corn ethanol

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If RFA’s goal is to reduce oil consumption through use of home-grown fuels, as it claims, it should support cellulosic and other advanced biofuels. But RFA’s clear intent is to increase the market share of corn ethanol.[read more]

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Two members of the University of Illinois’ agricultural and consumer economics department have an article out this month that raises some important concerns about the Renewable Fuel Standard.[read more]

Ethanol Pump via Shutterstock

The energy field is replete with unintended consequences, and US policy promoting ethanol fuels has had more than its share.  The growing competition  between food and fuel uses of corn, amplified by the current drought, is a prime example, along with the so-called "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico that has been...[read more]

There's a lot of fear-mongering in the media about the impact of the U.S. drought on food production and what that means for the future. A look at the crop supply data, available from the USDA feed grains yearbook, tells the full story, and it is not about food, nor is it entirely about the drought.[read more]

Is it just the blog's imagination or are there seem to be more and more chemical companies venturing into advanced ethanol production, the recent one being DSM? Let's see our list here: DuPont Cellulosic Ethanol - No need to introduce DuPont in this case. The company's cellulosic ethanol business is planning to build a 27.5m gal/year...[read more]

Americans want the U.S. to lead the world in renewable energy, but these are screwy times in our nation’s capital. Some people are trying to turn clean, renewable energy into something dirty. The fossil fuel industry and the radical right, including Grover Norquist and politicians looking to score cheap political points, are taking on...[read more]

Nathanael Greene, Director of Renewable Energy Policy, New York City This afternoon, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to end the main corn ethanol tax credit, known as the VEETC, and the ethanol import tariff immediately. The...[read more]

Corn futures have spiked to their highest price of the year, and, as the Wall St. Journal reported over the weekend, to their highest level since 2008, following news that US corn inventories had declined by 15%, compared to a year earlier. The Journal noted that prices were likely to continue rising until demand starts to moderate....[read more]

  Traded Corn for Votes?Despite being a proponent of corn ethanol policy in the past, former vice-president Al Gore now says corn-based ethanol in the United States was "not a good policy." His comments, made at a green energy business conference in Athens, came as tax breaks for ethanol are up for renewal at the end of this year...[read more]

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has said he made a mistake promoting first generation corn ethanol during his presidential campaign in 2000. Gore says he was more concerned with garnering votes from farmers in Tennessee and Iowa than with what was best for the environment.  A clean energy enthusiast, Gore says corn ethanol is...[read more]

A new University of Illinois at Chicago study of facilities that produce most of the nation's ethanol found that the energy needed to make a gallon of the corn-based fuel decreased on average by about 30 percent within the past decade. Steffen Mueller, principal research economist at UIC's Energy Resources Center, surveyed the nation's...[read more]

The battle over corn-based and sugarcane-based ethanol -- which one is cheaper? -- has been brewing for weeks, and I've received emails and tweets last week about statements released from both camps: the Renewable Fuel Association (RFA) and the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA). RFA accused UNICA last week of making...[read more]

From its start on the family farm with a single farm-scale ethanol facility to dozens of multi-million gallon per year biorefineries dotting the Midwest countryside, POET LLC of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is now the world's largest biofuels producer. Today in this theEnergyCollective.com podcast, I'm joined by Nathan Schock, director...[read more]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued its report assessing the impact of the production and use of biofuels in the US. Among its recommendations was a call for the Congress to reassess whether corn ethanol still needs the support of a $0.45 per gallon blenders' credit, when its use by refiners and gasoline blenders...[read more]

I just read an interesting story from Reuters courtesy of a reader:UK technology could turn U.S. ethanol industry greenDUNSFOLD PARK, England (Reuters) - A compost bacteria bred by a British company could be set to transform both the profitability and environmental credentials of the U.S. ethanol industry."The application of our...[read more]