State of the Union Speculation

Cindy Zimmerman

The anticipation is mounting for President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address to be made on January 23. The media is already busy speculating about what the president will talk about, with stories out this week that global warming will be on the teleprompter, although the White House is denying reports that Bush will advocate mandatory emissions caps in an effort to combat global warming.

Spokesman Tony Snow said, “If you’re talking about enforceable carbon caps, in terms of industrywide and nation wide, we knocked that down. That’s not something we’re talking about.”

However, promoting alternative energy sources such as hydrogen and ethanol is expected to be emphasized in his speech, as it was last year. Such alternatives would be in line with White House support of voluntary steps to curb greenhouse emissions.

Reuters and other news outlets are saying that Bush “is likely to call for a massive increase in how much fuel ethanol that U.S. refiners must mix with gasoline in coming years.”

Ethanol, News

Pocatello Next on Biodiesel Bandwagon

John Davis

PocatelloA couple of days ago, I told you about how Cincinnati, Ohio had changed its bus fleet to biodiesel and saved the city nearly half-a-million dollars last year. Now, officials in Pocatello, Idaho are making the change to the cleaner form of fuel. They expect to change the city’s entire fleet… cars, buses, snowplows… over to a 20% blend of biodiesel.

That bandwagon seems to be just getting bigger everyday.

Biodiesel, Government

Biofuels Buoy Cargill’s Second Quarter Earnings

John Davis

cargillCargill reported that its second quarter earnings for last year jumped 34 percent over the same time a year ago… due in part to the increased demand for ethanol and biodiesel. Earnings went from about $500 million in the same quarter in in fiscal year 2006 to more than $660 million dollars for the quarter ending November 30th. In addition, the first six months of FY2007 Cargill earned $1.16 billion. That’s a jump of about 16 percent!


In a company statement, Cargill Chairman and CEO Warren Staley, said “Similar to the first quarter, we experienced fast-changing markets in the second period, brought about by the interest in biofuels, investor flows into commodity futures and other markets offering diversification, and expansionary economies in many parts of the world. ”

Cargill runs two ethanol plants… one in Eddyville, Iowa and one in Blair, Nebraska… and this past spring has just opened a biodiesel plant in Iowa Falls, Iowa.

Biodiesel, Ethanol

New York to Get First Commercial Biodiesel Plant

John Davis

A former brewery in New York state will soon be brewing up biodiesel. Officials with GS AgriFuels have announced a partnership with Homeland Energy to build a biodiesel plant at the site of the old Miller Brewing Company plant in Fulton. Homeland Energy already has an ethanol plant adjacent to the site.

In a release on Business Wire, GS AgriFuels President and Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Scozzafava, says “We are pleased to have been able to partner with Homeland Energy and participate in this, our first majority-owned biofuels production facility. I’m proud to be involved with a project that will re-utilize an existing industrial facility to produce clean fuels that will benefit both the central New York economy and its environment.”

The 10-million gallon-a-year plant will use some of the old brewing equipment and storage tanks already in place and is expected to begin production later this year.

Biodiesel

Research to Work on Ethanol from Beet Pulp and Wheat Bran

Cindy Zimmerman

DyadicBiotech firm Dyadic International, Inc. has joined with a consortium in Europe to work on producing ethanol from sugar beet pulp and wheat bran.

According to a company release, the Florida-based company will be working on the research and development project with one of Europe’s leading producers of bioethanol, Royal Nedalco, and other partners funded by the Netherlands government.

Jan Verdoes, Ph.D., Research Director, Dyadic Nederland BV, said, “Sugar beet pulp, with its currently low value, high volume at centralized locations and abundant carbohydrate content, is an attractive feedstock for the production of bioethanol. Wheat bran, a byproduct of wheat processing, is another attractive bioethanol feedstock. However, the enzyme preparations to economically extract sugars from these materials and the yeasts required to ferment these unusual sugars for large-scale ethanol production need to be further developed. Our research projects are designed to overcome these technical problems and contribute to the development of economically viable renewable fuels for the future.”

Ethanol, News, Research

First New Fuel Ships for Indy

Cindy Zimmerman

TankerThe first tanker truck loaded with 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol to power this year’s IndyCar® Series left the Renova Energy plant in Torrington, Wyoming this week bound for Indianapolis.

