ethanol posts, articles, and infographics

Loss of Ethanol Subsidy Boosts E85 Prices Significantly

January 11, 2012 by Michael Giberson
with 492 views

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]

Ethanol Industry Permits Its Politicians to Allow the Expiration of Its Tax Credit and Tariff

January 4, 2012 by Michael Giberson
with 244 views

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]

Biofuel Subsidies Need Reform

December 27, 2011 by Nathanael Greene
with 430 views

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]

5 Misconceptions About Peak Oil

November 7, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 612 views

I have just returned from the annual ASPO conference in Washington, D.C. This was only my 2nd ASPO conference; the first one I attended was in 2008 in Sacramento. There were many familiar faces; some of whom I had previously met and some I only knew by reputation. The mood seemed remarkably calmer than in 2008. That year, oil prices were... [read more]

Key Renewable Energy Subsidies About to Expire

October 27, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 762 views

The US renewable energy industry faces a greatly altered incentive environment next year, as eligibility for two of its largest current subsidies comes to an end at the close of 2011. The corn ethanol sector will likely see the complete withdrawal of the blenders' credit that has fueled its growth for more than 30 years, while new... [read more]

Food for Fuel, Again

October 14, 2011 by Lou Grinzo
with 405 views

The U.S. Now Uses More Corn For Fuel Than For Feed: For every 10 ears of corn that are grown in the United States today, only 2 are consumed directly by humans as food. The remaining 8 are used in almost equal shares for animal feed and for ethanol. And, for the 12 months from August 2011 to 2012, the U.S. biofuels industry used more... [read more]

Energy Policy On The Go

August 29, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 203 views

There were several energy stories of note in the Energy Ticker last week that could have been fodder for a column. Instead, I will just highlight them here with some brief commentary. [read more]

Energy Issues Could Help Define the 2012 Republican Primary

August 3, 2011 by Silvio Marcacci
with 470 views

Energy and environmental issues, and candidate stances on them, will play a large role in the 2012 presidential election. President Obama’s position on many policy issues may be well known, but for the majority of Americans, the platforms of the Republican candidates are just now coming into focus. energyNOW! interviewed Mother Nature Network reporter Andrew Schenkel about differences in policy stances on some of the major energy and environmental issues taking shape in the Republican presidential primary. [read more]

Biofuels' Potential to Transform the Global Economy

August 1, 2011 by John Daly
with 454 views

Slowly but surely, an extraordinarily important new industry is slowly taking shape, with the potential to transform the global economy.After years of existing largely as an environmentalist's fantasy, commercial production of biofuels for the world civil aviation industry is slowly becoming a fact, with production starting up across... [read more]

The Anthropocene and Other Topics

July 27, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 375 views

For the first four years of this blog I published nearly every weekday, and as time went on occasionally struggled to find suitable topics. Lately, I've been running across more good blog topics than I could conceivably cover. I think more is at work in that than my having scaled back the blog's frequency; energy has become an integral... [read more]

Ethanol's Future Without Subsidies

July 12, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 1,093 views

Given the remarkable longevity of the tax credit for ethanol blended into gasoline, it seems fitting that it would take a problem on the scale of the massive US deficit and $14 trillion federal debt to trigger its demise. Yet despite a widely-publicized Senate vote in June and the announcement of a key compromise among three Senators... [read more]

The Upcoming Brawl Over Energy Subsidies

June 29, 2011 by Alex Trembath
with 251 views

While Republicans hold the national debt increase hostage, Congress is deciding what to cut and what to gut (expansion or creation of new programs is largely off the table). Energy subsidies are already falling under the knife. Mark Muro at Brookings figures that if we're going to they're going after energy subsidies anyway, now is the... [read more]

‘Energy Beet' The Next Ethanol Solution?

June 27, 2011 by Alan Anderson
with 834 views

Well the race is on. Three visionary crusades are playing out in the ethanol industry right here in the United States. With oil prices soaring and the uncertainty over ethanol and farm subsidies, plans to build the nation's first sugar beet bio-fuels processing plant in North Dakota was unveiled at statewide press conferences... [read more]

Do We Need Energy Subsidies?

June 24, 2011 by Marc Gunther
with 452 views

What would happen if the government eliminated all subsidies for the energy industry? It’s a radical notion, but an overwhelming vote by the Senate last week to e eliminate billions of dollars in support for the U.S. ethanol industry sent a strong message that the era of big taxpayer support for biofuels is ending,. Reuters... [read more]

Senate Votes Overwhelmingly To End Corn Ethanol Subsidies

June 20, 2011 by Nathanael Greene
with 1,046 views

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]