I spoke with Paul Sr. just prior to his entry into the exhibit hall and he says the bike was a tough one to build. He says it’s not a speed demon but it won’t break down, “It’s just made to go.” The bike has affectionately been named Susie, btw.

Listen to my interview with Paul Sr. here: Interview with Paul Sr.

Listen to Paul Sr. describe the biodiesel bike here: Paul Sr. Remarks

Here’s video of Paul, Sr. driving into the exhibit hall.

Remember that you can follow what the Twitterverse is saying about the conference using the hashtag #NBB12.

2012 National Biodiesel Conference Photo Album

Eligible costs must be related to construction or repowering improvements, such as engineering design, equipment installation and professional fees. The application deadline for this program to receive funds for Fiscal Year 2012 is June 1, 2012. For additional details, please see pages 5232 through 5234 of the February 2, 2012, Federal Register.

Second, USDA also announced the availability of up to $25 million to make payments to advanced biofuels producers who expect to produce eligible advanced biofuels at any time during Fiscal Year 2012. To be eligible for these funds, an advanced biofuels producers must have enrolled in the program by October 31, 2011, even if the producer has an existing contract with the Agency.

Payments will be made to producers of advanced biofuels derived from renewable biomass, other than corn kernel starch. These include cellulose, sugar and starch, crop residue, vegetative waste material, animal waste, food and yard waste, vegetable oil, animal fat, and biogas.

Contract payments will be made quarterly. For additional details, please see pages 5229 through 5232 of the February 2, 2012, Federal Register.

“President Obama has laid out a new era for American energy—an economy fueled by homegrown and alternative energy sources that will be designed and produced by American workers,” said Vilsack. “These programs support that vision by helping biorefineries use renewable biomass as a replacement fuel source for fossil fuels and supporting advanced biofuel producers as they expand production.”

Joe spent some time talking about the RFS.

The RFS demonstrated last year that effective energy policy can be carried out by actual energy policy. After the first year of implementation it has its wrinkles to iron out and we are going to talk about those in depth. But 2011 demonstrated that the RFS can work at doing what Congress intended, which is to draw renewable fuels into the market. I want to commend the EPA for their work in bringing this program together. They have had a very difficult job to take a brand new complex law and a wide range of stakeholders, and build a workable program.

The RFS has created a clear, predictable, stable and sustainable future for this industry.

Listen to or download Joe’s speech here: Joe Jobe Speech

2012 National Biodiesel Conference Photo Album

The industrial biotech firm has entered into an agreement with India-based Sea6 Energy to jointly develop a process for the production of biofuels from seaweed. The research alliance will use enzymes to convert seaweed-based carbohydrates to sugar, which can then be fermented to produce ethanol for fuel, fine chemicals, proteins for food, and fertilizers for plants.

Novozymes will research, develop, and manufacture enzymes for the conversion process, while Sea6 Energy contributes its offshore seaweed cultivation technology. “Seaweed is a natural complement to our efforts to convert other types of biomass to fuel ethanol,” says Per Falholt, Executive Vice President and CSO of Novozymes. “More than half of the dry mass in seaweed is sugar, and the potential is therefore significant.”

Sea6 Energy is currently trialing its cultivation technology in partnership with a few fishing communities around the coastal areas of South India. Novozymes’ Indian arm will work closely with Sea6 Energy to develop the conversion technology.

Many international organizations have back tracked on their criticism of biofuels based on research which has found biofuels to have played a very minor role in the escalation of food prices globally. In fact, David Hallam, the FAO’s own Deputy Director has said that “unexpected oil price spikes could further exacerbate an already precarious situation in food markets.”

“Mr. Da Silva would do well to listen to the International Energy Agency’s dire warnings about our energy security future when commenting on biofuels,” said Baker. “The IEA concluded that biofuels could provide 27 percent of total transport fuel by 2050 and avoid around 2.1 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions per year when produced sustainably without jeopardizing food security,” said Baker.

The GRFA has repeatedly called for an increase in the use of biofuels to help reduce the world’s crippling reliance on crude oil.

