I had the opportunity for a 15 minute interview with Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns today in Kansas City. I was wearing many hats, so I had to ask him questions on several topics, but I did get in a question about food versus fuel when it comes to ethanol.
Basically, the short answer is – use all you want, we’ll grow more. Here is the secretary’s answer to my question. 
Johanns (2 min MP3)
A ground-breaking event will be held Friday in Hankinson, N.D. on August 25 for US Bio Hankinson, the biggest ethanol plant in North Dakota. (see previous post). The 100 million gallon per year ethanol plant, being constructed by US BioEnergy Corporation, will consume approximately 36 million bushels of corn and will produce 320,000 tons of distillers grain annually.
Peabody-award winning Public Radio broadcasters the Kitchen Sisters are featuring Deep Fried Fuel on NPR’s Morning Edition this Thursday, August 24. That would be tomorrow morning as this is posted, but NPR does offer podcasts of features if you miss it.
The Hidden Kitchen program “explores secret, underground, below-the-radar community cooking going on throughout America and how communities come together through food.”
Deep Fried Fuel: A Biodiesel Kitchen Vision, includes interviews with Willie Nelson, Carl Cornelius, Kinky Friedman, Peter Bell, Joe Nick Patoski and other “biodiesel visionaries” at Carl’s Corner and Houston, Texas.
Oklahoma Sustainable Energy LLC is well on its way to building a 55 million gallon a year plant in Enid, OK. 
The Alva (OK) Review Telegram reports that a Monday meeting for potential investors drew “scores of area residents” interested in hearing about the plan.
The group hopes to obtain 449 investors for the project which needs a minimum of $5 million and a maximum of $14 million. Chaparral Energy LLC, an Oklahoma oil and gas company, has committed to funding two-thirds of the project, according to the article.
“We are the only ethanol plan in the United States that has partnered with gas and oil,” President Terry Detrick said. “We feel we have hit a home run when the two major players – oil and agriculture – have married.”
The picture, from the Alva article, shows Michael Entz, Vice President and Terry Detrick, President of OSE, during the investment presentation. Photo by Helen Barrett
Alternative Energy Sources, Inc. of Kansas City, which just announced last week that it is in the process of building the “first cellulosic plant” in the country, (a claim disputed by SunOpta) today announced plans to build a 110-million-gallon ethanol plant 65 miles south of Chicago in Kankakee, Ill.
According to a company release, AENS has optioned the entire 248-acre Kankakee Industrial Park next to a newly permitted regional sanitary landfill. “In addition to giving us the large footprint needed for flexibility in plant design, this will allow us to acquire landfill methane gas for our operations at one-third the cost of natural gas on a Btu-adjusted basis,” said Lee Blank, AENS executive vice president and chief operating officer.
The company also announced plans last week to build a 110-million-gallon ethanol plant in Boone County, Iowa, between Ogden and Beaver in the central part of the state.
Not wasting any time here. AENS was just formed in June by Blank and Mark Beemer, former execs of ADM, the nation’s largest ethanol producer.
Green Plains Renewable Energy has announced that Agra Industries will be the builder for its second 50 million gallon ethanol plant in Iowa. The company is currently building a 50 million gallon facility in Shenandoah, Iowa. The second plant will be located near Superior. With the two plants, GPRE expects to have the capacity to produce at least 110 million gallons of ethanol on an annual basis by the end of 2007.
Here’s a company doing some great biodiesel work.
Greenline Industries of San Rafael, California manufactures a full range of biodiesel processing systems employing the very latest waterless technology. We serve a broad range of customers that include farm co-ops, small businesses, larger scale municipal interests, and full scale commercial plants delivering up to 40 million gallons of biodiesel per year, according to their website.
Earlier this year, Greenline received an Environmental Protection Agency’s Region Nine Environmental Award for it’s CF Series waterless continuous flow Biodiesel production process. Pictured are Greenline’s Michael Brown and Jacques Sinoncelli receiving the award from EPA representatives.
The company also recently made two major project announcements. One was the completion of the three million gallon per year Patriot Biofuels plant in Stuttgart, Arkansas. The other, a contract with Romanian food company S.C. ULEROM to build a 7 million gallons a year biodiesel facility in Vaslui province of Romania.
Father and son ethanol racing team Dan and Jamie Schwartzkopf were at the American Coalition for Ethanol meeting last week in Kansas City and I got a chance to chat with them about Schwartzkopf Racing and Wyoming Ethanol. Dan is the general manager of the ethanol plant, which has Renova Energy as its parent company. They also talk about the fact that there will actually be three generations of Schwartzkopfs in the drag racing business when Dan’s grandson turns 16 next year.
Here’s the interview I did with Dan and Jamie at the ACE meeting: Schwartzkopfs (4:00 min MP3)
A new market research study shows very strong consumer interest in flex fuel vehicles, but fuel economy is an issue with them.
The study, by global market research company Synovate, shows that 37% of US consumers would consider purchasing a Flex Fuel vehicle that runs on gasoline or E85 (85% Ethanol) the next time they are in the market to buy a car. However, more than a third of these same consumers lose interest in E85 Flex Fuel vehicles when they learn that there is a reduction in fuel economy.
This information came from Synovate’s latest semi-annual survey of consumer attitudes toward advanced propulsion and alternative fuel vehicles.
Publishers of the study say “this means that E85 will have to retain a substantially lower price per gallon over gasoline for it to have any impact on consumption.”
The survey also shows big interest by consumers in “plug-in” hybrids, once they know what they are.
Familiarity with the technology is currently low but, after hearing an explanation of a grid-connected hybrid, 49% of consumers said they would consider purchasing one, roughly the same level of consideration as standard hybrid technology.
The governor of Pennsylvania has announced the first ethanol plant to be built in the state, as well as a cellulosic pilot plant.
Governor Edward Rendell made the announcement Thursday with representatives from BioEnergy International, LLC and Lukoil Americas, two important partners in the project. According to a news release from the governor’s office, the state is providing $17.4 million in “state investments to support the $250 million project,” which includes a 108 million gallon per year corn-based ethanol plant and a pilot scale cellulose demonstration plant.
The plant will employ conventional corn-based technology and will be among the largest east of the Mississippi River, and one of the nation’s top 10, based on output. The smaller pilot-cellulose plant will use BioEnergy’s groundbreaking technology to produce fuels using locally available organic wastes, such as wood and agricultural residue.
