Abengoa Bioenergy is starting 2012 by shutting down production indefinitely at the company’s two smallest ethanol plants, located in Portales, New Mexico and Colwich, Kansas.
Company officials say the plant closures are temporary and due to current depressed market conditions for ethanol. The two plants amount to 55 million gallons per year of production.
Abengoa is a major biofuels producer in Europe the United States and Brazil. The company has a total of six ethanol plants in the United States, with two cellulosic ethanol facilities planned for York, Neb., and Hugoton, Kan. Abengoa Executive Vice President Chris Standlee serves as chairman of the Renewable Fuels Association.
The two Republican presidential candidates who topped the Iowa Caucus in a virtual dead heat Tuesday night are both considered to be supporters of renewable fuels.
In honor of the cooperative’s 85th anniversary this year, a 
The renewal of the biodiesel tax incentive at the end of 2010 led to record production this year and a renewed optimism for the industry. Meanwhile, the ethanol industry saw the approval of E15 in newer vehicles at the beginning of the year, although it has yet to make it to the pump, and the end of 2011 means the end of the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit and associated import tariff. 2011 was also a great year at the races, with NASCAR fueled with 15% American Ethanol.
In a joint statement, 
The groups filed their suit on December 24, 2009 and asserted that the California LCFS violates the Commerce Clause by seeking to regulate farming and ethanol production practices in other states. The Commerce Clause specifically forbids state laws that discriminate against out-of-state goods and that regulate out-of-state conduct. With its original filing, the groups noted, “The LCFS imposes excessive burdens on the entire domestic ethanol industry while providing no benefit to Californians. In fact, in disadvantaging low-carbon, domestic ethanol, the LCFS denies the people of California a genuine opportunity to clean their air, create jobs, and strengthen their economic and national security. One state cannot dictate policy for all the others, yet that is precisely what California has aimed to do through a poorly conceived and, frankly, unconstitutional LCFS.”
In a 
GROWMARK Information Management Solutions director Keith Milburn says wEBS was developed as a fuel billing solution that makes the record keeping process easier by providing instantaneous information such as fuel type, tank sizes, taxes and credits. 
“There’s two components of wEBS,” Milburn says. “There’s the back office or centralized data set and then the hand held on the truck level.” The back office includes not only customer information, but every tank that each delivery truck services. “The system identifies each tank with a bar code that tells who the customer is, what product types, relevant taxes, discounts, and if there have fuel contracted at a certain price,” Milburn explains. So all the delivery driver has to do is pump the fuel and within minutes the transaction is recorded and an email confirmation is sent to the customer.
“EPA has essentially reduced the mandate for cellulosic, recognizing the fact that there aren’t supplies out there to meet it,” said USDA chief economist Joe Glauber.