“I would urge the new FAO Director General to focus on the real cause of high food prices – the rising cost of energy,” added Baker.

The research article details breakthrough technology developed by scientists with Bio Architecture Lab (BAL) using a microbe to extract the sugars in macroalgae that could further the use of seaweed as a feedstock for advanced biofuels and renewable chemical production.

“About 60 percent of the dry biomass of seaweed are sugars, and more than half of those are locked in a single sugar – alginate,” said Daniel Trunfio, Chief Executive Officer at Bio Architecture Lab. “Our scientists have developed a pathway to metabolize the alginate, allowing us to unlock all the sugars in seaweed, which therefore makes macroalgae an economical alternative feedstock for the production of renewable fuels and chemicals.”

BAL was a beneficiary of the highly selective U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) awarded to DuPont, for the development of a process to convert sugars from seaweed into isobutanol.

The new website was welcomed by the Ag Energy Coalition (AEC). “USDA’s Energy portal demonstrates the positive impact the Farm Bill energy title and related programs are having on job creation, national security, and the environment,” said Coalition co-director Lloyd Ritter. “The Ag Energy Coalition believes Rural America will be a continuing force for change in the advancement of sustainable energy and renewable chemicals production in the years ahead. With the right policies in place, and requisite funding, the promise of a rural renaissance focused on clean energy solutions will become a reality.”

The Ag Energy Coalition includes a membership of organizations and companies representing a variety of clean, renewable energy and bioproducts stakeholders.

Participants in the discussion with Vilsack will include John Tracy with The Boeing Company and Billy Glover of Boeing Commercial Airplanes; Alex Marren with United Continental Holdings and Jim Rekoske, Vice President and General Manager of Renewable Energy & Chemicals for Honeywell.

In January, 2010, Vilsack and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to encourage development of advanced biofuels to be used in the Great Green Fleet that will demo in 2012. USDA has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to help the commercial airline industry utilize biofuels as jet fuel. USDA has also invested significantly in research projects to advance the aviation biofuels industry.

The roundtable discussion is being held this afternoon at 12:45 central at Boeing Corporate Offices in Chicago.

“Leadership from the top makes a difference and Governor Branstad has made a big difference for Iowa’s ethanol and biodiesel producers,” said Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) Executive Director Monte Shaw. “Under his leadership, Iowa has taken a lead in proactive public policy for E15 and biodiesel. The renewable fuels community looks forward to hearing from the Governor regarding the implementation of these policies.”

Branstad will address the Summit at 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 24. Other feature presentations will include four-star General Paul Kern (U.S. Army, ret.) who will discuss foreign oil’s impact on U.S. military operations. Former Reagan National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane will address breaking America’s addiction to foreign oil. Executive Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Dr. Gal Luft, will spell out the real national security threats posed by our country’s dangerous dependence on foreign petroleum.

The Summit and trade show are free and open to the public but pre-registration is required. The event will be from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial/Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center in Des Moines.

The dedication ceremony involved Mayfield pulling the lever on a front-end loader to dump a pile of pulverized sugarcane stalks, officially delivering the first shipment of feedstock to the facility, which will now be known as the Stan Mayfield Biorefinery Pilot Plant. The plant is located in Perry, Florida and is a cooperative venture between the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and Buckeye Technologies Inc. The facility will be operated as a UF/IFAS satellite laboratory researching the use of inedible plant material to produce fuel ethanol, such as sugarcane waste.

When fully operational, the biorefinery will produce up to 400 gallons of fuel ethanol and 5,000 pounds of organic acids for bioplastics each day. Some of the researchers’ goals include testing a wide variety of feedstocks, such as crop residues and yard waste, and finding ways to save money on production costs.

Stan Mayfield was a member of the state House of Representatives from 2000 until his death in 2008 and was instrumental in securing a $20 million appropriation from the Florida Legislature to fund the biorefinery. A UF graduate, Mayfield was a strong advocate of renewable fuels, environmental protection and economic growth.

