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In the News

Roll Call

March 3, 2015

By Hank Naughton

Although it doesn’t feel like it now, spring and summer are fast approaching in Massachusetts. If gasoline prices stay low, millions of Bay Staters will have the ability to inexpensively travel across New England to visit our wonderful beaches, mountains and parks. However, the one downside of cheap fuel at the pump is that it lulls people into forgetting our over-reliance on oil creates a serious national security concern for America and our allies.

In the United States, we use oil to power about 90 percent of our motor vehicles. Since oil is a commodity traded on the world market, the high demand across our nation means we have a hand in driving up oil prices that enrich countries and despots around the world that don’t always have our best interests at heart.

One obvious example is Saudi Arabia, a country in which elements exist that fund radical Islamic schools and which preach hatred of America and Israel throughout the world. We must not forget that nearly all of the 9/11 hijackers — and Osama bin Laden himself — were of Saudi descent and products of these elements.

Like any addiction, our over-reliance on oil can be broken. One way to do it is through investment in the production of renewable fuels. Luckily, the United States is already home to the best renewable fuel development policy in the world, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard. The law requires the United States blend increasing amounts of renewable fuel into America’s transportation fuel supply every year. It also gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to adjust the standard annually to ensure it aligns with the amount of renewable fuel available.

Incredibly, virtually every gallon of gasoline sold in this country now contains 10 percent renewable fuel. An increasing percentage of U.S. diesel fuel is now comprised of biodiesel. These petroleum alternatives are produced by hundreds of American biorefineries that did not exist just 10 years ago.

Unfortunately, the news is not all good. Despite the fact that today, nearly every renewable fuel source has the capability to produce more product going forward, the EPA has not established blending requirements since 2013. This delay has wreaked havoc in the biofuels industry and caused investment dollars in advanced biofuels to be put on hold or sent overseas. This has caused plants and laboratories producing renewable fuels to close, including some in Massachusetts.

It has also been reported that the Obama administration and the EPA are still considering including a waiver in the RFS that would allow the oil companies — who distribute biofuels at gas stations around the nation — to refuse to do so. If included in the RFS, this would be a death blow to the growth of the industry in this country and an acknowledgment that our political leaders are wavering on biofuels, just as some of the most promising advanced fuels from sources like switch grass and algae are coming online.

Read the original story here: Renewable Fuels Critical to Energy Security

Grand Forks Herald

March 3, 2015

By Mikkel Pates

Sioux Falls, S.D. - Jeff Broin says if farmers want corn prices back at a profitable level, they need to get involved in politics and get engaged to keep the ethanol industry strong.

At age 49, Broin is the executive chairman and founder of Poet LLC, a company that operates 27 ethanol plants across seven states, producing an estimated 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol a year.

“If it weren’t for ethanol, corn would be $1 per bushel to $1.50 per bushel,” Broin says. “Farmers need to let their senators and representatives know that we need more ethanol production in this country to save the American farm, or we’ll see a long, long period of depressed grain prices and dropping land prices that could go on for decades.”

Ensuring the Environmental Protection Agency keeps ethanol use targets strong, despite lower-than-predicted gasoline consumption, will be crucial. The EPA guidance from the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard had mandated 14.4 billion gallons for 2014 and 15 billion gallons for 2015. EPA says it will have final numbers this spring for 2014 and 2015, and a proposed rule for 2016. The petroleum industry wants the RFS program scrapped. Significant parts of the livestock industry also oppose it.

Broin and the ethanol industry say farmers need to strongly advocate for the standards to be left alone, although they’re increasingly alone in that fight.

Big yields

Broin says farmers were deep in the ethanol debate in the 1980s and into the 1990s. They became “complacent” when corn hit $7 per bushel, and more so in the drought of 2012, he says.

Ethanol helped add $5 trillion to U.S. farmland values and farmers will wake up when those dollars start to go away, he says. Broin thinks last year’s record corn yield could be followed by another record yield in 2015.

“I’ve seen technology where they’re averaging 300 bushels per acre on corn,” Broin says. “The national average is in the 160s, but the average could go to 300 bushels in the next 10 years. Where’s all that corn going to go? The only place for it to go is ethanol.”

