To help spread the word that corn growers are working hard to meet all needs, the National Corn Growers Association is offering free bumper stickers while supplies last. The bright yellow stickers send a clear message that all market demands are important. Data collected from each truck's electronic data recorder this summer shows fuel efficiency for the B20 blend comparable to that of petroleum diesel.
“In recent months, we have learned that driver variability makes more difference in fuel efficiency than biodiesel utilization does,” said Don Heck, coordinator of biotechnology and biofuels programs at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where Two Million Mile Haul test data are analyzed.
In addition to fuel efficiency data, the Two Million Mile Haul aims to demonstrate operability of a B20 blend year-round in cold weather situations. “Although both the petroleum and B20 groups experienced some fuel filter plugging in zero-degree Fahrenheit weather, the B20 trucks did not experience any considerable challenges because test partners implemented proper handling and storage measures,” said Grant Kimberley, Iowa Soybean Association director of market development. “If B20 can work for a fleet in the upper Midwest December through February, it can run in any fleet across the nation year-round.”
These findings mimic fuel efficiency test results released during the summer by the National Renewable Energy Lab and the National Biodiesel Board, showing comparable mileage between B20 and ULSD.
Researcher Rosemary Nyoka of Zimbabwe is finding that supplementing the diets of grazing dairy cows with dried distillers grains or fishmeal could increase the level of healthful fatty acids in milk and milk products such as cheese.
“With this potential to improve the healthful fatty acids, we are finding additional uses for distillers grains,” Nyoka said. “We are also trying to improve profitability for dairy farmers. We are hoping they will be able to sell these products at a premium.”
Nyoka is monitoring healthful fatty acids called conjugated linoleic acids, or CLAs.
“These CLAs are known now to have anti-carcinogenic properties, as well as anti-arthritis and anti-obesity properties. They’ve also been known to improve bone formation,” Nyoka said. “In general, in an average American diet we are eating maybe 1 gram per day of these fatty acids, while the effective levels known so far are like 3.5 grams of the fatty acids. So we see that in general, people are not getting enough.”
CLAs are found mainly in products from ruminant animals such as milk and meat. Milk typically contains between 0.3 grams and 0.6 grams of CLAs per 100 grams of fat, Nyoka said. But on her trial diets, Nyoka’s SDSU cows produced milk with total CLAs ranging from 2.5 to 5 grams.
The American Lung Association of Minnesota issued a press release saying that gasoline sales were down in July while E85 sales were up compared to the same period last year.In an interesting snapshot of Minnesotans' changing driving habits, retail sales of gasoline in July 2008 showed a ten percent decline compared to sales in July 2007. According to figures for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, motorists bought 211,982,582 gallons of gasoline in July, compared to 233,081,981 gallons last July. As gasoline sales declined, the amount of ethanol-based E85 sold during the same period increased by 16 percent. To-date, E85 sales are approximately 16% greater in 2008 than they were at this time last year. Monthly sales of cleaner-burning E85 are averaging roughly 2 - 2.5 million gallons a month. E85 is designed for flex fuel vehicles (FFVs) that can use either E85 or gasoline; there are an estimated 200,000 flex fuel vehicles in Minnesota.
AMERICANS, WHO mainly can afford it, are paying more for food these days, but as a new U.N. report reminds us, there are poor people around the world who can't afford the rising prices.
They are going hungry, are rioting in some countries — are even resorting to eating mud cookies in Haiti — and maybe you are wondering why.
Ethanol, that's why.
A worldwide food crisis that sent prices of wheat, rice and corn to records and sparked riots from Haiti to Ivory Coast may be over after farmers boosted plantings, a top official in India's food ministry said.
Rice has tumbled 29 percent from its record, while wheat and corn have dropped 35 percent and 26 percent from their peaks.
By offering four blends of ethanol fuel, the Colwich-based TJ Convenience store has doubled its traffic, reported The Wichita Eagle.
According to a report by the USDA Agriculture Research Service, sweet potatoes provide more carbohydrate for fuel ethanol production as field corn in Maryland and Alabama, the two states tests were run in.In experiments, sweet potatoes grown in Maryland and Alabama yielded two to three times as much carbohydrate for fuel ethanol production as field corn grown in those states, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists report. The same was true of tropical cassava in Alabama.
For the sweet potatoes, carbohydrate production was 4,692 tons an acre in Alabama and 6,353 tons an acre in Maryland. Carbohydrate production for cassava in Alabama was 4,940 tons an acre, compared to 1,434 tons an acre in Maryland. For corn, carbohydrate production was 1,692 tons an acre in Alabama and 2,760 tons an acre in Maryland.
