Choosing ethanol at the pumps just got easier for motorists fueling up at Sioux Valley Coop (SVC) in Watertown, S.D. The coop recently installed blender pumps which will allow customers to essentially blend their preferred level of ethanol fuel.
SVC in partnership with Glacial Lakes Energy, LLC ethanol plant is hosting a “Yellow Dime” promotional event Friday to officially launch the blender pump offering. Motorists who chose ethanol-blended fuels during the promotion will receive one yellow dime back for every gallon of ethanol they purchase. The yellow dimes handed out during the event will circulate throughout the community, showing the impact of corn and ethanol production on the local economy.
That’s a neat promotion, which is being sponsored in part by the South Dakota Corn Growers Association.
(Read the full release here)
Senator John McCain was in Iowa today – the largest ethanol producing state – doing a little back-peddling on his previous strong opposition to ethanol as being too costly to produce, but still taking a strong stand against subsidies. According to the 
An Australian company has patented a way to make sugarcane plants that can produce more ethanol. 
One of the many contests at the BIO 2006 trade show was a 2 year lease on a Ford F150 that’s E85 capable.
The Iowa Senate passed a bill this week to create a biodiesel tax credit for retailers, as well as include biodiesel in the 25 percent of petroleum displacement the state would require by 2020. The amended bill now moves back to the state House, which passed an earlier version by a vote of 92-7. 
Ethanol plants are popping up like prarie dogs in Nebraska. 
The plenary breakfast speaker today, R. James Woolsey, Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton, Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, just finished speaking. He really focused on how biotechnology can play a role in our national security. Besides what most people probably think of first in terms of cures or innoculants for bio-terror induced disease he spent a while talking about energy and independence from terrorist controlled foreign oil.