He thinks farmers won’t have any problem feeding the world, even with an estimated 9 billion people by the year 2050.

He says the pedestrian who hears 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop is purchased by the ethanol industry is ignorant of the fact that 6 percent — the starch portion — goes to ethanol production. The rest, including distillers grains and oils, goes back into the food and animal feed supply.

The ‘war’

“There’s a war going on between oil and agriculture for the future fuel supply of the world,” Broin says. “If that’s a shared situation, which is what it should be, agriculture and oil will both have sustainable, decent prices.

If oil wins — and ethanol never gets beyond 10 percent — oil is going to be very high-priced and corn is going to be well below the cost of production and subsidized by the U.S. government.”

Broin and his various ethanol allies are attempting to move the U.S. from a 10 percent ethanol standard (E10) in gasoline to 15 percent (E15).

David Kolsrud, president of DAK Renewable Energy Inc., of Brandon, S.D., agrees with Broin’s points on the importance of farmer involvement in the fight to keep the RFS. Kolsrud, a member of the American Coalition for Ethanol, was a former manager of the Agri-Energy plant in Luverne, Minn., one of the plants built by Broin in the late 1990s.

Kolsrud, who also farms near Beaver Creek in southwest Minnesota, acknowledges he and Broin don’t always agree, but he admires Broin for his commitment to ethanol.

Dave Ripplinger, a North Dakota State University Extension bioenergy specialist, says Broin likely has had the biggest influence on building the industry — the business model, the plants, the markets and the policy.

Ripplinger says he can’t say whether corn prices would drop to $1.50 per bushel without an RFS, because that would depend on how the existing ethanol plants would continue. But he says the outlook would be bearish. He says the pro-ethanol coalition that included farmers, environmentalists and even parts of the oil and gas industry itself are gone.

One key change has been domestic oil production in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields.

Started at age 14

Broin has seen ethanol overcome big challenges before.

His first exposure to ethanol was when he was 14, growing up on a farm south of Minneapolis near the town of Wanamingo, Minn. Corn was cheap and farmers were heading into a credit crisis.

It was a desperate time of agricultural policy theater. The American Agriculture Movement launched 3,000 tractors to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 and in February 1979.

Broin remembers how Paul Middaugh, a microbiology professor at South Dakota State University, built the first operating dry mill ethanol plant in the country. In April 1979, Middaugh took a farm-scale alcohol plant to Washington, D.C., where he made ethanol on the National Mall. Farmers in the North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota built many plants from 1979 to 1981, many of them small, 10,000-gallon-per-year, inefficient plants that soon stopped working.

Broin’s father, Lowell (who still farms today) started experimenting with ethanol in 1983. He was being paid by the government to store corn in Quonset buildings.

“Storing corn for the government — being paid to grow weeds by the government,” Broin recalls. “Corn was $1.30 a bushel and it cost $2.75 a bushel to grow it, and there was no end in sight.”

In 1986, the Broins built an on-farm ethanol plant to use surplus corn and produce 250,000 gallons per year.

Expanding, building

In 1987, the Broins bought a Scotland, S.D., plant out of bankruptcy and restarted it in 1988, running at 1 million gallons per year. It was the only operating plant in the state. Jeff Broin, who held an ag business degree from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, was the company’s general manager at age 22.

“As soon as I got it running and starting to make some money, I knew that it had to be bigger to survive,” Broin recalls.

In 1990, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The same year, the Broins broke ground to increase the Scotland plant to 2.7 million gallons per year, forming Broin Enterprises as a construction company. A couple years later, the Broins created Broin & Associates, a design and engineering firm. They took their own Scotland plant to 7 million gallons, then 11 million.

“We rebuilt that plant three different times,” Broin says.

They built Heartland Grain Fuels in Aberdeen, S.D., and Heartland Corn Products in Winthrop, Minn.

The Broins also created management and marketing companies to market ethanol and distillers grains from the plants they helped build. They built research and technology entities, today housed on a grand Poet campus in Sioux Falls. The subsidiaries brought DDGs into the swine, poultry, fish and pet food markets.

