The new American Soybean Association (ASA) president is making biodiesel and ethanol his priorities. And this article from Corn and Soybean Digest says that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise from Alan Kemper, a fifth generation corn, soybean and cattle farmer from Lafayette, Indiana and the first person to hold both the ASA presidency and that of the National …
KC Firm Buys Mead Ethanol Plant
A Kansas City investment firm has purchased a bankrupt Nebraska ethanol plant with the goal of getting it back on line by next year. Spectrum Business Ventures (SBV) bought the assets in Chapter 11 bankruptcy of E3BioFuels in Mead, Nebraska, a patented, closed-loop ethanol production facility that both opened and subsequently shut down in 2007. According to a company release, …
Deal May Include Ethanol and Biodiesel Tax Breaks
Nobody seems to be happy about the tax breaks/unemployment benefits deal announced by President Obama yesterday and no one is sure what all it ultimately will include, but Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says that ethanol blenders tax credit and associated tariff, as well as the biodiesel tax credit may be in it. During his regular weekly conference call with reporters …
Congress May Make Deal on Tax Cuts
After defeating a compromise measure proposed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) to extend the Bush tax cuts only for the middle class, the talk on Capitol Hill is now turning to a deal that would keep all of the tax cuts in exchange for extending unemployment benefits. Baucus had proposed a compromise amendment late Thursday that would have continued unemployment …
Deforestation Decline Debunks Land Use Change Theory
Rainforest deforestation rates have reached new lows, which further challenges the theory of international land use change that has been used to penalize corn ethanol for its carbon footprint. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced today that deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon declined 14 percent from August 2009 to July 2010, reaching the lowest rates ever recorded …
Canadians Look to Up Biodiesel, Ethanol Requirements
On the heels of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency setting the Renewable Fuels Standards for 2011, our friends north of the border are looking at increasing the amount of ethanol and biodiesel in fuel in Canada. The Toronto Sun reports the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association wants to see the federal government double the ethanol-in-gasoline mandate from 5 percent to 10 …
Some Senators Urge End to Ethanol Incentives
U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), together with 15 other senators, today sent a letter to the Senate leadership expressing their “lack of support for extending the current 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports and the 45-cent-per-gallon subsidy for blending ethanol into gasoline.” Calling the incentives for domestic ethanol production “fiscally indefensible,” the senators wrote that ending them …
CHS Energy Remains Bullish on Ethanol
CHS Energy is bullish on ethanol. That’s according to CHS Energy Director of Sales Mark Fenner, who was giving interviews at the recent National Association of Farm Broadcasting meeting in Kansas City. “We don’t know about the tax incentives, but even without it, I think we’re going to see strong use for ethanol because it is less expensive than traditional …
Brazil Starts Ethanol Pipeline Construction
Brazilian energy company Petrobras officially began work this week on a $3.3 billion ethanol pipeline that will be able to transport 21 million cubic meters of ethanol per year from north central Brazil’s Goias state to the Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo states. Once complete, the pipeline will replace daily delivery runs by 1,500 tanker trucks. At present, 95 percent …