U.S. Energy Information Administration

July 21, 2017

Through the first six months of 2017, U.S. weekly ethanol production averaged 1.02 million barrels per day (b/d), an increase of 5% over the same period in 2016. On a weekly basis, U.S. ethanol production set a record of 1.06 million b/d in the week of January 27, 2017, and it has averaged near or above 1 million b/d in every week of 2017 except for a few weeks in April, when ethanol plants typically undergo seasonal maintenance. If ethanol production remains relatively high through the second half of the year, as EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) expects, 2017 will set a new record for annual fuel ethanol production.

Corn is the primary feedstock of ethanol in the United States, and large corn harvests have contributed to increased ethanol production in recent years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the United States produced a record 15.1 billion bushels of corn in the 2016–17 harvest year, 11% more than the 2015–16 harvest. Increased corn production and relatively stable corn prices have helped make increased ethanol production more profitable and less susceptible to corn price shocks that had affected ethanol profitability and output in the past.

U.S. ethanol plant capacity increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2017, reaching a nameplate capacity of approximately 15.5 billion gallons per year in January. Total ethanol production is expected to reach 1.02 million barrels per day in 2017, a rate equivalent to 15.8 billion gallons. Annual ethanol production is able to exceed capacity for two reasons: new production capacity has likely been added since the January 2017 capacity survey date, and many ethanol plants are able to operate at levels beyond their nameplate production capacity.

In the United States, ethanol is primarily used as a blending component in the production of motor gasoline and mainly blended in volumes up to 10% ethanol, also known as E10. In recent years, ethanol production increased as a result of higher Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) targets and growth in domestic motor gasoline consumption, almost all of which is now blended with 10% ethanol by volume. Demand for higher ethanol blends such as E15 and E85 remains limited.

U.S. motor gasoline consumption has grown the past four years, increasing from 8.7 million b/d in 2012 to 9.3 million b/d in 2016, resulting in an increase of 7% in additional ethanol demand by way of E10 blending that has helped to support consistent growth in ethanol production over the same period.

Exports of ethanol have also been increasing. Through the first four months of 2017, U.S. gross ethanol exports have averaged 96,000 barrels per day—40% higher than exports during the same period in 2016—and the highest level on record for that period of the year. In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA forecasts that U.S. ethanol net exports will reach nearly 80,000 b/d in 2017, likely surpassing the previous record of 70,000 b/d set in 2011.

Through the first half of 2017, increasing ethanol production rates have outpaced domestic E10 gasoline demand and export growth, leading to elevated ethanol inventory levels at a time when they are typically falling to meet peak driving demand. As of July 14, 2017, weekly ending stocks of ethanol reached 22.1 million barrels, 5% higher than the same time last year and 13% higher than the previous five-year average. Ethanol inventories reached a record level of 23.7 million barrels for the week ending March 31, 2017.

Read the original relase: U.S. Fuel Ethanol Production Continues to Grow in 2017

Ethanol Producer Magazine

July 19, 2017

By U.S. Grains Council

U.S. exports of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) to Southeast Asia have increased 16 percent so far this marketing year, according to data from the USDA and analysis by the U.S. Grains Council.

The Southeast Asian region—which includes Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam—currently represents the third largest market for U.S. DDGS. Thus far in the marketing year (September 2016-May 2017), sales to the region totaled more than 1.7 million metric tons, accounting for 20 percent of overall U.S. DDGS exports.

U.S. DDGS exports have increased to seven of the eight countries within the region this marketing year. Year-over-year, shipments of U.S. DDGS have increased by 55 percent to Thailand, to 630,000 tons, and 42 percent to Indonesia, to 348,000 tons. In addition, U.S. DDGS exports have more than doubled to both Malaysia and Myanmar compared to the same time the year prior. While sales are down to Vietnam due to outstanding market issues, the country’s more than 490,000 tons in purchases still rank as the seventh largest market for U.S. DDGS.

The council continues to expand efforts DDGS sales in Asia, including with recent grain conferences in Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, to provide technical expertise and support as well as connect grain buyers and end-users with U.S. suppliers. The Council is also actively promoting the benefits of U.S. DDGS as a high-quality feed additive through programs like a recent engagement with KFC in Malaysia. This work throughout the region is helping end-users determine how best to incorporate U.S. DDGS into their rations and, combined with attractive prices and available supply, are seeing results in increased demand. 