Beyond corn

In 2000, the family developed Broin Project, a plan to convert starch to ethanol without cooking. The technology was released in 2004. The same year, they built a plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa, called Project Liberty, to become a cellulosic ethanol plant that uses corn leaves, husks and cobs as feedstock.

In 2005, Broin helped found the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, to educate an “often misinformed general public” about ethanol, he says.

In 2007, Broin bought out his family members. He changed the company name to Poet LLC and expanded its headquarters. The name was created to evoke creativity shared by actual poets and farmers.

“I love that it’s short, I love that it’s memorable and that people ask why Poet? Does that make sense?” he says.

In 2008, Poet launched a quarterly magazine called “Vital.” In 2012, Poet hired Jeff Lautt as CEO, while Broin became chairman of the board.

In September 2014, the cellulosic plant in Emmetsburg opened for business.

“We’re leaving almost all of the stalk in the field for erosion control and fertilizer,” Broin says of the corn-based feedstock for the plant. “The plant’s up and operating well.”

Poet and the enzyme and yeast companies each have spent tens or hundreds of millions of dollars developing the technology, he says.

“We can get about 80 gallons of ethanol per acre, about a ton per acre of stover, which is about 80 gallons of ethanol per acre. When you look at corn around the country, you could produce about 10 billion gallons of ethanol, using 25 percent of the above-ground stover.”

A total of 100 billion tons of biomass go to waste every year in the U.S. that could produce 80 billion gallons of ethanol, Broin says.

“That’s enough to replace all of our imported gasoline and oil,” he emphasizes.

The right business model

Broin says Poet is involved in companies that have 6,000 farmer investors. The company owns about 25 percent of the stock in plants it’s involved with — ranging from 2 percent to 75 percent each, a business model that he considers vital to company success. Scotland is the only plant owned 100 percent by Poet.

“We did it right,” Broin says.

Poet built plants in the Corn Belt where corn prices were historically low, compared with national markets. The company became an expert at analyzing sites for infrastructure such as natural gas.

Broin holds up a chart that shows the price of corn and the production of ethanol from 1994 to 2014. The two values are strongly correlated.

“I remember this industry was created and talked about as a way to increase corn prices,” Broin says. “It was the way we sold the stock in the original plants, that you could hedge your grain against energy.”

But he describes the EPA blend wall as, “basically our own government holding back the industry by locking us in at 10 percent ethanol in gasoline.”

Read the original story here : Ethanol Industry And Farmers Should Work Together, Poet Exec Says

Ethanol Producer Magazine

Feb 27, 2015

By Susanne Retka Schill

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asked for the ethanol industry's support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership in his keynote address at the 2015 Growth Energy Executive Leadership Conference held in Phoenix Feb. 26-27.

The opponents to the TPP are well organized, he explained, while those who understand the benefits have not been vocal. "I spoke to a Congressman that said he had 1,200 comments opposed to TPP and just two in favor," he said. There is a great opportunity to expand exports to Asia, which is expected to see the middle class grow to number 3.2 billion in the next 15 years. "There won't be that opportunity if we don't get the TPP agreement done," he said, "and it will create a huge void. Who's going to fill that void?" he asked. "China. Who would you rather write the rules of trade, China or the U.S.?"

Chief Agricultural Negotiator Darci Vetter, who spoke at the conference before Vilsack, said many parts of the TPP have been negotiated, which leaves the most difficult issues left to decide. The TPP goes beyond expand export opportunities through the elimination of trade barriers and tariffs, to include intellectual property protection and transparency on rulemaking. She said that under the TPP, ethanol tariffs into Japan and Vietnam will be eliminated.

Vetter added that a successful conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will pave the way for negotiations with the European Union and others in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which are at an earlier stage. "We're pursuing the elimination of all tariffs, including those on ethanol," she said.

In addition the discussion on supporting trade negotiations, Vilsack addressed other measures being taken by the USDA. At last year's conference, he noted, he announced the USDA would be dedicating Market Access Program funds to ethanol export development. "We saw a 35 percent increase in exports last year, and for the first time, we had a biofuel trade effort in China."

