GoodFuels

Ethanol Report on Farm Foundation Study

The Farm Foundation study on food price drivers released this week in Washington DC was the focus of a forum held at the National Press Club.

This edition of “The Ethanol Report” features comments from the Farm Foundation forum and report on “What’s Driving Food Prices?” Featured are Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin, Purdue University economist Wally Tyner, and University of Nebraska public policy analyst Brad Lubben.

You can listen to “The Ethanol Report” on-line here:

Or you can subscribe to this twice-monthly podcast by following this link.

Ethanol Versus Gasoline

Maybe the whole “I’m a Mac” take-off franchise has been a little overdone at this point, but this is still funny. Steve Jobs should have patented this Mac commercial formula - I’m sure he could use a few billion more dollars…

RFS Biomass Rules Could Delay Cellulosic

House Agriculture Committee chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) is concerned that the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act contains some restrictions that could delay and threaten development of cellulosic ethanol.

Peterson expressed his concerns during a House Agriculture Subcommittee hearing to review the RFS implementation and agriculture producer eligibility Thursday.

“If this is implemented the way I think it might be, in my opinion cellulosic ethanol will never happen in this country,” said Peterson. “You’ll make sure this never happens if you limit this land.”

At issue is the RFS restrictions that “limit the crops and crop residues used to produce renewable fuel to those grown on land cleared or cultivated at any time prior to enactment of EISA, that is either actively managed or fallow, and non-forested. EISA also requires that forest-related slash and tree thinnings used for renewable fuel production pursuant to the Act be harvested from non-federal forest lands,” according to Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Assistant Administrator Robert Meyer

Peterson said, “I want cellulosic to happen but there’s some people here with ideologies that have run amuck in my opinion and somebody better get real here if we really want to make this happen.”

Meyer responded that “there are terms that pose challenges in the legislative language and we’ll do our best to make a workable system, but we also have to live within the law as its passed.”

Peterson said that some in Congress are working to change these restrictions that he calls, “a big mistake.”

Listen to Peterson’s comments and exchange with Meyers during the hearing: