Domestic Fuel

Case IH is the latest equipment manufacturer to announce support for B20, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel.

The company has announced that customers can use B20 in most Case IH engines and B5 (5 percent biodiesel) in all Case IH engines. In addition, Case IH uses biodiesel blends as the factory fill in most cases.

“One hundred percent factory fill of a biodiesel blend is a logical next step in the process of embracing biodiesel,” said Randy Baker, president of Case IH North America. “Adding to demand for soybeans while producing the crop is the type of strategy our customers like to pursue,” Baker said. “It’s good environmental stewardship and good business.”

Read more from Case IH and from the National Biodiesel Board.

Bigger, stronger soybeans could help meet the demand for cellulosic material to produce ethanol.

USDA Agricultural Research Service chemical engineer Justin Barone and ARS geneticist Thomas Devine believe the giant soybean plants could be “specially bred with strong cellulose, for use in briquettes and wood substitutes, or with weak cellulose better suited for cellulosic ethanol production.”

In the photo, Devine measures one of his large biomass soybean plants which grow up to seven feet in height without lodging due to their stong sapling-like stalks.

Read more from USDA-ARS.

Reuters reports on a first for Brazil’s biofuels industry:

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva showcased Brazil’s prowess in the alternative fuels industry on Tuesday when he inaugurated Barralcool, the first integrated biofuels plant that will produce cane-based ethanol and biodiesel from oilseeds.

Brazil, with its huge agricultural potential, has for decades had the world’s most advanced biofuels market. After the oil crisis in the early 1970s, it launched the ProAlcool ethanol programme to lighten dependence on crude imports.

Read more.

Southridge Ethanol has popped up recently as a company with “a mission to become the ethanol producer of choice in the southeastern region of the United States,” according to the company website.

Just in the past month, the company has announced it’s intent to acquire ethanol plant equipment from South Louisiana Ethanol; that the Quitman County Mississippi Economic Development Committee has agreed to subsidize half of the costs incurred in building a new railroad spur for the plant; that they would be featured in the December issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine; that they met with the Quitman County Economic Development Board; and that they signed an agreement with Agri Systems for consulting and engineering.

Southridge has also gotten some negative attention for a stock push by market traders like Stock Market Alerts, who have sent out paid releases and emails promoting the company’s stock as a hot investment opportunity.

Ethanex Energy Inc. has received regulatory approval under a waiver to begin construction on its ethanol production plant to be located in Cape Girardeau.

According to a company release, Ethanex at SEMO will be a state of the art 132 million gallons per year fuel-grade ethanol plant. The facility will include patented fractionation technology that reduces energy consumption by 25%, increases the value of co-products and increases the throughput capacity by 20%. This next generation technology contributes to a 25% lower production cost per gallon than standard ethanol facilities.

Read the Kansas City Star article here.

Over the past decade, corn yields have been increasing an average of 3.4 bushels per acre per year. That is double the average of the previous decade and all indications are that will continue, which is good news for the corn ethanol industry.

Pioneer Hi-Bred International senior marketing manager Joe Foresman says regarding corn yields, “With the genetic advancements that have been made over the last ten years in the industry, literally the sky is the limit.” The latest forecast for corn yields in 2006 is 151.2 bushels/acre, up 3.3 from last year despite drought in many areas of the country.

Also good for the industry is the development of new hybrid varieties of corn that are highly fermentable – a desirable trait for ethanol production. Pioneer currently has 135 hybrids that are considered highly fermentable, including 17 of the 20 top selling varieties, but Foresman says they are also very aware of the needs on the livestock side of the corn business, since the ethanol production process creates about 17 pounds of distillers grains for every bushel of corn.

“We’re looking that we can help improve the value at the plant and also at the feedlot,” said Foresman.

Pioneer, which is a DuPont company, is also actively involved with DuPont on the development of cellulosic ethanol and biobutanol.

