ethanol

aviation fuel/shutterstock

Leaded gasoline has been banned from use by all land and marine vehicles for over 18 years. Why hasn’t the EPA eliminated leaded aviation gasoline and possibly required replacing it with an alternative fuel such as ethanol?[read more]

food prices

Last week, the World Bank released a new report that further confirms what most of us have known for a long time — that rising crude oil prices are the biggest contributor to rising food prices.[read more]

fuel diversity/shutterstock

Alternative fuels have lost some of their luster in the US, lately. With this in mind, I spoke with former Shell Oil Company President John Hofmeister, who recently joined a group dedicated to expanding fuel diversity.[read more]

ethanol plant/shutterstock

This year is shaping up to be decisive for ‘cellulosic’ ethanol made from corn stalks and other agricultural waste, as oil companies and the ethanol industry clash over government mandates for the automotive fuel.[read more]

renewable fuel standards/shutterstock

The ineffectiveness of biofuels/ethanol mandates in advancing America’s energy security, the market-distorting aspects of top-down mandates and associated costs – all argue for scrapping the RFS.[read more]

biofuels production

Nearly 10 percent of US ethanol plants have stopped production over the past year, the drought having pushed commodity prices so high that ethanol has become too expensive to produce.[read more]

Renewable Fuels Assoc.

There is nothing simple about boosting E85 sales, which are low and projected to continue to be low. This is for several reasons; first and foremost is weak consumer demand for vehicles that use E85.[read more]

Plant in Drought via Shutterstock

In the wake of the record drought affecting much of the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released on Friday an extremely pessimistic paper projecting much lower production of corn and soybeans this year. The report is sure to incite more citizens and legislators to demand that the mandate requiring ethanol consumption...[read more]

Photo by Lars Plougmann via Flickr

It was bound to happen. As long as US corn output continued to climb year after year, the federal mandate to blend steadily increasing quantities of ethanol into gasoline could be accommodated without creating a shortage of this staple grain. Unfortunately, crops are subject to all sorts of uncertainties, including the severe...[read more]

Terrance Emerson/Shutterstock

As governments roll out public policy directing increased biofuel production for all sectors of the transportation industry, serious questions around environmental sustainability still remain.Although the food versus fuel debate -- should arable land be used to grow energy crops, or food crops be used to fuel our cars instead of our...[read more]

E15 – gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol that has EPA approval  – is one of those ideas that looks good on paper but seems headed for problems in the real world. API’s Bob Greco, director for downstream and industry operations, outlined some of them for reporters during a conference call:Testing so far shows the higher...[read more]

US producers of bio-based products will be happy to know that President Obama signed a presidential memo yesterday that requires the federal government via the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) BioPreferred Program to track and increase its purchases of products made from plants and other renewable agricultural materials. The...[read more]

And now for something completely different…  Last week I gave a presentation at Renewable Energy World 2012 as a member of a panel entitled “Biomass Due Diligence: How Your Project Can Learn from Failure to Better Ensure Success.”  I provided the following retrospective on the biofuels experience and a few recommendations on...[read more]

The basic math is pretty simple: most gasoline in the U.S. has about 10 percent ethanol, so the the 45 cents/gallon VEETC subsidy reduced the price of gasoline about 4.5 cents. The subsidy expired at the end of 2011, so one reason gasoline prices have gone up a few cents since New Year’s Day comes from the loss of the subsidy. (World...[read more]

The Des Moines Register has one version of the story - the agribusiness industry decided it could do without the subsidy since the renewable fuels mandate seemed securely in place: So established is corn-fed ethanol that the industry allowed the expiration of the 45 cents-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol production, as well as the...[read more]