The disadvantages to cassava and sweet potato are higher start-up costs, particularly because of increased labor at planting and harvesting times. If economical harvesting and processing techniques could be developed, the data suggests that sweet potato in Maryland and sweet potato and cassava in Alabama have greater potential than corn as ethanol sources.
Further studies are needed to get data on inputs of fertilizer, water, pesticides and estimates of energy efficiency. Overall, the data indicate it would be worthwhile to start pilot programs to study growing cassava and sweet potato for ethanol, especially on marginal lands.
Refineries in Asia face falling gasoline prices and growing losses in producing the fuel, as the prospect of a sustained global supply glut looms over the industry in the next few years.
After more than five years of robust profits, the value of gasoline against benchmark Brent crude has slid into discounts last month, and more losses are expected due to additional output capacity in Asia and the Middle East as U.S. demand falls.
The lower consumption will be worsened by increased ethanol blending, set to bring U.S. gasoline deficit to 772,000 bpd in 2010, down almost a third versus 2007, Purvin & Gertz data show.
"U.S. gasoline demand growth will significantly affect the decision making among Asian refiners as that's the natural home for exports. They will have to very closely watch what is happening to the ethanol situation," Mukherji said.
POET, the nations largest ethanol producer announced today that it's cellulosic ethanol pilot facility will be operational by the end of the year. The facility will be located in Scotland, SD and will be capable of producing 20,000 gallons of ethanol per year from corn fiber and corn cobs."Our expanded research effort has led to several significant strides in the development of cellulosic ethanol technology at the lab scale in recent months," said Jeff Broin, CEO of POET. "Construction of this pilot facility will allow our company to take the next step toward the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol."
Pilgrim's Pride announced yesterday plans to idle two of their chicken processing facilities. A chicken processing plant in Clinton, Ark. and a further-processing facility in Bossier City, La. are slated to be closed eliminating approximately 600 jobs. The stated reason for the closures was an oversupply of chicken and high feed costs.The company attributed today's announcement to the continued imbalance in supply and demand in the U.S. chicken industry, which has led to market prices for breast meat that are unusually weak for the peak summer grilling season. Market pricing for breast meat is currently at $1.33 per pound, well below the prior five-year average for August of approximately $1.63 per pound, and significantly below the average price of more than $1.80 just four years ago.
The USDA is forecasting this years corn crop to be the second largest on record, down just 6% from last years record sized crop.Corn production is forecast at 12.3 billion bushels, down 6 percent from last year but 17 percent above 2006. Based on conditions as of August 1, yields are expected to average 155.0 bushels per acre, up 3.9 bushels from last year. If realized, this yield would be the second highest on record, behind 2004. Production would be the second highest on record, behind last year when producers harvested the most acres of corn for grain since 1933.
Soybean production is forecast at 2.97 billion bushels, up 15 percent from last year but down 7 percent from the record high production of 2006. If realized, this will be the fourth largest production on record.
EPA is denying Texas’ waiver request because the evidence in this case does not support a determination that implementation of the RFS mandate during the time period at issue (September 1, 2008 through August 31, 2009) would severely harm the economy of a State, region, or the United States.
This test represents over 1300 hours of operation accumulated on test units representing 7 manufacturers and 6 use applications. Though the scope of the test did not allow the scientific precision that would be incorporated in more comprehensive testing, it does indicate that the average consumer would not experience equipment failures which result in loss of use or unusual repairs.
Hagerty insures more than 600,000 collector cars and a number of vintage boats, and they have funded a $50,000 study with Kettering’s Advanced Engine Research laboratory (AERL) to explore the effects of bio-fuels on older engines.
“We serve the hobby in many ways, so we felt it was important to ascertain the impact of ethanol-blended fuel on collector cars and boats,” Hagerty CEO McKeel Hagerty was quoted as saying in the on-line edition of AutoWeek.
Navapanich says the new technology the company has developed is high power silicon switches that can handle 100,000 amps and volts to perform the process on a large scale. “In this case, we have built a machine that will poke holes in the corn kernels, causing permanent or temporary damage to the cell walls, increasing permeability and allowing the starch to come out and be more accessible to the enzymes,” he said. “We took the mash that would normally go to an ethanol plant and ran it through our system. Low and behold, we got more fermentable sugars out of it.”
Navapanic said OptiSwitch Technology has been working with Arizona State University to perform experiments running algae through the same electroporation process as it did corn. “In one case, it showed that once we treated the algae, all the lipids came out by themselves,” he said. “Usually after the treatment we go back to see how many remain by viewing the algae underneath a microscope—but in this instance, there wasn’t any left. That means it all came out. It’s another area that looks very promising.”
Over July 36 new E85 locations were added bringing the total of E85 stations across the country to 1663.