Domestic Fuel

I’m not a big fan of Al Franken, but he says he’s a big fan of ethanol and biodiesel. At least according to an interview out this week with the liberal comedian and talk show host who just recently moved his show from New York to Minneapolis. Minnesota is Franken’s home state and the Associated Press reporter who interviewed him asked him about running for office in 2008, presumably against Republican Senator Norm Coleman, and Franken said he had not yet decided. Then the reporter asked if he did run if there were any key issues he would want to address:
A. I’m big on alternative fuel … biomass and biodiesel, ethanol and wind. I think we need to be developing more wind power, and we can do that in this region. …
Still, I wouldn’t vote for him … but that’s just me.

Here are links to a couple of good ethanol stories I found today during my usual Google news search.
First, here’s a Ganntt News Service story on how Brazil is far ahead of the United States when it comes to ethanol. Thought it was interesting that both Brazil and the US produce the same amount of ethanol – four billion gallons – but Brazil uses ethanol for 40 percent of its driving fuel, compared to only five percent in the US. Most of Brazil’s ethanol is made from sugarcane.
Closely related to that story is a Reuters News Service report that low ethanol fuel prices in Brazil are driving sales of flex-fuel vehicles. According to the report, The cost of ethanol fuel, which is distilled from sugar cane, is about 60 percent the cost of gasoline at the pump in Brazil. Although the flex-fuel motors can run on any combination of the two fuels, cost-conscious Brazilian motorists tend to fill their tanks with 100 percent ethanol.
And back here at home an Associated Press story out of Wisconsin reports that the rapid increase in ethanol plants being built in this country is creating a boom for companies that manufacture the equipment needed for refineries. With more than 30 plants under construction and at least ten more being expanded, the ethanol plant building business is at an all-time high, which is good news for the companies that make ethanol tanks and such.

It’s the end of the year and although I don’t have a “year in review” to offer I do have some statistics, reflections and ideas to share. Statistics as in traffic to the ZimmComm blogs. I’ll update this post if there’s a big change in the numbers by midnight (that is if I remember). ZimmComm is the publisher of DomesticFuel and also publishes other blog sites.

NUMBERS

AgWired got it’s “official” start on March 15. In 9 1/2 months we’ve had 16,000 unique visitors who have visited a total of 51,000 times. I like the fact that we’ve had 1,000,000 hits. That’s a million folks! Page views is right at 750,000. I’m happy with this. Talk about WOMA. We’ve only promoted this site to about 1,300 people. Somebody is telling somebody else about it. A very tiny percentage of our visitors come from a search engine. Most type it directly into their browser or are using a bookmark.

This fall we started 2 more farm news blogs. World Dairy Diary was kicked off in August in advance of World Diary Expo. To date it’s had 7,000 unique visitors that have visited a total of 15,000 times. Our latest blog is DomesticFuel. We haven’t really promoted it yet but it’s already had 1,500 unique visitors who have visited 7,000 times. We’ll see a lot of growth in 2006 on these sites as we begin to develop and promote them more with the addition of new sponsors!

REFLECTIONS

ZimmComm was started with the idea that it would be a “traditional” advertising agency. That was in March of 2004. Very quickly it was obvious that our talents could be put to use by our prospective clients in some non-traditional ways. For example, as former farm broadcasters, Cindy and I created Talking News Releases, a service that targets broadcast reporters and includes pre-recorded audio. We developed a list of farm and non-farm reporters to push these releases out to. This led to conducting audio production work for clients which is used on-air and online. The evolution of this service is now AgNewsWire. Besides distributing news releases to reporters we’re now posting them directly in front of farmers via website content managed by Quickfarm. This is “unfiltered” content that the farmer gets to read, interpret or just ignore. His/her choice.

I quickly realized that I don’t speak html and do not like designing and managing traditional web pages. At Steve’s suggestion I started a blog site. Once I realized what you can do with a blog I started preaching the power of the blogosphere and we now create blogs for clients and manage several of our own. I look at these blogs as online publications that contain media rich content (audio, video, pictures and perspective). This led to podcasting and the ZimmCast was born. We now produce client podcasts and expect to see this portion of our business explode in 2006. As I like to say, “create your own media.” Let your customers and members get what they want when they want it and wherever they want.

So I guess you have to say that we’re a “new media” company. We want to help our clients deliver their message directly to the people they want to reach in as efficient and cost-effective a way as possible. As my friends at Learfield are realizing, it’s time to get on the Long Tail.

