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Aventine Renewable Energy CEO and Renewable Fuels Association Chairman Ron Miller presented testimony before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Wednesday on the impact of the ethanol industry’s dramatic growth on rural America.

“Ethanol today is the single most important value-added market for farmers,” said Miller. “The increased demand for grain used in ethanol processing has increased farm income, created jobs in the agricultural sector, and revitalized numerous rural communities where ethanol biorefineries have been located.”

In dollar terms, Miller told the committee that the five billion gallons of ethanol produced last year in the US translated to “an additional $41.1 billion to gross national output; the creation of 160,231 jobs in all sectors of the economy and an increase in household income of $6.7 billion, money that flows directly into consumers pockets.”

Other witnesses at the hearing included USDA Chief Economist Keith Collins, Mr. J. Read Smith of the “25×25” Steering Committee, and Gene Gourley of the National Pork Producers Council. Some of the opening statements and audio from the hearing is available on the Senate Ag Committee website.

Indiana’s “BioTown USA” might soon get it’s very own ethanol plant.

VeraSun of South Dakota has plans to is build a 110-million gallon capacity ethanol plant just outside the northern Indiana town of Reynolds that is a state project aimed at using renewable sources to provide all its energy.

The Biotown plan promoted by the state Department of Agriculture calls for construction of a plant that would use manure and other biomass material to generate electricity for the 500-person town about 20 miles north of Lafayette. It also is promoting the use of E85, which is a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petroleum-based gasoline, for vehicles.

The White County Area Plan Commission voted this week to approve a request to rezone 273 acres of land near the town to allow for construction of the plant.

Read more from the Monticello, IN Herald Journal.

It’s unlikely to be the final word on the subject, but a new MIT analysis shows that the energy balance between ethanol and fossil fuel is actually so close that several factors can easily change whether ethanol ends up a net energy winner or loser.

In other words, it depends on what you figure into the equation.

According to MIT, Tiffany A. Groode, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, performed her own study, supervised by John B. Heywood, Sun Jae Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Based on her “most likely” outcomes, she concluded that traveling a kilometer using ethanol does indeed consume more energy than traveling the same distance using gasoline. However, further analyses showed that several factors can easily change the outcome, rendering corn-based ethanol a “greener” fuel.

Among those factors is system boundary, or which energy-using factors of production are included and excluded in determining energy efficiency. Groode compared several different studies that used different factors, including the 2003 Pimental study which counts such energy-consuming inputs such as the manufacture of farm machinery.

“The results show that everybody is basically correct,” she said. “The energy balance is so close that the outcome depends on exactly how you define the problem.” The results also serve to validate her methodology: Results from the other studies fall within the range of her more probable results.

Groode also did energy analyses of corn stover and switchgrass and found that fossil energy consumption is far lower with these two cellulosic sources than for the corn kernels.

“I view corn-based ethanol as a stepping-stone,” said Groode. “People can buy flexible-fuel vehicles right now and get used to the idea that ethanol or E85 works in their car. If ethanol is produced from a more environmentally friendly source in the future, we’ll be ready for it.”

Read more from MIT.

Cargill has launched a renewable energy subsidiary to build four big ethanol plants.

According to Cargill, Emerald Renewable Energy plans to develop four 100 million gallon/year ethanol plants in the Midwest. No sites have been announced yet, but several are under consideration, including empty locations and sites near Cargill grain elevators

Emerald Renewable Energy is a privately held, limited liability company formed by Cargill to develop and invest in renewable energy projects in the United States. Cargill will provide the initial development capital for the projects. Emerald Renewable Energy will contract with Cargill for services to support the facilities, including corn supply, natural gas, price risk management and the marketing of ethanol and distillers grains.

“Emerald Renewable Energy will have access to Cargill’s world-class expertise in trading, sourcing corn, plant construction and operations, risk management and bulk commodity transportation,” noted Scott Portnoy, Cargill corporate vice president with responsibility for its Biofuels and Bioproducts businesses.

Read more from Cargill.

Improving the quality and digestibility of ethanol by-products for livestock feed is a major goal of Renessen, a joint venture between Cargill and Monsanto.

At the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Doug Rushing of Monsanto described how Renessen’s recently launched ethanol processing system, combined with a new corn hybrid, creates dried distillers’ grains (DDGs) with added value as hog feed.

The improved hog feed comes from lysine, an essential amino acid necessary for the growth and development of animals, which is an added biotech quality trait. The hybrid, called Mavera, also has twice the oil content of traditional corn.

The process cuts down the amount of DDGs produced by about one-third to one-half compared to traditional ethanol corn processing, but Rushing emphasizes that the DDGs are much more valuable to livestock producers who normally add synthetic lysine to rations.

The system is being used at a recently opened pilot ethanol plant in Iowa.

Listen to a recent interview with Doug Rushing done by Chuck Zimmerman, which describes the new corn hybrid and ethanol process. Renessen (4 min MP3)