The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) is calling claims made by an advertising campaign against ethanol by a coalition food and oil company groups “half-baked.”
“If the products sold to consumers by Big Food are as half-baked as their ethanol claims, we have a life-threatening food safety crisis in America,” stated Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of ACE. “Never before has more corn been used to make more ethanol, and yet retail food prices have fallen sharply this year.”
Jennings issued the statement in response to an anti-ethanol ad last week in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call, that was funded by the American Meat Institute, Grocery Manufacturers Association, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, Environmental Working Group and others. The ad claimed that moving from 10 percent ethanol in gasoline up to E15 would be bad for consumers, the environment, and rural communities.
“This coalition of strange bedfellows is both desperate and naïve,” Jennings said. “Oil and food companies are desperate and will resort to anything to protect the status quo of cheap corn and expensive oil. Some environmental groups naively believe getting rid of corn ethanol today, in hopes that some other potentially promising but not yet commercialized technology will be available tomorrow, will somehow reduce air pollution.”
EPA is currently considering a petition that would increase the amount of ethanol allowed in regular gasoline to 15 percent from the current 10 percent.
A group of farmer-owned ethanol plants in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska have teamed up become the guardians of a 
The grant will allow Iowa State to establish a Wind Energy Manufacturing Laboratory on campus. The lab will feature the work of four faculty researchers: Matt Frank, Frank Peters and John Jackman, all associate professors of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, and Vinay Dayal, an associate professor of aerospace engineering. The grant will also support the research of five graduate students and several undergraduates.
• EPA’s GHG [Greenhouse Gas] methodology relies on outdated data that artificially penalizes U.S. biodiesel. GHG emission reductions associated with biodiesel produced from vegetable oils compared to petroleum will significantly exceed the 22 percent assumed by EPA in its proposed rule if the agency relies on scientifically valid analysis and practices. Even with EPA’s assumptions and methodology, correcting the outdated data pertaining to nitrogen fixation, energy balance and co-product allocations would give biodiesel produced from vegetable oil a 62 percent GHG reduction compared to baseline petroleum. When just some of the major flawed assumptions from EPA’s indirect analysis are corrected, the GHG emissions lifecycle reduction for biodiesel from vegetable oils is 99% percent lower than diesel fuel. This number includes penalties to biodiesel for international indirect land use change.
Biodiesel and ethanol production in Canada is expected to rise more than 75 percent over the next two years, thanks to subsidies from that country.
The 
Ken Field, Chairman of 
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A Texas-based company that has made its living rendering grease and animal carcasses has seen a recent boost to its bottom line… thanks to biodiesel.
A couple of weeks ago, Joanna told you about how a company had installed a system that would capture the energy of cars and light trucks that went through a fast-food drive through (see