The agency is working with the White House to find other avenues and funding to support blending infrastructure, he said, even though Congress has blocked USDA from using REAP funds. In addition, the USDA Economic Research Service is going to do a comprehensive review of recent research and publish a report on the progress being made in the renewable fuels industry. "It's long overdue," he said. The productivity gains in agriculture are not understood, he added, pointing out that in last few decades, "we've had a 200 percent increase in production in farm fields and a 2 percent reduction in acres. U.S. agriculture represents 9 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions," he continued, "while internationally that's 14 percent. If we include forestry, we're net zero."

Read the original story here: Vilsack calls for ethanol industry support of trade negotiations

Ethanol Producer Magazine

Feb 26, 2015

By Syngenta

Corn feedstock is the single biggest input cost for an ethanol plant, and ethanol yield per bushel is one of the most important drivers of plant profitability. Because higher quality corn means higher ethanol yields, Syngenta is working with ethanol plants to help growers improve grain quality and earn a premium for doing so.

According to Chris Tingle, head of Enogen and Water Solutions for Syngenta, ethanol plants are increasingly seeking not just clean, dry corn with little or no damage or foreign material, but also grain with quality characteristics that can help maximize ethanol production.

“A growing demand for high-quality feedstock is creating opportunities for growers to increase their income per acre,” Tingle said. “By supplying the quality grain that ethanol plants want all year long, growers can maximize profitability, while helping to support the ethanol industry.”

Syngenta designed the Ethanol Grain Quality Solution specifically for growers who plant Enogen, Golden Harvest and NK Corn hybrids. Its goals are to raise yields and drive grain quality through effective insect control, early-season weed management, glyphosate weed-resistance management, and crop enhancement (the Syngenta global business focused on minimizing the effects of nonliving factors, such as heat, wind and rain, on plants). The Ethanol Grain Quality Solution provides the ethanol plant and its growers more high-quality grain, while improving return on investment.

“Growers with an Enogen contract can receive an additional 10 cents per bushel premium above the current Enogen contract premium by following agronomic protocols outlined in the Ethanol Grain Quality Solution,” Tingle said. “Plus, growers who have purchased Golden Harvest or NK Corn can receive 10 cents more per bushel for any additional bushels of corn produced under the Ethanol Grain Quality Solution protocol, provided those bushels are delivered to the ethanol plant.”

According to Adam Todd, grain purchasing manager for Quad County Corn Processors in Galva, Iowa, the Ethanol Grain Quality Solution allows QCCP to buy more corn directly from farmers and provides access to higher quality grain.

“Corn purchased direct from the farm generally has a higher starch and oil content,” Todd said. “It has less foreign matter. Those factors help us increase our crush margins. Higher quality grain is going to have more starch available, and that’s what we’re after, as well as less mold and less bacteria. That starch is going to be more readily available and will help us increase our ethanol yield.”

Todd added that rewarding farmers for investing in higher quality grain can help position them for higher yields, too.

“Farmers tell us the premium available through the Ethanol Grain Quality Solution minimally enables them to pay for a top-notch herbicide and fungicide program, which helps them to not only enhance grain quality, but also, generally speaking, achieve higher yields as well,” Todd said. “For example, one of our growers saw a 19-bushel-per-acre advantage in a side-by-side comparison that was part of the program. Taking steps to manage grain quality can help corn growers improve their return on investment in more ways than one.”

Read the original story here: Ethanol plants, growers partner with Syngenta

Domestic Fuel

Feb 26, 2015

By Cindy Zimmerman

The National Ethanol Conference featured a panel addressing the road ahead for higher blends.

Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) vice president for industry relations Robert White moderated the panel, which included Kristi Moriarty, National Renewable Energy Laboratory; John Eichberger, National Association of Convenience Stores; and Brian West with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“In the past, there was a lot of interest in the number of stations that offered E85 versus the volume. The number we’re looking for today is much different. It’s how many gallons are sold,” said White, pointing out that while some stations in lower populations might be going away, there are more stations going up in higher populations area, where more flex-fuel vehicles are available, pushing up the overall amount of higher blends sold.