Pacific Biodiesel “is the oldest biodiesel producer and refinery in the country, started in 1996,” said Vilsack during his remarks on Tuesday at the memorial, noting that USDA has provided assistance to help that company grow. “We provided recently a $5 million business and industry loan to Pacific Biodiesel to allow it to continue to expand its capacity.”

That loan, announced in February 2010, is being used to construct a $10 million, 5.5 million gallon per year biodiesel production plant in Kea’au on the Big Island. Pacific Biodiesel vice president and co-founder Kelly King says Big Island Biodiesel will be the companies 13th biodiesel plant. “We’ll be owning and operating five of them, the other ones we built for clients throughout the mainland, from the east coast to the west coast,” she says, with capacity ranging from a half million to six million gallons.

“We started in Maui, where we actually had the first available biodiesel pump for the public,” said King. “Back then, most of our customers were environmental hippies who would come and pay 70 cents a gallon more for fuel and thank us and tell us to keep the change!”

King says Pacific Biodiesel operates on a community-based sustainable model set up locally to benefit local communities. While all the plants can use any type of oil feedstocks, much of them operate on used cooking oil. “It can use the most degraded oils up to the purest oils,” she said. “The degraded oils make the best feedstock because it’s the cheapest!”

King and two of her Pacific Biodiesel team members were excited to be part of the secretary’s appearance at Pearl Harbor and to have him recognize the importance of renewable fuels in the Aloha State.

Listen to an interview with Kelly King here: Pacific Biodiesel VP Kelly King

Photos from Secretary’s visit to Pearl Harbor memorial to promote biofuels

ARS agricultural engineer Keri Cantrell, agronomist Philip Bauer, and environmental engineer Kyoung Ro all work at the ARS Coastal Plains Soil, Water, and Plant Research Center in Florence. They compared the energy content of sunn hemp with cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), another common regional summer cover crop, in 2004 and 2006.

Both crops were grown in experimental plots near Florence and were harvested on the same day three times in each study year. The last harvest for both years was conducted right after the first killing freeze of the season. The scientists measured potential energy production of both feedstocks via direct combustion. This provided the feedstocks’ higher heating value (HHV), which indicates how much energy is released via combustion.

In 2004, when there was ample rainfall, the resulting sunn hemp biomass yield totaled more than 4.5 tons per acre. This is equivalent to 82.4 gigajoules of energy per acre, close to the energy contained in 620 gallons of gasoline and well in the ballpark of other bioenergy crops, which have yields of anywhere from 30 to 150 gigajoules per acre.

The HHV for sunn hemp biomass exceeded the HHV for switchgrass, bermudagrass, reed canarygrass and alfalfa. Although reduced rainfall resulted in lower hemp biomass yields in 2006, sunn hemp’s HHV for both study years was 4 to 5 percent greater than the HHV of cowpeas.

Read more about this research in the January 2012 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

Today, the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) released the following statement in support of the ruling.

“Biodiesel’s evolving feedstock diversity is one of its greatest strengths, and we’re pleased to see the EPA recognizing camelina as yet another feedstock that meets the agency’s standards as an Advanced Biofuel,” said Anne Steckel, vice president of federal affairs at NBB. “As it has with other biodiesel feedstocks such as animal fats, recycled cooking oil, soybean oil and canola oil, the EPA’s proposal shows that biodiesel produced from camelina oil reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent compared with diesel fuel. This is good news for our industry and will give biodiesel plants another tool in the toolbox as they continue producing record quantities of America’s Advanced Biofuel.”

BASF, through subsidiary BASF Biorenewable Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG led a $50 million financing round in the technology firm Renmatix Inc.

Renmatix has developed the patented Plantrose™ platform whereby industrial sugar can be produced from lignocellulosic biomass (wood, cane trash or straw). In the Plantrose technology, biomass is split into cellulose and sugar in supercritical water at high temperature and pressure in a two-step process.

Industrial sugars are important renewable resources for the chemical industry and can be used, for example, to produce biofuels or basic chemical products and intermediates by fermentative processes. The availability of industrial sugars in sufficient quantities and at favorable cost is therefore important for the competitiveness of the products.