IDEAS

Blogging: Think about it. How are you personally communicating with your members or customers now? Are you? Do you email some and snail mail others? Why not let them see inside your company or organization? Maybe it’s your CEO or maybe its a technician. Somebody on the staff probably has a blogger inside. Just don’t think that you can have the PR department ghost write for someone else. It will probably backfire. People want honesty and transparency. That’s what makes you credible. This new look inside will really set you apart from your competition. If you’re not sure who on staff can do this you might want to find out who already has a personal blog. You might be surprised.

Podcasting: The video iPod is here and the walls of traditional media are tumbling down. Even if you don’t think you’re a broadcaster you can hire a company like ZimmComm to create your own radio or tv show. You control the content. Your customers can subscribe to it (opt-in) and watch or listen to it whenever and wherever they want. That can be on their computer or on their portable digital media player. I can even do it on my mobile phone!

RSS: I’m not going to try to explain this. For a reasonable fee though . . . Actually I just want you to think of “feeds.” It’s the future, my friends. New browser software will have this built in. You can create custom search engine pages now that handle this for you. By this, I mean subscribing to feeds of information. This can be information that you produce like a newsletter. It can be audio or video which makes it podcasting. It can be any kind of content that you want to syndicate to your customers. They’re looking for it. Why not make it easy for them to get it. The best part is that it’s not email. You’ll probably see it showing up on websites using this icon:

That’s it. I’m done for 2005. I hope ZimmComm has helped you in your business in one way or another. We’re very excited about 2006. The new media business is just starting to heat up in agriculture. We’re proud to be a part of it and will see you onsite or online in the new year.

Two of the top ten news stories of 2005, according to the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB), were related to energy and domestic fuel. Farm broadcasters voted high energy costs as the top news story of the year, and passage of the Energy Bill number four.
4. Congress passes comprehensive energy bill with Renewable Fuels Standard . After years of unsuccessful efforts, Congress finally passed an energy bill in July that included a 7.5-billion gallon Renewable Fuels Standard, or RFS, to be implemented in stages between 2006 and 2012. The inclusion of the RFS was a major victory for the U.S. ethanol industry. But, ironically, high energy costs have driven ethanol demand more than prospects of a government mandate.
Here’s the full list:

NAFB’s Top-10 Stories of the Year for 2005:

1. Energy costs spike and squeeze producer profitability.
2. Hurricane Katrina devastates Southern agriculture and snarls the U.S grain transportation system.
3. U.S. Supreme Court finds checkoffs constitutional.
4. Congress passes comprehensive energy bill with Renewable Fuels Standard.
5. Japan re-opens market to U.S beef.
6. Asian Soybean Rust has no impact on U.S. soybean production in 2005.
7. U.S. Senate Confirms Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
8. U.S. re-opens border to Canadian live cattle.
9. U.S Ag Secretary Mike Johanns holds dozens of farm bill listening sessions in partnership with NAFB.
10. U.S. corn crop is second largest ever as Midwest drought is less severe than thought.

ZimmComm, Marketing & Communications is the publisher of DomesticFuel. Our staff wishes you and yours a very merry Christmas.

From l-r are Amy, Cindy, Chuck and CJ the office dog. We promise to bring you a lot of interesting news and information in the coming year. It’s time now to take the weekend off and celebrate why we are so blessed.

The Renewable Fuels Association is one of the main groups advocating the use of ethanol and other fuels. They just announced a new communications director on their staff. He would be a great source of information about the industry.

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is pleased to announce that Matt Hartwig has been hired as Communications Director. Matt will be taking over for Monte Shaw, who has served the RFA in that role for the past five and a half years.

RFA President Bob Dinneen stated: “The U.S. ethanol industry is growing at an unprecedented rate and the issues the industry faces every day demand a broad understanding of a number of complex topics. But with his agriculture and consumer advocacy background, Matt will be able to hit the ground running. As an Iowan, Matt understands first hand the impact ethanol can have on rural economies, and his experience with consumers will be helpful in educating the public about the benefits of ethanol as gasoline prices reach record levels across the country. We are delighted to have Matt on the RFA team.”

Well we’ve got day one under our belt here at DomesticFuel. As we stated from the start we hope to be a resource for news and information about renewable fuels like ethanol, which we believe will help us become less dependent on foreign sources of fuel. In the coming weeks and months we’ll continue to develop the site to include links to resources providing factual information for anyone who wants to know the truth. Although we’re going to be dependent on financial support from industry-related organizations we want to offer an independent look at the issues and news coming out on the business. Can we do that? Sure we can. Just watch us.

Our title was chosen because renewable fuels being developed here are often referred to as “domestic fuels.” Do a Google search for those words using the quote marks and you’ll see the large number of results. We want to distinguish our subject matter and perspective. It’s just downright American to want to support our own industries and the people who make them work.