Learn more about the Council’s efforts to promote U.S. DDGS here.

Read the original story: USGC: US DDGS Exports Up 16 Percent to Southeast Asia

St. Cloud Times

July 19, 2017

By Rep. Tama Theis

Minnesotans are known for finding bipartisanship solutions when it comes to agriculture. Ag is an issue that joins all political parties for the benefit of all Minnesotans.

It’s why I am glad to see some of our Minnesota delegation supporting a bipartisan solution in Congress that could help bring certainty and stability to a key part of our energy infrastructure — cleaner, greener American-made biofuels like ethanol.

Unfortunately, due to an antiquated regulation, retailers are not allowed to sell environmentally-friendly E15 during the summer months. There is bipartisan support to fix this outdated policy and allow E15 to be sold year-round, just like all other kinds of fuel. Allowing consumers more choices at the pump is better for our state and better for our state’s economy.

Ethanol is already present in 97 percent of all U.S. gasoline, typically sold as 10 percent ethanol blend. But drivers in Minnesota are among those with immediate access to higher biofuel blends, specifically the 15 percent ethanol blend (E15) sold at Minnoco stations around the state.

These higher biofuel blends reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower the price at the pump.

Congress should pass the Consumer & Fuel Retailer Choice Act and pave the way for increased use of cleaner-burning, American-made fuel for all Minnesotans.

The author represents District 14A in the Minnesota House.

Read the original article: Consumer & Fuel Retailer Choice Act deserves OK

Agri News

July 17, 2017

By Holly Galbus

CLAREMONT, Minn. — The expansion and modernization project at Al-Corn Clean Fuel here is expected to be finished a few months earlier than planned.

The project, which began in December, was originally expected to be completed in July 2018. Randall Doyal, CEO of Al-Corn, said it is looks like the project will be finished by the end of April or early May.

"We're a little ahead of schedule, which is great," Doyle said. "There's a lot of progress being made."

Al-Corn, founded in 1994, is a farmer-owned ethanol production cooperative just south of U.S. 14 in southeastern Minnesota. It grinds 17.5 million bushels of corn and produces 50 million gallons of ethanol annually. When the expansion and modernization is completed, production will expand to 120 million gallons of ethanol.

Crews have been at work all across the grounds, doing underground and concrete work. In May, construction of two 112-foot silos was completed. The silos will store distillers dried grains with solubles, a final product in the ethanol production process.

Two new ethanol storage tanks also are being constructed. Al-Corn's current ethanol storage capacity is 1 million gallons. The new tanks, expected to be finished in a month, will each store 2 million gallons.

Nearing completion are four 75-feet tall fermenters; each have a capacity of 1 million gallons. The fermenters stand next to the three older ones, which each have a 500,000 gallon capacity.

Nearby, work on distillation and vaporization vessels is expected to be completed by the end of July.

The concrete bases for two corn bins, each 105 feet in diameter, are in place. Eventually they will store 1.5 million bushels of corn.

Also in the early stage of construction is the CHP, or Combined Heat Power. The unit will generate 40 percent of Al-Corn's electric power. Doyal said the CHP is being built in Texas, and he plans to travel there in August to observe testing on the unit before it is shipped to Claremont. The CHP is expected to be completed by October.

West of the original facility grounds, crews are working on grading the area to expand rail capacity. Once that is done, gravel and ballast will be spread in preparation for the three loops of rail. The facility has a 10-car spur. Upon expansion, the facility will handle 100 cars at a time.

"This will allow us to get to markets we haven't reached yet," Doyal said.

When completed, the Al-Corn Clean Fuel facility will cover 200 acres.

Until then, it's business as usual for the plant. Doyal said the plant has continued to operate at full capacity throughout construction. Farmers with trucks full of corn continue to stream into the entrance, and line up in preparation for weighing and processing.

Read the original article: Al-Corn Expansion a Bit Ahead of Schedule

Phys.org

July 17, 2017

The concentration of ultrafine particles less than 50 nanometers in diameter rose by one-third in the air of São Paulo, Brazil, when higher ethanol prices induced drivers to switch from ethanol to gasoline, according to a new study by a Northwestern University chemist, a National University of Singapore economist and two University of São Paulo physicists.

Environmental protection agencies across the world currently do not measure or regulate particles of this size, which studies have shown to be harmful to human health.