Another new breakthrough in the study is the successful combination of modern pulp and biotechnology. Finland’s advanced forest industry provides particularly good opportunities to develop this type of bioprocesses.

Wood biomass is made up of three primary substances: cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Of these three, cellulose and hemicellulose can be used as a source of nutrition for microbes in bioprocesses. Along with cellulose, the Kraft process that is currently used in pulping produces black liquor which already can be used as a source of energy. It is not, however, suitable for microbes. In the study, the pulping process was altered so that, in addition to cellulose, the other sugars remain unharmed and therefore can be used as raw material for microbes.

When wood biomass is boiled in a mixture of water, alcohol and sulphur dioxide, all parts of the wood – cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin – are separated into clean fractions. The cellulose can be used to make paper, nanocellulose or other products, while the hemicellulose is efficient microbe raw material for chemical production. The advantage of this new process is that no parts of the wood sugar are wasted.

In accordance with EU requirements, all fuel must contain 10 percent biofuel by 2020. A clear benefit of butanol is that a significantly large percentage – more than 20 percent of butanol – can be added to fuel without having to make any changes to existing combustion engines. The nitrogen and carbon emissions from a fuel mix including more than 20 percent butanol are significantly lower than with fossil fuels. For example, the incomplete combustion of ethanol in an engine produces volatile compounds that increase odor nuisances in the environment. Estimates indicate that combining a butanol and pulp plant into a modern biorefinery would provide significant synergy benefits in terms of energy use and biofuel production.

American Alternative Fuel privately funded these EPA certifications to ensure fleet owners and managers nationwide can choose from a wide variety of vehicle makes and models when converting to clean-burning autogas. With more than 200 eligible vehicles, this is the largest privately financed portfolio of autogas vehicle certifications in the United States. New certifications include the latest model years for the popular Ford Crown Victoria and E-series vans and additional certifications for several medium duty GM platforms.

Fleets running on autogas see savings on both fuel and maintenance costs. Autogas is an average of $1.25 per gallon less than gasoline and many Alliance AutoGas fleets report reduced maintenance needs and increased vehicle engine life after shifting to autogas. In addition to the cost-savings benefits of autogas, it is also a clean-burning fuel that is 90 percent domestically produced.

Alliance AutoGas provides both bi-fuel and propane-dedicated conversions using Prins vapor and liquid injection technology. The bi-fuel Prins VSI system gives drivers peace of mind because vehicles automatically switch back to gasoline if the autogas tank runs low when a fueling station cannot be reached.

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack jointly announced that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) signed a contract to purchase 450,000 gallons of advanced drop-in biofuel.

The biofuel to be purchased is made from a blend of non-food waste (used cooking oil) from the Louisiana-based Dynamic Fuels, LLC, a joint-venture of Tyson Foods, Inc., and Syntroleum Corporation, and algae, produced by Solazyme. The fuel will be used in the U.S. Navy’s demonstration of a Green Strike Group in the summer of 2012 during the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), the world’s largest international maritime exercise.

“The Navy has always led the nation in transforming the way we use energy, not because it is popular, but because it makes us better war fighters,” stated Secretary Mabus. “This unprecedented fuel purchase demonstrates the Obama Administration’s commitment to seeking energy security and energy independence by diversifying our energy supply.”

The biofuel will be mixed with aviation gas or marine diesel fuel for use in the Green Strike Group demonstration.

Read more from USDA and listen to press conference of the announcement.

According to a release from USDA, “Camelina is an oilseed crop with the potential to create new renewable energy markets in the United States, generate rural jobs here at home, and decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil. The new pilot program will be available in selected counties in Montana and North Dakota for the 2012 crop year, with a sales closing date of February 1, 2012.”

Camelina, an oilseed, is a rotation crop for wheat that can be established on marginally productive land. It is an annual, short season plant. Biofuel from camelina is an ideal jet fuel substitute. USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have long-term studies underway to examine ways to use camelina as a bioenergy crop for producing jet fuel for the military and the aviation industry. In addition, earlier this year USDA announced two Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) project areas devoted to developing camelina as biofuel in several states, including Montana. USDA is also part of several partnerships to develop oilseeds and native and perennial grasses as a biofuels.

