General Motors is giving Nascar E85 a day at the GM FlexFuel 250 races February 17 at Daytona International Speedway. The event is part of GM’s E85 ethanol campaign “Live Green, Go Yellow” announced last month in Washington DC, which is “an innovative partnership designed to promote E85 use and showcase GM’s E85 FlexFuel vehicle leadership to U.S. consumers – including millions of loyal NASCAR fans – throughout the year.” According to a press release from GM, FlexFuel-branded Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks also will serve as pace vehicles at Daytona and 10 other races on the 25-race NCTS circuit.
“GM and the Chevrolet Silverado brand are dedicated to helping grow an E85 infrastructure in the U.S. ,” said Brent Dewar, GM vice president, North America marketing and advertising . “Leveraging Chevy’s prominent presence in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series helps spread the word as we work to increase consumer awareness of E85 as a domestically produced alternative to imported oil and a way of reducing emissions.”
The Stars Come Out For Biodiesel
Celebrities are all about biodiesel in California, apparently. Here is my husband with “Beverly Hills 90210” star Luke Perry, who was at the National Biodiesel Conference in San Diego to show his support. He and actress Daryl Hannah held a joint press conference today just to say how much they like biodiesel. Perry was also showing his support for his buddy, author Josh Tickell, who introduced his new book “Biodiesel America“ tonight at the conference.
Singer Willie Nelson will be there tomorrow and Wednesday.
Our daughters – aged 17, 18 and 23 – are usually not all that impressed with what mom and dad do for a living. But, they were pretty excited to see dad with this teen idol, I can tell you that. Even though the first run of 90210 was a bit before their time, they watched it all the time in syndication – and they think he’s still a heart-throb even though he’s over 40!
USDA Undersecretary at Biodiesel Conference
USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development Tom Dorr was one of today’s speakers at the National Biodiesel Conference in San Diego. Chuck Zimmerman interviewed him about USDA’s renewable energy initiatives, which fall under the umbrella of the Rural Development agency with in the Department. Dorr talks about the administration’s committment to reducing imports of foreign oil and USDA’s value added energy programs. Dorr says, “We consume 140-150 billion gallons of liquid transportation fuels in this country every year. Right now we’re producing about five billion gallons of ancillary fuels. There’s gonna be a tremendous opportunity to grow this industry.”
You can listen to the full 7:00 interview here.
Budget Talk
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns unveiled details of the administration’s proposed FY2007 budget for USDA in a press conference today. The $93 billion budget is down $3 billion from ’06, as Johanns stressed that agriculture needs to do it’s part to reduce the deficit.
Energy was named by Johanns as one of the department’s priorities for ’07.
Now moving on to another USDA priority, which is energy. I recently announced a comprehensive energy strategy to help producers with high energy costs. I am pleased that this budget continues to provide tools that help producers manage the impact of high energy costs. This budget also funds the development of renewable energy resources and new energy efficient technology.
For 2007 we will have at least $345 million available in loans, grants and other support for energy projects. Within this total, USDA’s core investment in energy-related projects increases to $85 million in 2007 and that’s up from $67 million in 2006.
This includes resources available to support renewable energy research and demonstration projects as well as additional efforts to support energy development and transmission across public lands.
In addition, and not shown on the chart, we are targeting renewable energy and energy efficiency projects through Rural Development Loan and Grant Programs. We anticipate investment in excess of $250 million each year in Fiscal Years ’06 and ’07.
Throughout ’07 USDA will continue its many successful energy partnerships with the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency. USDA’s efforts will be coordinated by the newly formed Energy Policy Council.
Johanns noted that some of the $3 billion in budget reductions is coming from programs that are ending this year and one of those is the bioenergy program – which was started three years ago to “expand industrial consumption of agricultural commodities by promoting their use in production of ethanol and biodiesel.”
Authority expires for the CCC bioenergy program in September 2006, so these dollars are no longer included. Having been an advocate for ethanol now for over 20 years, I can tell you that the strength of the industry today is really nothing short of remarkable. We are projecting that commodity prices for feed grains will increase in the ’07 due to the need for more ethanol production.
