Two dear friends: Merle Anderson with Shirley Ball, EPAC
“I thought it would take one-and-a-half years to get things done but now its been 22 years for me,” said Merle Anderson during our conversation at the 22nd Ethanol Conference & Trade Show. Merle is often known as ‘the father of ethanol,’ and with good reason. He helped to start the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) in 1977. As a farmer, he was involved in all the commodity groups and this gave him the idea to start an organization to promote agriculture.
“When you look back at it, I think we’ve done well. We’ve done some really good things,” said Anderson. “I think we’ve helped farmers an awful lot. I think we’ve done what’s right for America. When you talk about the transfer of wealth, I think we’ve helped a little bit –could of and should have done more. And I always have an interest in supporting our troops.”
Wealth distribution, our money going to terrorist countries, is one of the biggest reasons why we need to get off of oil. That has to change says Anderson, and he even has a way to do it, and quickly. “Have the auto industry stand up and admit that their vehicles will operate successfully on higher blends.”
Speaking of higher blends, it’s the answer to the problem of too much production and not enough demand. “We’ve been successful in creating production. We haven’t worried enough about selling the product, and we have got to solve this if the industry is going to move forward.”
That’s why ACE, in conjunction with the Renewable Fuels Association, and the National Corn Growers Association has announced a program to install 5,000 blender pumps in the next three years. The program is called BYOethanol. Anderson helped to get the first blender pumps installed in his region in Climax, Minn. and he knows that “higher blends is the answer to our problems.”
You can see photos from the conference in our Flicker photo album.
The search for renewable energy sources is varied and sometimes strange and here is another one to add to the strange category: turning seawater into kerosene-based jet fuel. Who would research something like this? Look no further than our very own U.S. Navy. Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into jet fuel. The catch? They will now have to discover a clean energy source to power the reaction if the end product is to be carbon neutral.
A 14-million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant in Kentucky is on schedule for opening later this month.
One of the benefits of doing this job is that I can do it from the comfort of my easy chair, while watching some of my favorite programs with one eye and searching for stories with the other (hey, God gave me two eyes… just consider it multi-tasking). But tonight, my eyes are firmly fixed on the tube, as one of my favorite programs, Nova Science Now, is featuring the really green fuel, algae biodiesel.
Eight major U.S. airlines have signed a deal that will see them buying 1.5 million gallons of renewable biodiesel a year to use in ground equipment starting in 2012.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, along with Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, will visit Des Moines, Iowa tomorrow, Wednesday, August 19th as part of the USDA Rural Tour, a townhall tour of America’s heartland. The Iowa State Fair will host Vilsack as he aims to engage local citizens to open the dialogue between policymakers and rural America.
Additional tour stops to discuss green jobs and a new energy economy, with a focus on renewable energies will be upcoming in Sedalia, MO on Aug. 21 in Zanesville, OH. 
ZAP
The Phase 2 model incorporated several new features including adding magnesium and several composites to the materials that may now be evaluated for their emissions from manufacturing through use and end-of-life; advanced powertrains including diesel and fuel cells; the ability to evaluate the impact of biofuels and other ag sources for the production of these fuels; and the capability to produce an analysis of total energy consumed over a car’s life cycle to compliment the total greenhouse gas emission analysis.
For the past several months, grants and incentives have been released to help keep the biofuels industry moving forward and successful. One set of programs that were launched through the stimulus package gave 
The University of Wisconsin-Superior will play host to the upcoming Bio-Fuels and Energy Independence Symposium, bringing together researchers from laboratories, universities and businesses around the Midwest to talk about the latest work in biofuels technology.