Find out details of the program from USDA.

Algae Appliance is set for release in the first half of 2012 and is a continuous flow ‘wet harvest’ system that has the potential to remove up to 90 percent of water volume. Field testing will begin shortly and the companies are looking for additional project partners.

MBD Energy’s Technical Director Larry Sirmans, and an OriginOil Australian partner, said of the technology, “This Algae Appliance should be very beneficial to producers and researchers who are developing the most efficient processes for growing algae at commercial scale.”

Bill Charneski, OriginOil senior director of product engineering added, “We are continuing to scale up our technology at MBD’s pilot site in Australia. Now, everything we have learned is going into a standardized entry-level system to help the worldwide algae industry meet the high demand for sustainable, low-cost algae production.”

The company anticipates that this technology, and ultimately algae production, will help to meet the renewable aviation fuels demand of the commercial airline industry and of the various branches of the U.S. military.

“Organizations like LEGOLAND and the Padres have a huge amount of oil and there is just no way they can use it all themselves (in the form of biofuel),” said Buster Halterman, CEO of Buster Biofuels. “The concept is to take that oil and recycle it into biodiesel then to reduce carbon emissions locally by putting the fuel into the buses of the San Dieguito Union High School District.”

The school district is using a B20 blend in two of their buses and is in the process of converting its entire fleet to the biodiesel blend.

“We want to be at the forefront of green technology,” said Daniel Love, the director of transportation for SDUHSD. “It’s really exciting to work with Buster Biofuels and to know that we are some of the first ones making this change.”

Jason Biddle, Chief Sales Officer for Buster Biofuels added, “It’s about asthma, it’s about emphysema and it’s about helping out the kids! It’s about local companies helping local school buses via Buster Biofuels.”

Produced with the support of the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), “Fuel Better in Sixty Seconds” is a short but sweet summary of why alternative energy is important for the nation and how it is making a difference. “With the election season ramping up and daily conversations occurring in the media around budget cuts and tax policy, it is important that the public be educated on a few facts about alternative fuels,” said Pearson Fuels co-founder Mike Lewis. “The bottom line is that alternative fuels, and biofuels in particular, displace a massive amount of foreign oil every day in this country. Once Americans understand the benefits of alternative fuel, they can demand the same from their government leaders.”

“Many Americans don’t realize the contributions that alternative fuels like ethanol make to the economy and our environment,” said RFA director of market development Robert White. “Pearson did a great job in getting the message across in an educational and entertaining way.”

California-based Pearson Fuels has been a leader in providing alternative fuels to both the public and government entities, opening the nation’s first Alternative Fuel Station in 2003. Located in the center of San Diego and specializing in bringing alternative fuels to the public, Pearson was the first facility of its kind and pioneered the first public E85 station on the West Coast.

Watch the video here.

“We believe Birmingham is a significant growth market, and development of this unit train terminal is a part of our ongoing effort to expand and diversify our business platform along the value chain,” said Todd Becker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Green Plains. “With superior services provided by BNSF Railway and BlendStar, operation of this new terminal will provide better transportation economics to shippers, as it will be the eastern most point for direct ship on the railroad to receive ethanol from the Midwest. This will result in improved ethanol distribution through one of the most modern and efficient ethanol terminals in the U.S. when it is completed.”

The new terminal will offer a fully-automated rail unloading system with the capacity to distribute nearly 385,000 barrels of ethanol per month with loading service offered 24-hours per day. BlendStar is currently in multi-year negotiations with customers. Once complete, the terminal will be retrofitted to handle other biofuels and liquid products.

Kevin Kaufman, BNSF’s Group Vice President Agricultural Marketing added, “We are very excited about this terminal being built on the BNSF Railway. This shows our commitment to shippers to deliver the most efficient solutions for their logistical needs. BlendStar is the perfect partner to bring this strategic project on-line and operational next year.”