According to a release from the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, the plant was contracted to supply approximately 120,000 gallons of the fuel to the IndyCar Series in 2007. Renova Energy currently produces 10 million gallons of ethanol a year, with new construction planned for a 20 million gallon plant in Heyburn, Idaho.

All IndyCar Series cars will run on the 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol for the first time when the series holds the first Open Test of the season at Daytona International Speedway Jan. 31-Feb. 1.

EPIC, Ethanol, News

A Tale of Two Tortillas

Cindy Zimmerman

There are two sides to the stories out this week about the increased cost of tortillas in Mexico, being blamed partly on increased demand for corn to be made into ethanol.

One is that it will cause the poor in Mexico to go hungry because they can’t afford to pay more for the basic staple of their diet.

The other side is that Mexican farmers, who are among the country’s poor, are making more money because of the higher prices.

As first reported in the LA Times, high corn prices are wreaking havoc on Mexico’s inflation rate and forcing shoppers to pay more for eggs, milk and tortillas. But they’re a godsend to farmers such as Victor Manuel Amador Luna.

With world corn prices riding high on strong demand from U.S. ethanol producers, Amador is looking to expand production on his farm about 125 miles east of Mexico City in the state of Puebla. He planted most of his 222 acres with corn this year and would like to buy more land.

Other news outlets have picked up the story and run with it on different angles, like this AP report which places part of the blame for the higher tortilla prices on corporate monopolies.

The San Francisco Chronicle put it this way:
Just why tortillas cost so much remains murky.

Corn prices are spiking in the United States, with crop yields low and demand high. The production of the gasoline additive ethanol has taken off in the past year, consuming millions of bushels of corn.

But Mexico grows most of its own corn for consumption. And the yellow corn used for ethanol and livestock feed is different from the sweet white corn that’s ground into masa for handmade tortillas, although some mass-produced tortillas are made from yellow corn.

Mutters about monopolies and price gouging have been rising, leading Mexico’s antitrust agency to say on Thursday that it will investigate hoarding and price manipulation.

Besides investigating, the Mexican government is importing 650,000 metric tons of duty-free corn in an attempt to drive down tortilla prices.

Ethanol

Sorghum Growers Sweet on Ethanol

Cindy Zimmerman

NSP Other crop producers are reaping the benefits of higher corn prices driven by ethanol. Among them are the sorghum farmers, who are meeting this week in New Mexico. Brownfield Network’s Peter Shinn reports that ethanol was the focus of Monday’s general session at the National Sorghum Producers (NSP) annual meeting.

NSP President Greg Shelor, a Kansas sorghum grower, told Brownfield that’s because ethanol is already increasing sorghum producer profitability. “On the ethanol, that’s real promising for another market for our grain sorghum because it’s interchangeable with corn in all these ethanol plants, so it just gives us another market and gets our price up there a lot closer to corn.” In fact, in some locations, sorghum is commanding a 10 to 15 cent per bushel to premium to corn, according to several growers in attendance here.

Two prominent national ethanol experts addressed sorghum growers Monday morning. One of them is Ethanol Promotion and Information Council Operations Director Robert White, who told Brownfield sorghum can do much to ease the concerns of those who are worried the ethanol industry may use too much corn.

“Corn’s not the only game in town,” White said. “We use sorghum today – that’s why we’re talking about ethanol here today.”

The other ethanol export to address Monday’s NSP general session was Dr. John Ashworth, Team Leader of Partnership Development for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s National Bioenergy Center in Golden, Colorado. He told sorghum growers their crop will play an even bigger role in ethanol production as cellulosic technologies are perfected.

Ethanol, News

BIO Supports Governors

Cindy Zimmerman

BIO The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) supports the incentives outlined in the Governors’ Ethanol Coalition report, Ethanol from Biomass: How to Get to a Biofuels Future.

According to a BIO release, “The technology for commercial production of ethanol from cellulosic biomass is ready today, but no modern biorefineries are currently operating to make use of the technology,” said BIO President and CEO Jim Greenwood. “The production incentive proposed by the governors would help jumpstart the construction and commercial operation of modern biorefineries by pioneering companies. We need to move quickly to ramp up production of renewable fuels that can help America move toward energy independence.”

BIO supports the Governors’ Ethanol Coalition’s recommendations to create a Cellulosic Ethanol Production Tax Credit and to fully fund research, demonstration and incentive programs authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Ethanol, News