The program paid out nearly $100 million to producers last year.
Here’s a link to all the info about USDA’s budget proposal.
Star Makes “Splash” at Biodiesel Conference
This is what my husband is doing out in San Diego – interviewing beautiful actresses. Daryl Hannah, star of “Splash” and other films, is a big biodiesel supporter and a regular attendee at the National Biodiesel Conference. Chuck interviewed both her and Charris Ford, founder of Grassolean Solutions. You can listen to the interview here
Great Cellulosic Ethanol Article
Here’s a very good, comprehensive report on cellulosic ethanol from Cox News Service. Good information about cellulosic, including blurbs about SunOpta’s new technology (see previous post) and Iogen’s progress in the field (also noted elsewhere on this blog). The article also points out the interest in cellulosic technology on the part of the Energy Future Coalition and Ted Turner. The conclusion is that a commercially feasible process for extracting ethanol from cellulose is still a breakthrough or two away, but lots of excitement building for this “new kind of ethanol.”
The article also notes that the Bush budget to be released tomorrow will ” include $150 million for research on cellulosic ethanol, a $59 million increase over the previous year.”
National Biodiesel Conference Kicks Off Today
It’s Super Sunday in San Diego, where the National Biodiesel Conference is kicking off today. Catch all the action this week – play by play on the Biodiesel Conference blog starting today with the pre-game show – that is, the pre-conference sessions. Blogging pro Chuck Zimmerman got in to San Diego last night after spending the last four days in Denver blogging the Cattlemen’s Beef Board meeting. It has been a busy week for him! Someday he will be home again…
Anyway, you can check out the biodiesel conference blog for complete coverage – I will be providing highlights here on DomesticFuel. Have a super day!
Bio-Factoids
Reuters has a little factiod list out about biofuels that has a few simple key points about ethanol and biodiesel in it and is very accurate. It’s really just Biofuels 101 and doesn’t touch on any judgements or opinions regarding energy efficiency or the like. More interesting to me than the Reuters fact list was the post about it on Autoblog, or I should say, the comments about the post. They showed a much greater lack of understanding and misinformation about biofuels than I would have expected from automaniacs. I hope that will change.
I really loved the image on that Autoblog post – so much that I “borrowed” it to use here and want to give them full credit. Don’t know if it’s an Autoblog original, but I thought it was very cool. Nice job, whoever designed it.
The E-List
If you are in the ethanol business as a supplier, producer, researcher, government agency, etc….the 2006 Fuel Ethanol Industry Directory wants to list you for free. The directory is being compiled by Ethanol Producer Magazine (a BBI Biofuels publication) and is distributed throughout the fuel ethanol industry at workshops, conferences and trade shows. The publication offers one free listing per organization and charges 40 bucks for each additional listing. Other pricing is available for display ads and logos. Deadline for listing is March 13.
Heard it Through the Pipeline
Brazil is considering a pipeline for ethanol, according to an Associated Press report out today. The $226 million pipeline “would run from the central state of Goias to a refinery in Paulinia, near Sao Paulo, through Brazil’s main producing centers of sugar cane and ethanol,” and would be built by the government’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras. Brazil is the world’s largest producer of ethanol and the country is getting heavily into the export market. The article quotes Petrobras Chief Executive Sergio Gabrielli saying Petrobras would be pioneering a new area of alternative fuel transportation. “We are the only country in the world that has the technology to build an ethanol pipeline,” Gabrielli said. “To make the ethanol market grow is strategic for the world, not only for Brazil.” While exports have been limited as the country has been concentrating on its domestic market, they are exporting to or in talks with exporting to Venezuela, Nigeria, China, South Korea, India and the United States. There is currently a 54-cent-a-gallon duty on imports of ethanol to the United States, which is intended to offset the federal tax subsidy for the U.S. industry. There are concerns that Brazil might challenge that tariff under the World Trade Organization. There was a good article on that subject recently in the Des Moines Register.