The loan is going to Sapphire Energy, which intends to design, build and operate a $135 million integrated algal biorefinery (IABR) in Columbus, N.M., for the production of advanced biofuel that is a “drop-in” replacement for petroleum derived diesel and jet fuel. The IABR will be capable of producing 100 barrels of refined algal oil per day, equivalent to at least one million gallons per year. The oil will be shipped to the United States Gulf Coast to be refined by Sapphire’s refinery partner, Dynamic Fuels, located in Geismar, La.

The funding is provided through USDA’s Biorefinery Assistance Program. On December 3, 2009, USDA issued a conditional commitment for an 80 percent guarantee on a $54.5 million loan. The loan closing and issuance of the Loan Note Guarantee for this project took place on October 21, 2011.

The 2011 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO), released by IEA last week in London, said there is still time to act, but the window of opportunity is closing. “Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades. But we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies.”

According the report, oil demand will rise 14% between 2010 and 2035, from 87 million barrels per day in 2010 to 99 million in 2035. All net increases in oil demand will come entirely from the transportation sector in emerging economies as economic growth pushes up demand for personal mobility and freight goods.

“This is a deeply disturbing picture that the IEA has painted for the world,” said Bliss Baker, spokesperson for the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance. “Such increases are unsustainable making it imperative that all countries quickly bring real crude oil alternatives to market.”

Baker says that according to the report, an amount equivalent to twice the current total oil production of all OPEC countries in the Middle East must be discovered and brought to market by 2035.
“This is a wakeup call to the world that we need to further promote biofuels to meet this ever growing energy demand,” he said.

The IEA also highlighted the potential for supply disruptions in the Middle East and North African countries as a potential threat to world oil supplies saying that “If, between 2011 and 2015, investment in the MENA region runs one-third lower than the $100 billion per year required…consumers could face a substantial near-term rise in the oil price to $150/barrel.”

Starting this week, Alaska Airlines began 75 commercial passenger flights in the United States powered by biofuel made from used cooking oil.

Two maiden biofuel-powered flights left Seattle November 9 bound for Washington, D.C., and Portland, Ore. Alaska Airlines and its sister carrier, Horizon Air, will continue to operate select flights between Seattle and the two cities over the next few weeks using a 20 percent blend of sustainable biofuel.

“This is a historic week for U.S. aviation. The 75 flights that Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air will fly over the next few weeks reflect our longstanding commitment to environmental responsibility and our belief that sustainable biofuels are key to aviation’s future,” Alaska Air Group Chairman and CEO Bill Ayer said. “Commercial airplanes are equipped and ready for biofuels. They will enable us to fly cleaner, foster job growth in a new industry, and can insulate airlines from the volatile price swings of conventional fuel to help make air travel more economical. What we need is an adequate, affordable and sustainable supply. To the biofuels industry, we say: If you build it, we will buy it.”

Alaska Air Group estimates the 20 percent certified biofuel blend it is using for the 75 flights will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 10 percent, or 134 metric tons, the equivalent of taking 26 cars off the road for a year. If the company powered all of its flights with a 20 percent biofuel blend for one year, the annual emissions savings would represent the equivalent of taking nearly 64,000 cars off the road or providing electricity to 28,000 homes.

“This is the second time this year that this subcommittee has held a hearing on ethanol without bothering to include a witness from the ethanol industry. A hearing whose witness list is comprised overwhelmingly of anti-ethanol critics can hardly be considered fair and balanced,” said Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis.

Since ethanol advocates were excluded from presenting testimony, the Advanced Ethanol Council (AEC) wrote a letter to subcommittee Chair Andy Harris(R-MD) and Ranking Member Brad Miller (D-NC) to re-emphasize the advanced ethanol industry’s commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and efforts to grow the market for ethanol blended fuels.

AEC Executive Director Brooke Coleman wrote that the industry is concerned that the testifying witnessesmay not be “interested in discussing the true value of the federal RFS.”