The research team also found when São Paulo drivers—some two million of them—switched back to ethanol because prices had gone down, the concentration of ultrafine particles also went down. This lockstep movement illustrates a very tight correlation between fuel choice and nanoparticles in the air.

"We studied São Paulo, but there are many North American cities, including Chicago, with similar air chemistry, especially spring through fall," said Franz M. Geiger, professor of chemistry in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

"The push we are seeing in large cities away from gasoline and toward vehicles powered by ethanol, electricity or a mix of the two will result in a reduction of these ultrafine particles. This likely comes with a health benefit—these particles, below one micron, have the potential to get deeply into your lungs," he said.

Geiger and Alberto Salvo, an associate professor of economics at the National University of Singapore, led the unusual study—their second with São Paulo big data. The fact that São Paulo consumers can and do switch between fuels for reasons unrelated to air quality provided the researchers with a real-world laboratory for studying the effects of human behavior at the fuel pump on urban air pollution.

The study will be published July 17 by the journal Nature Communications. The prospect of increased biofuel use and mounting evidence on ultrafines' health effects make the results policy relevant, the authors write.

"With this knowledge, we hope more money and human resources will be invested in trying to understand and possibly monitor these ultrafine particles," said Salvo, who formerly was with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. "The big unknown is what type of particles are the most harmful to health."

The interdisciplinary team conducted a regression analysis of traffic, consumer behavior, aerosol particle size and meteorological data from January 2011 through May 2011. The data studied was from before, during and after the time of a major fuel switch due to a large fluctuation in ethanol prices.

The researchers also found the choice of fuel had no effect on the concentration of larger particles. These particles include fine particulate matter 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) down to particles 100 nanometers in diameter. The U.S. and many other countries regulate PM2.5, but particles smaller than PM2.5 are not regulated.

Geiger and Salvo were fortunate to have access to aerosol particle size distribution data from an unrelated research project overseen by Paulo Artaxo and Joel Brito at the University of São Paulo. Artaxo and Brito's experiments captured data from before, during and after the major fuel switch. They are co-authors of the Nature Communications paper, along with Geiger and Salvo.

The Nature Communications study builds on an earlier study in which Geiger and Salvo found that an increase in ethanol use resulted in a significant increase in ozone concentrations in São Paulo. Officials, Geiger said, will need to weigh the increase in ozone against the decrease in nanoparticles when ethanol is used.

Next, for the third chapter of the story, the research team would like to determine what happened in terms of health outcomes in São Paulo as cars switched out of gasoline to ethanol and back to gasoline.

The paper is titled "Reduced ultrafine particle levels in São Paulo's atmosphere during shifts from gasoline to ethanol use."

Explore further: Study shows lower ozone pollution in Sao Paulo when drivers switched from ethanol to gasoline

Read the original story: Tiny Particles Increase in Air with Ethanol-to-Gasoline Switch

Agri-Pulse

July 12, 2017

By Sandra Cowherd

MINNESOTA, July 12, 2017 - In its latest newsletter, Minnesota-based Al-Corn Clean Fuel announced its undenatured yield averaged 2.911 gallons of ethanol per bushel in the second quarter. The co-op said this moved production closer to the “magic number” of 3 gallons of fuel ethanol per bushel. The increased yield was achieved through enhanced focus on current operations and improvements from a major expansion, which added new fermenters and addressed flooding issues.

Read the original story: Al-Corn Ethanol Production Closes in On 3-gallon Per Bushel Goal

Ethanol Producer Magazine

July 12, 2017

By Erin Voegele

The U.S. EPA has announced plans to hold a public hearing Aug. 1 in Washington, D.C., for its recently released rule to set 2018 renewable volume obligations (RVOs) under the Renewable Fuel Standard, along with the 2019 RVO for biomass-based diesel.

The agency released a prepublication version of the proposed rule on July 5. The proposal calls for approximately 19.24 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be blended into the national fuel supply next year. This includes 238 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel, 2.1 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel and 4.24 billion gallons of advanced biofuel. For 2019, the new proposal calls for the biomass-based diesel RVO to be maintained at 2.1 billion gallons.

In a notice posted to its website, the EPA said the hearing aims to provide interested parties the opportunity to present data, views, or arguments concerning the proposal. The agency may ask clarifying questions during the hearing, but will not respond to presentations at that time. Written statements and supporting information submitted during the public comment period will be considered with the same weight as information presented at the hearing.

Those wishing to testify at the hearing should notify the EPA by July 25. Additional information is available the EPA website. 