Moriarty said their long-term studies on E10 show how the green fuel has not damaged equipment and should serve as an example of how E15 would also be fine. She also encouraged those in attendance to have some empathy for retailers, some who still have to meet the oil companies’ gasoline sales requirements, which ethanol can cut into. Eichberger, who comes from that retail perspective, said his group found the number of E85 pumps in the U.S. has increased 14 percent annually every year since 2007. And he said with fewer flex-fuel friendly stations available per each flex-fuel vehicle (FFV) as compared to those for regular fueled vehicles, more E85 pumps are certainly in the picture.

“There’s a lot of room for growth,” pointing out that while there is a 32-billion-gallon potential market for E85 (if all FFVs fueled at 100 percent), a more realistic goal is getting all the E85 stations by 2025 to sell at what the top 10 percent is selling now, making for a 4.5-billion-gallon E85 market.

West pointed out how good of an octane booster ethanol is and added that it is easier to get in a mid-level blend pump, such as E25, than it is to put in the infrastructure for a hydrogen-based pump.

White sent attendees off with a little job to do: talk to retailers about the benefits of selling ethanol, especially the higher blends.

“Talk to one retailer and ask them [to sell a higher blend],” said White. “Everyone in this industry needs to help the growth of this industry.”

Read the original story here: #NEC15 Travels Road Ahead for Higher Blends

Renewable Fuels Association

Feb 25, 2015

WASHINGTON — The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) announced today that it has acquired E85prices.com, which is a crowdsourced website that offers updated prices for E85 and other ethanol flex-fuels — including E15 — from thousands of stations across the country. In addition to E85prices.com, RFA acquired 11 new websites and a new mobile app to strengthen its online presence and its ability to provide up-to-the-minute information on the availability and pricing of E85 and other ethanol flex-fuels.

E85prices.com and E85vehicles.com are the most visited of the 12 new sites now owned by RFA, with E85prices.com receiving approximately 4 million hits last year. E85prices.com has been a go-to source for consumers seeking E85 pricing information to help make informed fuel purchase decisions. The website also maintains a station locator, a database of all existing E85 stations and blender pump locations, and an online forum. Meanwhile, E85vehicles.com helps consumers locate or identify a flex-fuel vehicle (FFV).

Robert White, vice president of industry relations at the RFA, touted the sites, noting, “As the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) continues to be discussed in Congress, and the 2014–2016 RFS requirements remain under consideration at Environmental Protection Agency, we believe it is more important than ever to provide concrete information to decision-makers about E85, E15, and other flex-fuels. At the same time, consumers are looking for more information on renewable fuels, and these websites have provided that service to millions of unique visitors each year. The RFA intends to further strengthen the usefulness and reliability of these websites and ensure the appropriate resources are dedicated to advance all of them into the future.”

In July of 2014, RFA cited E85prices.com when it called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to update their Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) database, which was missing nearly 1,000 stations. RFA will continue its efforts to ensure all station databases reflect the real world, and will work with DOE to fix the current discrepancies in their database.

The information on E85prices.com is crowdsourced, but RFA will confirm all station locations and ensure they are offering higher-level fuel blends.

Read the original story here : RFA Acquires E85prices.com

WASHINGTON — The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) announced today that it has acquired E85prices.com, which is a crowdsourced website that offers updated prices for E85 and other ethanol flex-fuels — including E15 — from thousands of stations across the country. In addition to E85prices.com, RFA acquired 11 new websites and a new mobile app to strengthen its online presence and its ability to provide up-to-the-minute information on the availability and pricing of E85 and other ethanol flex-fuels.

E85prices.com and E85vehicles.com are the most visited of the 12 new sites now owned by RFA, with E85prices.com receiving approximately 4 million hits last year. E85prices.com has been a go-to source for consumers seeking E85 pricing information to help make informed fuel purchase decisions. The website also maintains a station locator, a database of all existing E85 stations and blender pump locations, and an online forum. Meanwhile, E85vehicles.com helps consumers locate or identify a flex-fuel vehicle (FFV).

