Ethanol-Mart

Cindy Zimmerman

Wal-Mart Watch out for falling ethanol prices if Wal-Mart decides to start selling E85. Officials with the world’s largest retailer met recently with ethanol industry representatives to discuss the possibility of offering ethanol at its 383 U.S. gas stations.

According to an Associated Press story, Wal-Mart brought together a group of industry, government and academic experts on alternative fuels in Washington last week to discuss how Wal-Mart could develop a network for supplying gas stations at its stores and Sam’s Clubs with E-85 fuel. One of those at the meeting was National Corn Growers Association Executive Director Rick Tolman, who said a decision by Wal-Mart to offer E-85 would help solve one of the emerging industry’s problems: not enough availability for consumers.

Ethanol

Corn Farmers on Ethanol High as Sugar Interests Mull Fuel Future

Cindy Zimmerman

Corn farmers are “giddy” with the rising use and price of their commodity, according to this article in Business Week from St. Louis.

Meanwhile, Florida sugar cane farmers are still hesitant to jump on the ethanol bandwagon, according to this Sun-Sentinel story, saying “As sexy as ethanol sounds, we’ve got to be able to make a profit.”

That would be the first time I have ever heard ethanol called “sexy.”

Ethanol

Chevron Goes Bio

Cindy Zimmerman

Chevron Chevron Corporation has formed a biofuels business unit to advance technology and pursue commercial opportunities related to the production and distribution of ethanol and biodiesel in the United States, according to a company release. Chevron officially announced the business unit at a groundbreaking ceremony in Galveston, Texas to inaugurate construction of one of the first large-scale biodiesel plants in the U.S.

Biodiesel, Ethanol, Miscellaneous

Kick It

Cindy Zimmerman

Oil Habit Actor and environmentalist Robert Redford has a commentary today on cnn.com about kicking the oil habit. His main purpose appears to be the promotion of KickTheOilHabit.org, which is “based at the Center for American Progress and works with partners from the Natural Resources Defense Council to Consumers Union, MoveOn.org to the Apollo Alliance.” The classy site features ways you can donate, take action and send your message “to Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, Valero, and ConocoPhillips, and to your Representative in Congress.”

It also features a video that places the blame for everything from higher gas prices to global warming on President Bush. Not necessary at all. This should not be a political issue. If we are truly serious about kicking the habit we all have to work together and make the sacrifices and changes necessary to make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil. Pointing fingers is simply counter-productive. We can all take the blame for our addiction – and take the responsibility of working the program to beat it.

Miscellaneous

100th Ethanol Plant Celebration

Cindy Zimmerman

Frontier 2Frontier 3 Approximately 1,200 people attended the grand opening celebration May 26 for the new $80 million Frontier Ethanol – the 100th ethanol plant to begin operations in the United States. The plant, which will produce 60 million gallons of ethanol annually from 21 million bushels of corn, is the 23rd ethanol plant built by Broin Companies. CEO Jeff Broin is pictured cutting the ribbon at the opening celebration. Read more.

Ethanol

Saab BioPower

Cindy Zimmerman

Saab Biopower Ethanol can be even more efficient than gasoline with the right engine, and Saab has the engine. According to Mobile Magazine, the 9-5 2.3t BioPower engine runs better on E85 than it does on regular gasoline – 210 bhp compared to 185 bhp. Earlier stories about the BioPower engine, such as this one in Popular Science, say it’s 184 horsepower on ethanol and 148 with gasoline. Pretty good either way. However, Saab currently only has plans to sell cars with the BioPower engine in Europe.

The engine will clearly give the E85 cause a boost, but only in Europe for now. It will appear there in the 2007 model year later this year, but there are no public plans to bring it to the United States.

Ethanol

Hawkeye IPO

Cindy Zimmerman

Hawkeye Hawkeye Holdings, the holding company that owns Hawkeye Renewables of Iowa Falls, IA may raise up to $350 million in an initial public offering, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company’s prospectus says it is the third largest U.S. ethanol producer based on its 205 million gallons per year production capacity. Read the AP story.

Ethanol

States Pass Biodiesel Laws

Cindy Zimmerman

NBB Nearly a dozen states passed legislation this year that will help increase the use of biodiesel, according to the National Biodiesel Board. Among them was Iowa, where Gov. Tom Vilsack today signed into law two renewable fuels and infrastructure bills. One will give point-of-sale retailers a three cent income tax credit on each gallon of a two percent (B2) blend or higher. The second bill establishes a renewable fuels standard, saying sales of ethanol or biodiesel must equal 25 percent of a retailer’s fuel sales by 2020.
Other states which passed some kind of legislation favorable to biodiesel are New York, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland, Kansas, Arkansas, California, Indiana and Virginia.

Biodiesel

NG Diesel Trip Update

Chuck Zimmerman

Sasol Chevron Diesel ComparisonHere’s an update to the Sasol-Chevron GTL Challenge. The GTL stands for “gas-to-liquids” and you can learn more about it here. This is the group that’s travelling from South Africa to Quatar to demonstrate the performance of their NG Diesel fuel in one of the caravan vehicles. In the picture you can see oil from the test vehicle on the left and from one of the other vehicles running on conventional diesel on the right.

The halfway stage of the Sasol Chevron GTL Challenge, over 6,500 kilometres, has provided the most graphic evidence so far of GTL diesel’s clean fuel performance. During a scheduled oil change in Nairobi, it became clear that, whilst the oil from the vehicles using traditional diesel had deteriorated and needed to be changed, the oil from ‘African Renaissance’, the vehicle running on GTL diesel, was barely affected. Read More

International, Promotion

Going Cross Country

Chuck Zimmerman

ASHTO 50 Year CelebrationIf you liked our coverage from the Indianapolis 500 then perhaps you’ll be interested in some other events coming up that I’ll be blogging from.

First of all, there’s the 50 year celebration of our national interstate system. I will be driving one of the vehicles in the convoy that will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the federal law that brought the Interstate Highway System to America. The trip begins June 16 in San Francisco and ends June 29 in Washington, DC. You can see the full schedule here. I’ll be writing each day, including interviews and pictures as I find them and I know there will be a lot. My involvement with the trip is being sponsored by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. In fact, I’ll be driving a truck that will be wrapped with their logo. You can see a current list of the sponsoring organizations for the whole event here.

Kansas Lottery Indy 300It looks like I’ll fly from the closing ceremonies of the Interstate event to Kansas City for the Kansas Lottery Indy 300. This is one of the races on the Indy Racing League Schedule and it will be nice to get in a little more race action.

So those are a couple of events on the agenda. I’m really excited about the cross country trip. I’ll be meeting lots of people and learning about their perspectives on alternative fuels which I’ll report for you right here.

EPIC, Indy Racing, Racing