energy.agwired.com

Transportation issues have been added to the growing list of concerns about how demand for ethanol will be able to be met this year. According to a Reuters business wire story, officials with the US Energy Information Administration think there may be a shortage of trucks and rail cars to move ethanol.

“We’ll need to find a whole lot more rail cars that may not be readily available,” EIA analyst Joanne Shore said in an analyst conference call. “There’s also concern about trucks, and the truck drivers needed for moving this are in short supply.”

A trademarked ethanol cocktail called Ecalene™ may offer the potential to solve some of the issues relating to pure ethanol use. Power Energy Fuels in Colorado claims that Ecalene™ is “Ethanol Plus” because it has higher mixed alcohols which act as a binding agent in fuel blending, has higher octane than ethanol, is its own denaturant, has higher btu’s than ethanol with high octane that will increase mileage and performance – all according to their website. Certainly sounds promising. Power Energy has the patents on the product, they are working with NREL and have two patents on the process. Here’s another link that gives some more info about Ecalene.
I found out about Ecalene™ through a comment from Power Energy president Gene Jackson who wrote asking why I don’t “promote mixed alcohols?” Well, that would be because I didn’t know about it. Now I do – but I would ask you why YOU don’t promote it? The media is eating up anything that has to do with ethanol right now but if you do a news search for Ecalene there’s nothing. Send out a press release, for goodness sake!

Here are some pictures from the “Energy Independence Rally” yesterday at the Missouri State Capitol. According to the Missouri Corn Growers Association press release – Over two hundred farmers and ethanol advocates met at the Missouri State Capitol (Tuesday) to show their support for increased energy independence and the Missouri Renewable Fuel Standard (MoRFS), legislation that would require nearly all the gasoline sold in the state contain 10 percent ethanol. It was a nice crowd and I would say that estimate is just about right. The event started at the Missouri Farm Bureau Building and ended in the halls of the capitol. The large crowd of farmers, ethanol plant members, business officials, community leaders, FFA students and others traveled to Jefferson City, Mo., to meet with lawmakers and push for passage of the statewide ethanol standard.
Once passed, Missouri will join Minnesota, Montana and Hawaii to become the fourth state in the nation to establish a statewide renewable fuel standard. Ethanol legislation is also currently pending in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and most recently, Idaho.
Thanks to Becky Grisham with MCGA for the pictures. I really need to start carrying a camera with me in my car like my husband does!

The sudden interest of private companies wanting to invest in ethanol plants is causing some consternation in the midwest. US ethanol plant development has been largely a grassroots campaign over the past decade financed by farmer-owned cooperatives. Now one of those co-ops is facing the entrepreneur’s dream dilemma – selling out for venture capital. Midwest Grain Processors, a 1,300 farmer co-op in Lakota, IA has a deal worth $100 million in the works with a little-known Australian corporation by the name of Global Ethanol. The big bucks would help the co-op double capacity, but it would cost them 60 percent interest.
The Des Moines Register reports today that Senator Charles Grassley (IA-R) is urging the farmers “not to sell control to a foreign company.” The farmer-owners must vote to approve the deal before it can go through.
When I started researching this story today, I spent about an hour searching for this Global Ethanol company on the web, unsuccessfully. I finally found an article in the Australian Courier-Mail that kind of answered my question, saying “Little is known about Global Ethanol. Director Timothy McMahon yesterday referred questions to fellow director Trevor Bourne, who is in the US.”
I think that’s a little weird that a company calling itself GLOBAL ETHANOL is nowhere to be found on the web and has little known about it. Not very global, if you ask me. I will be interested to see how this deal goes down.

I went to noon Mass today at the beautiful St. Peter Church across from the Capitol building in Jefferson City, MO. I parked in one of the metered spots in front of the church even though there were temporary No Parking signs set up for a funeral, thinking that it must have been for a morning funeral that just concluded. I was wrong – the funeral Mass started in the upper church right after the regular daily noon service concluded in the lower chapel. I walked out to find my car blocked in by the funeral procession and the service just beginning. So, instead of fretting about it, I decided to go for a walk around downtown and enjoy the glorious weather. As I walked past the Capitol building I noticed a fairly large group gathered around the steps having a rally of some sort – not an unusual sight during the legislative session. Then I noticed the easily-recognizable blue jackets of a few FFA members – and the fact that the crowd was flanked by a couple of vehicles emblazoned with E85 emblems. Hmmmm – I said to myself, being the astute reporter-type that I am – must be some kind of ethanol thing going on here. Surveying the scene, which included a couple hundred farmer-types listening to brief statements from MO corn industry leaders and state lawmakers, I was reminded why my husband always keeps a camera handy. Of course, it would have been nice if I had received a media invite to the event – but we are still trying to convince some people that blogs are media too. Our good friend Becky Grisham with the Missouri Corn Growers Association has assured me that she will send me a picture of the crowd to post. Maybe tomorrow.

The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel ran an article Sunday that originally ran in the N.Y. Times on February 7. It’s headlined “It takes fuel to make fuel” and I am surprised that I haven’t seen it in any other NYT company papers considering the hype over ethanol and the Ames, IA dateline.
The article is all about how turning corn into ethanol requires natural gas and the research that is being done to make ethanol more cost-effective. Two potential solutions are offered to using less natural gas in the production of ethanol – using cow manure or corn stover.
The article talks about work being done at Frontline Bioenergy in Ames, which has as it’s mission statement “…to lead the nation in biomass gasification solutions for energy and products” and the cute little leaf logo you see on this post. It quotes Frontline’s research and development manager John Reardon on their gasification project, “It’s just a step. But our whole economy is based on fossil energy, and we have to make a step somewhere.”
That’s how it will all be done – a step at a time. Our dependence on fossil fuels may be an addiction, but it’s not one we can quit cold turkey. We have to cut down gradually, a step at a time, to wean ourselves like babies. But it can be done.
Thanks to Gary Dikkers for sending me the article.

The headline for the article is “Wall Street storms the Corn Belt to build new ethanol plants,” and it makes it sound like ethanol plants are the hottest investment since dot-com. Don’t know if it’s THAT huge, and hopefully not that short-lived, but no doubt it is getting a bit easier to find investors for ethanol plants than it was even just a year ago.