A Friday random walk: gasoline prices, ANWR and idiot-proofing ethanol usage
A few random observations on prices, ANWR and “forbidden fuel” as the week draws toward a close: When the benchmark NYMEX RBOB gasoline blendstock price drops as precipitously as it has recently, it’s...
View ArticleUS biofuels advocates aim to raise profile with tax break debate
You know you have arrived if a Saudi oil minister and a UN official talk about your relevance or prevalence, right? In the past couple of weeks, renewables and biofuels have been on the tongues of such...
View ArticleBP bucks oil industry allies on advanced biofuels, with a boost from the US...
Oil giant BP is betting big on biofuels, which the London-based company says could account for 30% of the world’s liquid transportation fuels by 2030, sharply reducing demand for gasoline and other...
View ArticleKansas fuel retailer starts first US sales of 15% ethanol blend
A shockingly yellow Chevy Camaro became the first vehicle in the US commercially fueled with a blend of 85% gasoline and 15% ethanol. Jere White, executive director of the Kansas Corn Growers...
View ArticleTaking California’s low carbon fuel standard, and making it national
“I’ve never heard anybody come up with a definitively better approach.” That statement by Daniel Sperling wrapped up the first of three presentations he and other mostly academics are making in...
View ArticleAs the US corn crop withers, ethanol markets soar, and then slip
These are the times that ethanol opponents warned against. A drought crippling the corn crop; a higher level of mandated ethanol use under the Renewable Fuel Standard; non-fuel corn consumers screaming...
View ArticleRegulation & The Environment: EPA’s sky-high cellulosic ethanol targets and...
As the requirement for blending cellulosic ethanol in the US fuel supply continues to rise, even though it still doesn’t exist in commercial quantities, there is debate over whether the numbers will...
View ArticleSandy at week’s end: climbing back. And a helpful suggestion from the ethanol...
As the week ends, here are a few things going on with Sandy and oil markets that are trying to get back to normal. Several developments Thursday showed companies were taking significant steps to go...
View ArticleUS loses ethanol exporter status after Midwestern drought
After a terrible summer for US ethanol producers, the country has shifted from net ethanol exporter to net importer for the first time in nearly three years. The US imported 21,000 barrels per day more...
View ArticleEPA bets on two cellulosic makers for ambitious US blending mandate
US companies hoping to make the world’s first commercial-scale gasoline and diesel refined from plant waste have much to prove in 2013, after suffering another year of start-up delays, growing attacks...
View ArticleThe RINs market is signaling the ethanol blendwall has arrived
The US ethanol blendwall crisis has been projected to be coming for awhile. And the market is signaling that it’s now here. The crisis was assumed to be caused by three things all coming together: the...
View ArticleMore on RINs and ethanol: the RFA fires back
Bob Dineen, the head of the Renewable Fuels Association, is one of the energy industry’s most notable success stories in Washington. Outside of losing the blender’s ethanol credit a few years ago,...
View ArticleAnother voice calls for E85 as a solution to the RINs conundrum
The idea of using E85 as a way out of the blendwall/RINs issue in the US has another backer. But it’s not a new backer. Well-known energy economist Phil Verleger several years ago first brought up the...
View ArticleAn update from the ethanol/RINs battleground: hitting physical markets
A few updates from the intersection of RINs and ethanol. It’s starting to look like there have been physical market reactions to the rising price of RINs. First of all, the price of RINs, after being...
View ArticleBig Oil crashes Big Corn’s party in the Capitol
It was supposed to be a routine briefing on Capitol Hill Thursday, a chance for the ethanol industry to share their views with congressional staffers on why the Renewable Fuel Standard should be...
View ArticleA little magic container can fix the ethanol issue?
Among ethanol’s fiercest enemies are the boating and mower industries. Boat owners and some mower owners claim all sorts of damage from the additive, though Honda, for example, indicates in this guide...
View ArticleThe death-defying effort to repeal the renewable fuel standard
The circus is coming to town. Instead of elephants and trapeze artists, there will be motorcyclists throttling their Harleys and antique cars circling the US Capitol. They have more than spectacle in...
View ArticleSeeing the AAA’s view on ethanol from both sides
It must be great to be the AAA. Everybody in the US ethanol business wants you to like them. That’s why a war of words erupted over the past few days as to whether the AAA, the country’s leading group...
View ArticleThe sugar consumption conundrum
There has been much discussion recently regarding what appears to be a surge in sugar consumption in Asia, particularly in China and Indonesia, accompanied by a corresponding surge in raw imports....
View ArticleLooming EU vote draws first battle lines in renewed biofuel debate
Since the European Commission first proposed a number of changes to the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) last October, both sides of the biofuel debate in Europe have battled their...
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