Listen to my interview with Joe Foresman at this year’s National Association of Farm Broadcasting annual meeting: Pioneer (6 min MP3)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.9MB)

Most cars are manufacturer-approved to run on up to ten percent ethanol blended with gasoline. Flex fuel vehicles can run on up to 85 percent. But the Environmental Protection Agency is looking into whether 20 or 30 percent ethanol-blended gasoline meets Clear Air Act standards.

At issue, according to this story in the Aberdeen (SD) News, is that so-called blender pumps “are marked for use by flex fuel vehicles only. However, they operate the same way as regular gasoline pumps, so customers with non-flex fuel vehicles are able to put higher blends of ethanol than are deemed acceptable into their vehicles.”

There are very few stations in the country offering multiple ethanol blends at a pump and the EPA question has already caused them to be shut down in South Dakota until the issue is resolved.

A National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy study suggests that biotechnology plays a vital role in meeting the increased demand for corn production for food, feed and fuel.

According to the study, U.S. farmers gained an additional 8.3 billion pounds of yield last year due to biotech crops, including an extra 7.6 billion pounds of corn production, a 29 percent increase over 2004.

Since the commercialization of plant biotechnology in the late 1990s, corn production has benefited by an extra 39 billion pounds of yield, equivalent to 1.9 billion gallons of ethanol production. These continued yield increases will be a key factor in meeting future demand as corn prices hit 10-year highs and corn used for ethanol production is predicted to jump 34 percent in 2007.

Further, the report indicates biotech crops helped farmers increase their income by $2 billion last year, while reducing the amount of pesticides used 69.7 million pounds on the 123 million acres planted to the biotech-enhanced crops. In addition to herbicide-resistant and insect-resistant corn, the report evaluated the impact of herbicide-resistant soybean, herbicide-resistant and insect-resistant cotton, herbicide-resistant canola and virus-resistant squash and papaya.

Read the executive summary of the study here.

Link to press release.

Broin Companies of South Dakota plans to build a cellulose-to-ethanol production facility in the state of Iowa with a completion date expected in 2009.

The announcement came during a joint press conference Monday at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines with Jeff Broin, CEO of Broin Companies, Iowa Governor Thomas Vilsack, and Iowa Governor-Elect Chet Culver.

Voyager Ethanol, located in Emmetsburg, Iowa, will be converted from a 50 million gallon per year (MGPY) conventional corn dry mill facility into a 125 million gallon per year commercial scale bio-refinery designed to utilize advanced corn fractionation and lignocellulosic conversion technologies to produce ethanol from corn fiber and corn stover. Broin Companies has applied for matching grant funds through the U.S. Department of Energy to assist with the project.

Known as Project LIBERTY, the expansion will utilize an existing infrastructure with projected costs for the project at just over $200 million dollars. Pilot research for this project has been conducted and the expansion is slated to begin in February with a commercial production timeline set approximately 30 months later. Project LIBERTY, which stands for Launch of an Integrated Bio-refinery with Eco-sustainable and Renewable Technologies in Y2009, will create commercialization results that include 11 percent more ethanol from a bushel of corn and 27 percent more ethanol from an acre of corn while using 83 percent less energy needed to operate a corn to ethanol plant.

Read more here.

The alliance known as 25X’25 has just completed a study that outlines the positive impact producing 25 percent of the nation’s energy supply from renewable sources by 2025 could have on rural America.

According to J. Read Smith, co-chair of the 25x’25 Project Steering Committee, “Not only would reaching the goal drastically reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, it would also have an extremely favorable impact on rural America and the nation as a whole. This report says we could see more than $700 billion in economic activity and 5.1 million new jobs.”

The economic analysis was conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee addressing two different scenerios:

The impacts of producing 25 percent of the nation’s electric power and motor vehicle fuels from renewable resources, utilizing findings from a new RAND report, and

A second scenario which outlines how agriculture and forestry resources could produce 25 percent of the nation’s total energy demands.

The press release from 25x’25 includes links to the full report and summary findings.

