The Obama administration’s Rural Tour last week highlighted the Show Me Energy Cooperative in Missouri as an example of how crop residue can be used to create energy.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the biomass facility is taking wood, corn stalks and other crop residue and converting it into pellets that can be used to produce energy or a substitute for propane on the farm.
“We have seen plants like this one that are using it as a substitute for propane, we have seen plants that are in the process of trying to use corn cobs for producing anhydrous ammonia,” Vilsack said. “It is continually amazing to me how innovative this country is and how innovative rural America is and can be with a little bit of incentive.”
Vilsack says the small plant costs about $8 million to replicate. “It takes crop residue from about a 50-100 mile radius, creates a new market for farmers, an opportunity for them to increase their bottom line, and at the same time, a chance for a local utility to meet its renewable energy portfolio standard requirements.”
Earlier in the week, Vilsack took the Rural Tour to his home state of Iowa where he served as governor for eight years. During an interview with the Des Moines Register, Vilsack discussed a variety of topics, including ethanol. The secretary stressed the need for higher ethanol blends and more FFVs. “This is a supply issue. What we need are more vehicles that have flex-fuel capability (to use up to 85 percent ethanol), more retail stations with blender pumps that allow the motorist to adjust to the blend they want.”
The Administration’s Rural Tour has been traveling around the country since June.
A one-million-gallon-a-year algae-biodiesel plant could soon become a reality for Massachusetts with some help from the state and federal governments.
The bad news is: According to 
A pair of three-year National Science Foundation grants will help the St. Louis-based Donald Danforth Plant Science Center continue its biofuel research.
The Canadian government is putting more than $72 million into a biodiesel plant in Ontario.
The news was also welcomed by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA):
The recent American Coalition for Ethanol’s 22nd Ethanol Conference & Trade Show in Milwaukee saw an exploration of an issue that remains a hot issue in the biofuels biz: Indirect Land Use.
The concept that the growth of some biofuels feedstocks in the United States, especially corn and soybeans, could cause the cutting down of the rain forests in other parts of the world… and would disqualify some of the green fuels from being part of the proposed Renewable Fuels Standard.
The latest discussion featured energy economist from Purdue University Wally Tyner and Air Improvement Resource President Tom Darlington, who talked about how studies that blamed corn-based ethanol for deforestation ended up being wrong and how the most common economic models used to figure the amount of Indirect Land Use vary too much and don’t consider things like dry distillers grains.
The city of Gary, Indiana plans to replace 120 cars and trucks in its aging auto fleet this year with new flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs) paid for with a $3 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration.
As the company moves closer to the commercial development phase for cellulosic ethanol, 
With just four races left in the current racing season, Volkswagen Motorsports has announced next year’s SCCA Pro Racing Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup schedule… a series that features clean-burning B5 biodiesel in its cars.