corn & Ethanol Producers
Growers looking for a more profitable corn crop should consider planting ENOGEN corn. Ethanol producers looking for more gallons from a bushel of corn should look to farmers growing ENOGEN corn. I learned about the emerging corn trait designed specifically for ethanol production from Jeff Carver who is the ENOGEN Accounts Manager for Syngenta, when we spoke during the Iowa …