Domestic Fuel

I had been meaning to do a post on this billboard, which I see every day crossing over the Missouri River bridge into Jefferson City, just because I thought it was great advertising. Now, the darn thing is causing controversy because it “implies hate and discrimination for no reason” according to the president of the St. Louis chapter for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Give me a break! Here’s a link to the AP article that appeared on the front page of the local paper yesterday. The farmer on the billboard is Missouri Corn Growers Association president Terry Hilgedick, the sheik is a former king of Saudi Arabia. The MCGA paid for this billboard and others around the state, some with different messages, to increase awareness of the ethanol bill in the state legislature that would require a 10 percent ethanol blend in Missouri gas whenever ethanol costs the same or less than gasoline. It passed the state senate yesterday and would make Missouri the fifth state to require ten percent ethanol blends. The others are Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana and Washington.

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) is pushing a BOLD new energy initiative – BOLD, as in Breaking Our Long-term Dependence. Sen. Conrad introduced the legislation just before the spring recess and he talked about the details during this morning’s Senate Agricutlure Committee hearing on the future of biofuels. The BOLD act calls for “extending biodiesel and ethanol tax credits through 2013. It calls for increasing ethanol use from 4.7 billon gallons in 2007 to 30 billion gallons in 2025. It calls for all vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2017 to include alternative fuel technology such as hybrid electric or flex fuel systems.” Click here for the Senator’s full 5:00 remarks on the BOLD act.

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It would be cheap in our nation’s capitol. I just spent the past two hours and 15 minutes listening to the Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on Biofuels. The first hour was taken up with comments from 13 of the senators in attendance – thanking everyone for holding the meeting, saying how much they looked forward to hearing testimony from the witnesses, and commenting on what was being done to help the biofuels industry in their states. That being done, the actual testimony from the four witnesses took about 20 minutes. The rest of the time, just short of an hour, was questions and answers – mostly questions. It is amazing how long a senator can take to ask a question!
At any rate, the panelists were Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dinneen, National Biodiesel Board CEO Joe Jobe, CHS Inc. Executive Vice President Jay Debertin and Iowa State University professor Robert C. Brown, Ph.D – and they had some good comments and answers to senators’ questions and concerns. We’ll get some of that up in audio form post haste. Stay tuned.

President Bush announced steps he is taking to address high gas prices during a speech today to the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington. Bush announced the government would “stop making purchases or deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve” for the summer, that EPA would be allowed to waive local fuel requirements regarding the switch from MTBE to ethanol, and called for the formation of a task force on so-called “boutique fuels.” Bush also heavily promoted domestic fuels, both ethanol which he says has “the largest potential for immediate growth,” and biodiesel, which is why he “signed into law the first ever federal tax credit for biodiesel producers.” Bush said, “We owe it to the American people to be aggressive in the use of technology so we can diversify away from the hydrocarbon society.” The National Biodiesel Board was pleased with the president’s comments about biodiesel, which were greeted with applause.

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, better known as FAO, is seeing a major international trend toward bioenergy. According to a news release from the FAO Rome newsroom,

“The gradual move away from oil has begun. Over the next 15 to 20 years we may see biofuels providing a full 25 percent of the world’s energy needs,” Alexander Müller, the new Assistant Director-General for the Sustainable Development Department of FAO said here. Factors pushing for such a momentous change in the world energy market include environmental constraints – increased global warming and the Kyoto Protocol’s curbs on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses – and a growing perception by governments of the risks of dependence on oil.

Over one quarter of Pacific Ethanol is now owned by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates. According to Reuters, Gates acquired 5.25 million shares convertible preferred stock on April 13 for $16 per share. Pacific Ethanol is building an ethanol production facility in California and said in late March it hoped the deal with Cascade Investment, Gates’s investment vehicle, would close by mid-April. Darn close.

The Aurora Cooperative and Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings, Inc., plan to develop a new ethanol plant near Aurora, Neb, according to a press release. This 220 million gallon per year plant, with the first phase being 100 million, will be constructed on a 135-acre site adjacent to the property of the Nebraska Energy, LLC ethanol plant. “In addition to the ethanol project, we are also pleased to announce the first ag-bio multiplex in North America,” said George Hohwieler, President and CEO of the Aurora Cooperative. The 135-acre site named Aurora West will also include a state-of-the-art grain handling facility, a fertilizer complex, and a double loop railroad system to accommodate grain, fertilizer, ethanol, and DDG shipments accessing the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe (BNSF) mainline railroad.

The potential to develop the ethanol-to-hydrogen energy pathway is now being explored through the Upper Midwest Hydrogen Initiative, a public-private partnership run under the auspices of the Great Plains Institute in Minneapolis, according to an article on the Minnesota Corn Growers Association website. UMHI was formed to bring fuel cell technology into use in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Manitoba, Canada — and it is pursuing about $2 million to fund a hydrogen-fuel-cell bus demonstration project in Minnesota.

The latest “Fill Up, Feel Good” podcast from the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council is about EPIC’s sponsorship of the CityHome™ Program (see previous post). The podcast features comments from both EPIC executive director Tom Slunecka and O2Diesel Corporation CEO Alan Rae about this program aimed at helping cities use an ethanol/diesel blend for municipal transportation.
The “Fill up, Feel Good” podcast is available to download by subscription (see our sidebar link) or you can listen to it by clicking here. (4:45 MP3 File)

Reducing the risk of wildfires could help increase production of domestic fuels. Agriculture Under Secretary Thomas Dorr today announced nearly $4.2 million in grants to 18 small enterprises to develop innovative uses for woody biomass in national forests as sources of renewable energy and new products. According to a USDA press release, “This grant program helps to reduce the risk of wildfires by removing built-up fuel hazards and improves forest health,” said Dorr while here to announce several Earth Day initiatives by USDA. “In addition, these projects give an economic boost to our rural communities, increasing the nation’s sources of renewable energy.”