“First and foremost, the federal RFS is the single-most effective policy ever enacted to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It is the cornerstone of a bioenergy economy that emerged in rural America in stark contrast to economic trends in which our country lost incredible wealth to China and OPEC,” Coleman said, noting that advanced ethanol industry is currently engaged in developing commercial advanced ethanol biorefineries in several states from California to Kansas to Mississippi.

“Weakening or walking away from the RFS would greatly impede efforts to develop the next generation of biofuel technologies and further embed America’s dependence on foreign oil,” wrote Coleman.

Read the letter here.

“This funding will help local producers increase the production and availability of renewable energy and thus help our nation begin to reduce its reliance on foreign oil,” Vilsack said. “Just as importantly, USDA’s support will help to further develop the nation’s growing biofuels industry and generate green jobs and economic growth.”

The funding is being provided through USDA’s Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels program, the same program that provided $80 million in payments last month. Under this program, payments are made to eligible producers based on the amount of biofuels a recipient produces from renewable biomass, other than corn kernel starch – including cellulose; crop residue; animal, food and yard waste material; biogas (landfill and sewage waste treatment gas); vegetable oil, and animal fat.

Eighteen companies will receive over $1 million, four of them are over $2 million – including Renewable Energy Group of Iowa with $3.7 million; White Energy in Kansas at $3.1 million; Louis Dreyfus in Indiana with $2.4 million and Ag Processing of Nebraska at almost $2.1 million. The majority of the highest payments are for Biodiesel Trans Esterification, with a good percentage for advanced ethanol production, biofuel from waste and anaerobic digesters.

See the full list of recipients here.

A jury in the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin determined that Novozymes patent is valid and ordered Danisco to pay damages of more than $18 million for infringement. The jury also found Danisco’s infringement to be willful but the jury’s decision is still subject to the judge’s affirmation and possible appeals.

Novozymes’ patent covers certain alpha-amylase enzymes for use in the biofuel and starch industries. The infringing products have primarily been used to produce ethanol from corn starch in the United States. Novozymes filed the lawsuit against Danisco in May 2010. Danisco was acquired by DuPont earlier this year.

“Rural America has done a great job of helping to develop the domestically-produced renewable energy and fuel. That job must continue because when we create those opportunities, we create jobs, we reduce our reliance on foreign energy sources, and we enhance our national security,” Vilsack said during a speech at a John Deere facility in Des Moines on Monday. “USDA has to have the tools to be able to continue to help this biobased and biofuel and renewable energy economy, and we need to make sure that it’s vibrant in all regions of the country. Continuing our investment in renewable energy, biofuel, and biobased products will improve the bottom line for farmers as we find creative ways to use that which they grow.”

The secretary noted that expansion in the biofuel industry has already had an impact. “We’ve gone from importing 60 percent of our oil to 52 percent,” he said. “As a result of our biofuel industries, consumers across America are paying about $0.90, on average, less for gas than they would otherwise pay. So it’s a great opportunity for consumer choice, it’s a job creator, and it improves income opportunities for farmers.”

Specifically, Vilsack wants to see at least the BCAP (Biomass Crop Assistance Program) and the REAP (Rural Energy For America Program) programs continued.

The two congressmen, pictured here with former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, outlined their Open Fuel Standard Act (HR 1687) which would set a deadline of 2017 for automakers to stop making cars that run on only gasoline. After than point, all American made cars must be either flex fuel (capable of burning gasoline, ethanol or methanol or any combination of these), or powered by natural gas, hydrogen, biodiesel, plug-in electric, or fuel cell.

“By employing the Open Fuel Standard, we can create competition for petroleum on the open market with other types of fuel. We don’t have to wait for the perfect technology,” said Rep. Engel (center).

“Consumers should have a choice when they pull up to a refueling station,” Rep. Shimkus (right) added. “At a minimal cost, vehicles could be able to accept multiple fuels with consumers choosing based on price or even feedstock for the fuel.”At a minimal cost, vehicles could be able to accept multiple fuels with consumers choosing based on price or even feedstock for the fuel.”

Also at the event were NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace and representatives from the Renewable Fuels Association, the Methanol Institute and ACT! For America.