The EPA is expected to open a 45-day public comment period on the proposed rule following its publication in the Federal Register. A prepublication version of the rule can be downloaded from the EPA website.

Read the original story: EPA schedules hearing on RFS proposal for Aug. 1

Agri Pulse

July 10, 2017

By Ron Wulfkuhle

July 10th is U.S. Energy Independence Day, a time to celebrate Earth-friendly American ethanol. Last year alone, the ethanol industry created and supported 340,000 jobs and contributed roughly $42 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – a number exceeding the total GDP of many countries. And, the production of more than 15 billion gallons of ethanol meant that the U.S. needed to import approximately 540 million fewer barrels of crude oil to meet the country’s demand for gasoline.¹

One key to the future success of the U.S. ethanol industry, however, will be increased access to higher ethanol blends, such as E15. To date, American drivers have surpassed 1 billion miles on E15 and E15 is currently sold at more than 800 retail outlets across 29 states, with expansion expected to double.² Greater access to E15 though, including during the high-volume, gasoline consumption summer months, is essential.

Looking ahead, retail partnerships will be key to continuing to expand the availability for higher ethanol blends. Earlier this year, Syngenta announced a $340,000 donation to the Prime the Pump Fund. Prime the Pump is helping high-volume, progressive-minded and industry-leading fuel retailers, who will demonstrate the performance, cost savings and profit opportunity of marketing higher ethanol blends, such as E15.

According to Growth Energy, the vehicles that E15 is approved for account for more than 87 percent of all those on the road today. And, nearly 20 million vehicles are approved for any blend of ethanol up to 85 percent ethanol. Clearly, we have the vehicles capable of using blends higher than E10, but consumers need greater access to stations capable of providing it. Efforts like Prime the Pump will help make that access a reality. The widespread availability of flex-fuel vehicles – as well as those eligible to use E15 – demonstrates that there is a market ready for a less expensive, higher octane, more environmentally friendly alternative fuel.

Consumers across the USA clearly benefit from the reduced cost of ethanol and lower emissions. However, rural America, specifically small towns and communities, benefit greatly as well. Syngenta’s Enogen^® corn enzyme technology is one example of a technology advancement that allows ethanol plants to pay premiums to corn growers. These premiums are substantial with likely payouts of $34 million from ethanol plants to corn growers in rural communities this year alone. These dollars are then circulated in these communities, helping to generate tax dollars for schools and roads and keeping rural America vitalized.

New technologies are also helping to make ethanol even more sustainable. For example, approximately 10 percent of the corn kernel dry weight is fiber, and converting corn kernel fiber feedstock to cellulosic ethanol has been possible for some time. However, recent advances in technologies can enable commercial deployment today. In fact, the approximately 12 million tons of corn kernel fiber feedstock already available at U.S. dry grind ethanol plants each year could produce a potential 1.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol – with no additional corn.³

In 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added corn kernel fiber to the list of qualifying cellulosic biofuel feedstocks as part of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). That same year, using Cellerate™ process technology, Quad County Corn Processors (QCCP) was the first commercial cellulosic facility – using corn kernel fiber as feedstock – and achieved EPA certification to generate D3 RINs. Through November 2016, QCCP’s output represented approximately 85 percent of D3 RIN ethanol produced.⁴ To date, QCCP has produced more than 6 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol.

Since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, ethanol has become an important success story. Ethanol is helping America reduce its dependence on foreign oil, lowering prices at the pump, improving the environment with lower emissions, and growing the economy with jobs that can’t be outsourced. Syngenta is proud to partner with corn growers and the ethanol industry to help provide consumers with the choice to purchase a superior, higher octane fuel and pay less.

Read the original story: Opinion: Increased Access to E15 Will Help to Drive U.S. Energy Independence

Congressman Collin Peterson

July 6, 2017

Press Release

Congressman Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.) released the following statement after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed its proposed renewable volume obligations (RVO) for 2018 and 2019 as required by the Renewable Fuel Standard.

“I am pleased that EPA correctly recognized corn ethanol as a robust industry capable of producing 15 billion gallons as required by statute,” Peterson said. “I will continue to work with EPA on market access issues like the Reid Vapor Pressure fix which is needed to improve consumer choices at the pump."

By law, EPA is required to release its final RVO numbers for 2018 and 2019 by November 30, 2017. Read the original release: Peterson on the EPA’s RFS Proposal