Robert White, vice president of industry relations at the RFA, touted the sites, noting, “As the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) continues to be discussed in Congress, and the 2014–2016 RFS requirements remain under consideration at Environmental Protection Agency, we believe it is more important than ever to provide concrete information to decision-makers about E85, E15, and other flex-fuels. At the same time, consumers are looking for more information on renewable fuels, and these websites have provided that service to millions of unique visitors each year. The RFA intends to further strengthen the usefulness and reliability of these websites and ensure the appropriate resources are dedicated to advance all of them into the future.”

In July of 2014, RFA cited E85prices.com when it called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to update their Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) database, which was missing nearly 1,000 stations. RFA will continue its efforts to ensure all station databases reflect the real world, and will work with DOE to fix the current discrepancies in their database.

The information on E85prices.com is crowdsourced, but RFA will confirm all station locations and ensure they are offering higher-level fuel blends.

- See more at: http://www.ethanolrfa.org/news/entry/rfa-acquires-e85prices.com/#sthash.atfNh9fv.dpuf

Ethanol Producer Magazine

Feb 24, 2015

By Growth Energy

Fuel with 15 percent ethanol, known as E15, has made its way into south Florida recently. E15 has been approved for sale by the U.S. EPA since January 2011 and has been offered to consumers since July of 2012. Now it’s making its way to gas pumps across the country. The ethanol expansion is grabbing the attention of consumers and making headlines in the convenience and fuel retail industry.

Five years ago, NASCAR made the change to an ethanol fuel blend and has run on Sunoco Green E15 since the 2011 Daytona 500. NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France stated, "time and time again, our sport has demonstrated that it is a great validator of technology, particularly in the green and transportation sectors.” France added, “There's no better example of that than our seamless transition to Sunoco Green E15.”

NASCAR made the fuel change in conjunction with its NASCAR Green Platform, the largest and most comprehensive recycling, tree planting and renewable energy program in sports. Not only has the move to Sunoco Green E15 proven to be an environmentally beneficial decision, it’s actually boosted the performance of the race cars in all three of NASCAR’s national series — lowering emissions and increasing horsepower.

Growth Energy’s CEO Tom Buis explained how NASCAR’s massive loyal following, third party validation and green initiative were very attractive for a partnership. "Ethanol-blended fuel is greener, cleaner and homegrown. It reduces our dependence on foreign oil, creates jobs right here at home and helps improve our environment. We want consumers to know that E15 is a safe, high performance and reliable option for them that is less expensive and supports hometown jobs when they fill up at the pump,” Buis said.

Read the original story here:E15 is new to most fuel stations, but not to NASCAR

Domestic Fuel

Feb 23, 2015

By John Davis

The latest numbers from the federal government shows biodiesel was the leader in growth among biofuels in the United States. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) 2013 Renewable Energy Data Book showed good gains for many of the renewable energy industries, while energy consumption from petroleum actually slumped, despite an overall increase in the amount of energy consumed.

United States overall energy consumption grew to 97.3 quadrillion Btu in 2013, a 2.4% increase from 2012. Energy consumption from coal and renewables grew slightly, while consumption from petroleum and natural gas fell slightly.

Biodiesel was the fastest growing biofuel type, with production increasing by 64% in the United States and 17% globally, from a relatively small base.

Renewable electricity [including hydropower and biopower] grew to nearly 15% of total installed capacity and 13% of total electricity generation in the United States in 2013. Installed renewable electricity capacity exceeded 171 gigawatts (GW) in 2013, generating 534 TWh.

[S]olar electricity was the fastest growing electricity generation technology, with cumulative installed capacity increasing by nearly 66% from the previous year.

[W]ind electricity generation increased 20% in 2013, while wind electricity capacity grew 1.8%.

The report also found that in 2013, renewable electricity accounted for more than 61 percent of all new electricity capacity installations in the United States. By comparison, renewable electricity captured 4 percent of new capacity additions in 2004 and 57 percent in 2008.

Globally, solar photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) are among the fastest growing renewable electricity technologies— between 2000 and 2013, solar electricity generation worldwide increased by a factor of nearly 68.

Read the original story here: NREL: Biodiesel Leads Biofuels Growth in US