Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company in Benson, Minnesota is celebrating a decade in the ethanol industry. The plant opened in 1996 and today is a 45 million gallon per year ethanol biorefinery. In addition to producing fuel ethanol and marketing E85, CVEC also produces a top-shelf vodka under the Shakers brand. According to a Renewable Fuels Association press release, CVEC also …
IRL Doing Well with Ethanol
Indy Car drivers seem pretty pumped about ethanol, according to this Dallas Business Journal article, which quotes Bombardier Learjet 500 winner and two-time Indianapolis 500 winnner Helio Castroneves and 2004 IndyCar Series Champion Tony Kanaan – both Brazilians. The article says the IRL switch to ten percent ethanol this year has been “problem-free” and Dan Layton, spokesman for Honda Performance …
E85 Observations from the Road
I’m not the only one writing about ethanol on the road. So is Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association. Rick’s posting some road commentary on E85 which you can find on this page. It’s not quite blogging but it’s close. Here’s an excerpt from his last post:
Ethanol Plant Number 101
Front Range Energy LLC and Pacific Ethanol Inc. today announced the completion of Front Range Energy’s ethanol plant in Windsor, Colo. According to a Pacific Ethanol release, the ICM-designed facility has a nameplate capacity of 40 million gallons per year of fuel ethanol. The plant produced its first ethanol on June 9, 2006, and expects to ship its first loads …
ADM CEO High on Ethanol
Archer Daniels Midland CEO Patricia Woertz is expecting big profits from biofuels for her company in the next few years. According to an AP article, Woertz said profits from the renewable fuel plants “will be quite robust at something less than that.” Speaking by webcast from a conference in Paris Tuesday, Woertz also said that while there are a number …
VeraSun Rises
Financial services are buzzing this morning with the red-hot debut of VeraSun’s IPO. In the most recent Bloomberg report, the story is that shares of VeraSun Energy Corp., the second-largest U.S. ethanol producer, jumped as much as 34 percent on the first day after an initial public offering that tapped rising interest in alternatives to $3-a-gallon gasoline. The shares rose …
Ethanol Designer Honored
ICM Inc. of Colwich, Kan., has received the 2006 Governor’s Award of Excellence presented by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius this week, according to a Kansas City Star report. The awards are the top honors a Kansas business can receive. ICM is an industry leader in the engineering and design of ethanol processing facilities
China Considers Ethanol
America is not the only country addicted to oil. China is now considering a change in energy policy to encourage the wider use of ethanol in order to improve air quality. According to China Knowledge, Beijing could set a target by the end of this year to include ethanol in the nation’s energy mix, the newspaper said, citing Fabrizio Zichichi, …
Louisiana Governor Signs Ethanol Bill
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has signed into law a bill requiring refineries to mix ethanol with some of the gasoline they produce. The governor issued a statement about the bill, saying she was “proud to join President Bush, the federal government and dozens of other states in promoting a biofuels market. As the President has said on many occasions, America …