Governors' Biofuels Coalition

The ethanol industry’s main subsidy is set to end soon, but that hasn’t stopped European competitors from trying to get a tax slapped on the American-made biofuel, claiming that federal and state incentives make the imported product unfairly cheap.

Old and new energy crossed paths in the American midwest last week: a new cellulosic ethanol refinery calledProject LIBERTY is on the way in for Emmetsburg, Iowa, while the U.S. State Department appears to have shut the door on the notorious Keystone XL oil pipeline project through Nebraska.

After four months of pressure campaigns and prognostication, the failure of the so-called congressional “supercommittee” to agree on $1.2 trillion in long-term spending cuts leaves energy and environmental programs in much the same position that they were after the August debt-limit deal: an uneasy limbo.

Reworked proposal might scrub pheasant habitat, benefit biofuels Count pheasant hunters among those who probably are disappointed Congress is plowing under the new farm bill. Biofuel producers, however, might be happy to see the bill go. Those groups were among winners and losers in the hastily crafted bill that House and Senate agriculture committees had […]

Ethanol producers will lose about 25 to 30 cents per gallon on operating profits when the tax credit for blenders goes away after Dec. 31.

Giant components of Novozymes’ $200 million fermentation plant at Blair, Neb., were supposed to cross the ocean by ship, pass through the Port of New Orleans, chug up the Mississippi River on barges and turn left toward Nebraska.

The amount of corn consumed by the ethanol industry combined with continued demand from overseas has cattle and hog farmers worried that if corn production drops due to drought or another natural disaster, the cost of feed could skyrocket, leaving them little choice but to reduce the size of their herds. A smaller supply could, in turn, mean higher meat prices and less selection at the grocery store.

Adam Monroe, president of Novozymes, a leading maker of the enzymes used to produce biofuels, says that declining support for ethanol subsidies hasn’t ruined long-term prospects for the industry to make competitively priced fuel from plants.

The congressional “supercommittee” might be dead, but that won’t rescue energy spending from deep cuts that loom in the future. It only provides a temporary reprieve, according to observers.

The leading maker of the enzymes used to produce biofuels says the declining political support for ethanol hasn’t diminished the long-term prospects for the industry making fuel from plants.