Here is an interview with J. Read Smith on the study and the goals of 25x’25: 25×25 (6 min MP3)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.9MB)

Marathon Oil Corporation and The Andersons, Inc. are planning to start construction immediately on an ethanol plant in Greenville, Ohio.

According to a joint press release, the Greenville site will be the first to be constructed by The Andersons Marathon Ethanol LLC, a 50/50 joint venture between The Andersons, Inc. and Marathon Petroleum Company LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil Corporation.

The plant will produce 110 million gallons of ethanol and 350,000 tons of distillers dried grain per year and is expected to be in production in the first quarter of 2008.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is snowed under with air permit applications from ethanol plant projects.

According to a story from the Illinois Farm Bureau publication FarmWeek, there were 13 applications in September alone.

On average, an ethanol project receives a permit about six months after submitting an application. Permits for controversial projects or those that go through a public hearing can take nine months.

The National Biodiesel Board this week released a new economic study that shows “how biodiesel plants are a boon to the U.S. economy as they sprout up across the nation.”

According to the study:

America’s biodiesel industry will add $24 billion to the U.S. economy between 2005 and 2015, assuming biodiesel growth reaches 650 million gallons of annual production by 2015.

Additional tax revenues from biodiesel production will more than pay for the federal tax incentives provided to the industry. It will keep $13.6 billion in America that would otherwise be spent on foreign oil. This total impact of biodiesel on the economy includes the temporary impacts of construction, the permanent impacts of annual production and the direct value of biodiesel and co-products (glycerin).

The economic analysis was done by John M. Urbanchuk of LECG and funded by the soybean checkoff through the United Soybean Board.

Read the news release, or view the results of the study.

Nebraska-based Central Bio-Energy has announced plans to build three 100 million-gallon-per-year ethanol plants in Seward, Howard and Chase counties in Nebraska.

According to a press release, the announcement was made in the Nebraska State Capital Rotunda in Lincoln on Thursday. These plants will employ 150 full-time staff, with combined annual payroll in excess of $6 million. This investment will make CBE one of the leading ethanol producers in Nebraska, officials said. Projected annual revenues, when all three plants are operational, will approach $600 million.

The release noted counties, but not specific locations. The Lincoln Journal Star did a story on the announcement Friday with quotes from CBE officials declining to give specifics about the plant locations.

In the article, Matt Stryson, chairman of the Seward County Economic Development Board, “alluded to a virtual whirlwind of ethanol activity in which plant announcements in Nebraska have become almost a weekly occurrence.”

“I think what’s happening is that there is a time frame where there’s kind of a competition going on as far as ethanol plants being built,” he said. “And they’re all kind of under the gun for a time frame, and whoever gets built first is going to have an advantage.”

An informed consumer is the ethanol industry’s most effective tool for increasing awareness of the cleaner, renewable fuel. A national survey by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, or EPIC, found that when respondents are provided with relevant information about ethanol, their interest to purchase increased by nearly 20 percent.

“These findings demonstrate that when consumers are presented with the simple facts about ethanol-enriched fuel, they’re more than willing to make a commitment to the environment and American jobs,” says Reece Nanfito, senior director of marketing for EPIC. “It’s critical that the industry maintain a clear and concise public awareness campaign.”

Another interesting finding of the research was that a majority of Americans reject the food versus fuel debate concerning ethanol. Only 10 percent of respondents agreed with the argument that using corn for ethanol will limit the food supply.

“From our research it appears that consumers are taking a very common sense approach to food versus fuel,” says Tom Slunecka, executive director for EPIC. “When explained how agriculture and the production of corn is advancing in this country, few people feel there is any concern of a loss of the availability of food or fiber to consumers.”

Ethanol’s impact on the economy and the environment struck a chord with respondents. A strong majority — 61 percent — considered it a positive that ethanol benefits the American economy. Fifty-eight percent believe that ethanol-enriched gasoline is better for the environment than standard gasoline. Respondents found “better for the environment” as the most relevant benefit of ethanol.