In a press release this week, Todd Sneller, administrator of the Nebraska Ethanol Board claimed, “if all the fuel sold in Nebraska in the past five years was E85, Nebraskans would have saved $2.6 billion.”
Mr. Sneller might want to check his math.
The pump price of E85 doesn’t account for the decreased energy content of ethanol when compared with gasoline. According to the AAA, the real price of E85 when adjusted for MPG/Btu was $2.846 – 20.7 cents more than…
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it is extending the comment period by 60 days on a waiver application requesting an increase in the amount of ethanol blended into a gallon of gasoline to up to 15 volume percent (E15).
The original public comment period was to end on May 21, 2009, and will now end on July 20, 2009.
The current limit on the amount of ethanol that can be blended into a gallon of gasoline is at 10 volume percent ethanol…
Don’t make assumptions that biofuels are always good for farmers. Check out this story from AP
Associated Press — BILLINGS, MONT. — April 22, 2009 — A Montana biodiesel company, which has received more than $1.6 million in grants and loans from the state and a regional economic development corporation, owes farmers in Montana and North Dakota $1.2 million for crops grown last year.
Sustainable Systems LLC and a parent company agreed Wednesday to sign a consent agreement allowing the Montana Department…
This is from FarmPolicy blog, sponsored by the law firm McLeod, Watkinson, and Miller
DTN writer Todd Neeley reported yesterday “The future of U.S. corn-based ethanol could hang in the balance as the California Air Resources Board prepares to consider a proposed low-carbon-fuel standard during a public hearing Thursday in Sacramento.
“For the past year ethanol industry officials have criticized the proposed regulations for penalizing corn-based ethanol for indirect-land-use changes when calculating ethanol’s carbon score, while not making the same calculations for other fuels.
“The…
This has nothing to do with ethanol per se, but sums up the Administration’s energy policy (biofuels included) pretty well.
“But what I find distressing is that this Administration is opposed to looking for oil offshore, but the President bows to the Saudi King, the president is friends with Venezuela whose biggest impact on us is that they sell us a lot of oil, and I just think that there is a shallowness about how they analyze things.”
Newt Gingrich on the…
A most ill-informed, intemperate editorial on energy policy sadly was published in the Kansas City Star this weekend, … but thanks to the market-based, democratizing power of the internet, so-called elite media opinion can more easily be exposed for the absurdity it can sometimes be.
In the internet era anyone with a computer, an internet connection, and a clever blog name can stand tall in reply, offering the common sense of the masses as an antedote to foolishness such as the column…
As most visitors to this site probably know, the Renewable Fuels Association ran a full-page ad in The Hill magazine last week (May 6, 2008) titled: “Without ethanol, we’d be paying over $4.00 a gallon for gasoline today.” To substantiate this claim the ad quotes from a March 24, 2008 column by Wall Street Journal reporter Patrick Barta:
“Without biofuels, which can be refined to produce fuels like the ones made from petroleum, oil prices would be even higher. Merrill Lynch commodity strategist Francisco…
May 11, 2008
EDITORIAL, New York Times
Rethinking Ethanol
The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.
Ryan Radia
May 12, 2008
Iowa agriculture is booming now, but disaster looms on the horizon. An anti-ethanol media storm threatens to further destabilize commodities markets by undermining political support for biofuels.
Food and fuel follies
May 8, 2008
By Ed Feulner - “What could possibly go wrong?” That’s what members of Congress probably thought when they started shoveling bigger subsidies at ethanol producers. Now, with food riots erupting in some parts of the world, we have our answer: a lot.
Other factors - a weak dollar, high energy costs, low crop yields in places such as Australia - have played a role in this crisis. But diverting food to fuel is clearly a…