We’re looking for feedback so don’t be shy. We can take it if you don’t like something we say. You can count on our quoting our sources and in fact often directing you to them so you can surf on over and “see for yourself.”

It’s going to be an interesting journey!

It isn’t just the United States that’s in on the ethanol growth wave. According to a story in the Mumbai, India, Financial Express, “India’s demand of alcohol for blending and other purposes is expected to reach 2,300 million litres by 2009-10 at 5% blending level.” That’s about 608 million gallons if I did my math right. (1 litres = 0.264172051 US gallons)

The story also says that they make ethanol from molasses and that there won’t be enough sugarcane and molasses production there to meet this expected need.

How’d you like to show your support for ethanol? You can with a free Ethanol magnet from the Ethanol Promotion & Information Council. All you have to do is visit the website here: Free Ethanol Magnet

Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we were all running on E?

When you fill up your car with ethanol-blended gasoline you’re making a real difference. You’re not only using a fuel that provides superior performance, but you’re protecting our environment and supporting our economy. That’s got to be a feel-good moment!

The place to get your facts straight when it comes to ethanol is at Ethanol Facts! This website has been created by the National Corn Growers Association to provide reliable information about this renewable energy source.

On Ethanol Facts you’ll not only find information about the different blends of ethanol in gasoline for your car but also about E-diesel. Bet you didn’t even know about that!

A study was just released recently showing how valuable ethanol is as a fuel source.

Jim Jordan & Associates (JJ&A), recently completed a new Ethanol study, assessing Fuel Ethanol’s increasingly important component of the World’s transportation fuel supply.

This Study has been designed to provide background information and useful market observations to participants in the Industry, in Gasoline production and distribution and to Government personnel involved in guiding the use of ethanol. In this Study, we have assembled a highly detailed picture of the ethanol industry, by plant and by location. We have related this to an
equally detailed description of the gasoline supply chains. This is presented in detail with descriptive material to give the reader a clear understanding of the problems and opportunities facing the industry.

For more information about the World Ethanol Analysis contact: Mr. Ed Swinderman at JJ&A, 12941 North Freeway suite 226, Houston, Texas, 77060 U.S.A. Tel: 281-877-7009.

The Ethanol Promotion & Research Council has a news website.

“Drivingethanol.org speaks to consumers in a fun, friendly voice while giving them the story of ethanol. It’s good for your car, better for the environment and made in America, too,” said Tom Slunecka, executive director for Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC). EPIC launched a consumer Web site, http://www.drivingethanol.org , where consumers can go to learn more about the renewable and environmental friendly fuel ethanol. “Consumers will be able to visit the site to find the important information that they need about ethanol, including how increasing our use of ethanol will help us create more energy independence, and how ethanol effects your car,” says Slunecka.

– Ask The Expert — a special section where consumers can ask industry
experts questions about ethanol.
– Take Action — here consumers can order a free ethanol car magnet,
e-mail friends about the benefits of ethanol and contact their local
legislators.
– American-Made — facts about ethanol and the American economy.

Texas-based Panda Energy is planning to build a 100-million-gallon fuel ethanol plant in southwest Kansas. What’s even better than the production of domestically-produced fuel is the fact that the plant will use up a problem by-product of cattle feeding in the area!

The plant will use a billion pounds of cattle manure each year as a renewable fuel to power the plant’s operations. The $120 million facility will refine US corn and milo into fuel ethanol that will be blended with gasoline to produce a clean, low cost fuel for America’s cars and trucks. The ethanol produced in this plant will replace the need to import 100 million gallons of gasoline each year.

These projects will use a total of three billion pounds of cattle manure a year as a renewable fuel. The manure is gasified and converted into a clean bio-gas used to power the plant. By utilizing bio-gas produced from manure instead of natural gas, each facility will save the equivalent of 1,000 barrels of oil per day.

The company says the plant will produce enough ethanol to replace 100 millions gallons of gas that would have to be imported each year.

Hello and welcome to DomesticFuel, the consumer’s stop for the latest news on ethanol and other alternative fuel sources. Fuel prices are currently soaring and that’s creating a need to find new sources of energy. It’s important to have the facts and make good decisions in light of all the alternatives available. DomesticFuel will strive to bring you the latest news and information in a friendly and conversational way.

DomesticFuel is owned and operated by ZimmComm, a mid-Missouri agricultural communications company. In addition to DomesticFuel, the company currently publishes AgWired, focused on agricultural marketing and World Dairy Diary, focused on the dairy industry and World Dairy Expo. Besides these information sources, ZimmComm provides blogging and other public relations services to agribusinesses.

Looking forward to keeping you informed!