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Scripps News has a feature on ethanol fever in the Heartland, focusing on Heron Lake, Minn.

Ethanol mania is sweeping through Heron Lake and many towns like it across the Corn Belt. Investors are spending billions in rural communities, sparking a wild rush to secure land, an industry movement to alter environmental standards and a rash of fierce bidding by communities desperate for their own plant.

Two decades after farmers began mashing their corn into ethanol, the clear, odorless liquid is seen by many as the best chance for America to lessen its dependence on foreign oil.

Read the story here.

The Chicago Board of Trade has announced plans for two new over-the-counter (OTC) Ethanol Calendar Swap contracts.

The new products, which will include contracts for both forward and previous month calendar swaps, will be based on the price of CBOT Ethanol futures contracts. Scheduled to be introduced on December 4, 2006, CBOT Ethanol Swap contracts are the first exchange-cleared OTC products to be specifically tailored for use in the ethanol industry.

Read more from the CBOT.

Two Boulder, Colorado residents are on a mission to promote E-85 by bus.

Self-described dedicated environmentalists Jason and Tracey Keeley have “organized Buy the Bus to fund an eight-month tour of key locations in the United States, during which they will spread the word about E85.”

Tracey and Jason’s combined passion for the great outdoors has culminated in Buy the Bus, an advertising campaign designed to help spread the word about E85. Starting in April of 2007, Jason and Tracey will tour the United States for eight months, educating the American people about ethanol fuel. The Volkswagon Bus they will use will also be converted so that it can run on E85, which Jason and Tracey will use religiously.

Buy the Bus allows businesses to buy advertisement space on the Volkswagen Bus in which they will make the trip. The bus will see about 8,000 miles of highway, guaranteeing broad exposure for the advertisements it carries with it. Additionally, the ads will remain on the Buy the Bus website, as well as the real bus, for three years. Advertising space costs $1 per pixel, sold in blocks of 100, which translates to 3” by 3” blocks on the real bus.

Read more here and at BuytheBus.com.

The job of lieutenant governor is rarely noticed, but when the running mate of the challenger in the Minnesota governor’s race appeared to show ignorance of ethanol this week, the current holder of the position did get some attention.

And no one can say that Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau is ignorant when it comes to ethanol. As a corn farmer from near New Ulm, part of Molnau’s income depends on the renewable fuel, according to this story from the Austin Daily Herald.

Molnau, who farms with her husband east of New Ulm, said during a campaign visit to Austin Friday that they finished harvesting their corn last week, and that some of their yield will be going into ethanol.

“The best part of E-85 is there’s a lot of demand for the corn,” Molnau said, which drives prices paid to farmers up. “This morning my husband told me the delivery price is $2.81, and that’s what E-85 has done for rural Minnesota.”

Here’s another story on Molnau from the Albert Lea Tribune.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the rising price of corn due to ethanol production.

The price for corn — the nation’s No. 1 crop and one of the most ubiquitous ingredients in the American food supply — has jumped nearly 55% since mid-September, when U.S. corn farmers began harvesting their third-biggest crop ever. Grain prices usually slump to their lowest levels of the year during the harvest season. Yet the price of corn in recent weeks has shot through the rarely breached $3-a-bushel mark and appears headed higher.

“The consequences of ethanol are the biggest thing going on in agriculture today,” says Keith Collins, chief economist of the U.S. Agriculture Department. “We are talking about a higher new benchmark for corn.”

Biofuels are helping to create more jobs in rural areas, according to a Des Moines Register report. The story features some of the people working for Lincolnway Energy near Nevada, Iowa and notes that “the industry promises job growth in a wide array of fields, including crop genetics, engineering, life sciences and construction.”

A shorter version of the article was picked up by the Associated Press.

More Iowans are finding themselves in a field they never knew existed when they were in school.

The expanding ethanol industry is attracting people from a variety of professions — and more are expected as another 10 ethanol plants are planned for Iowa.