I want to thank our sponsor for my coverage of this year’s National Biodiesel Conference, John Deere, represented here by Don Borgman. The conference is winding down with the NBB Board meeting and a few workshops still taking place. I’m headed home but have a number of posts that I’ll add within the next day, including all the Eye on Biodiesel award winners.
Before Don took off I sat down with him for another interview to get his perspective on what he’s seen and heard here at the Conference. The word “quality” seems to have been a real big focus and Don applauds the the National Biodiesel Board for working even harder on this issue after a few concerns surfaced last year. Don says that in the sessions he participated in there were questions about equipment warranties and the issue of feed stocks since we’ll need to find resources in addition to soybeans to meet demand in the future.
Listen to my interview with Don here: 
Don Borgman Interview (6 min MP3)
Domestic Fuel coverage of the
National Biodiesel Conference is sponsored by 
At our general session this morning here at the National Biodiesel Conference we got the political perspective from both sides of the aisle. On hand were Mary Matalin and James Carville.
I’ve got the recorded audio of the press conference for you here. The questions aren’t on microphone but the answers are very clear. The first question to kick it off is whether they think biodiesel as part of an energy solution is on the radar screen inside the beltway in Washington, DC.
This new industry, so critical to our economy, our national security, and our environment is already setting up shop in Michigan. With other states clamoring for this opportunity, Michigan cannot afford to wait.
Willett Kempton, Richard Garvine and Amardeep Dhanju at the University of Delaware and Mark Jacobson and Cristina Archer at Stanford, found that the wind over the Middle Atlantic Bight, the aquatic region from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., could produce 330 gigawatts (GW) of average electrical power if thousands of wind turbines were installed off the coast.
“The production of renewable fuels is one of Missouri agriculture’s greatest success stories,” Blunt said. “In the same way that Missouri’s family farmers rose to a great challenge and fed the world in the last century, this century’s family farmers will answer another noble calling and fuel America. This study shows that renewable fuels will not only help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but also create jobs and economic growth.”
“Most companies go to New York in order to do this type of ceremony,” said US BioEnergy CEO Gordon Ommen. “Since we are a midwest company, really founded on the American farmer and those relationships, we thought we’d have New York come to rural America and meet us on our ground.”
US BioEnergy is the largest “pure play” ethanol producer in the country. “The largest producer of ethanol in the U.S. is ADM,” said Ommen. “We are the second largest producer of ethanol and the largest ‘pure play’ producer, which means ethanol is our primary product.”
The theme for 
Here’s your chance to hear a new song from Emily Richards and her new band – 
NBB Chairman Darryl Brinkmann took to the stage today at the National Biodiesel Conference and gave us a great overview of what the organization is doing. He mentioned that the word biodiesel is now in the dictionary for the first time. You can learn a lot about what NBB is doing, especially in the area of quality control. Darryl talks about the growth of the BQ-9000 program.