Green Fields: Ethanol production rises 13% this year over 2009

The U.S. Energy Information Agency reports that ethanol production in the United States is running 13 percent ahead of a year ago.

For the week ending Dec. 17, domestic production totaled 892,000 barrels per day, down 4 percent from the week before. Bad weather cut into demand.

The agency said 4.8 billion bushels of this year's 12 billion to 13 billion bushel corn crop will be needed to satisfy ethanol demand.

Iowa produces about 30 percent of the total U.S. annual output of 13 billion gallons of ethanol. Strong demand from ethanol production is cited as one reason for continued high corn prices.

Corn prices have risen about 70 percent since midsummer on higher demand and concerns about shorter crops in the United States as well as in central Asia.
Refiners lose challenge to biodiesel mandates

The good news keeps coming for the biodiesel industry.

Congress has revived the industry's $1-a-gallon subsidy, and refiners have lost their challenge to requirements of the federal mandate for biodiesel usage.

A ruling by a federal appeals court means that refiners will have to meet a requirement that they have used 1.15 billion gallons of biodiesel by the end of this year.

Under a 2007 energy law, refiners were required to use 500 million gallons of biodiesel and 650 million gallons this year. But the Environmental Protection Agency didn't get the regulation implemented until this year and decided to combine the volume from both years into a single requirement.

The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association didn't like the retroactive mandate and wanted the appeals court to throw it out.

"This lawsuit was the final piece of uncertainty creating market disruption for the biodiesel industry," said Gary Haer, vice president of sales and marketing for the Renewable Energy Group, based in Ames, which can produce 180 million gallons of biodiesel annually.

Petrochemical organization President Charles Drevna said the retroactive "regulation by a federal agency establishes a deeply troubling and potentially far-reaching precedent."

The 2011 mandate for biodiesel grows to 800 million gallons.

Car makers join fight against 15% ethanol

Car manufacturers, boat makers and power equipment manufacturers are the latest industries trying to block the government from increasing the amount of ethanol that can be added to gasoline.

Groups representing those industries have sued to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from permitting the sale of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol, or E15. The lawsuit challenges the EPA's decision to allow E15 to be used in some cars but not others. The groups claim that E15 could damage engines it is not supposed to be used in and that EPA doesn't have an adequate plan to guard against unintended use.

The EPA agreed in October to allow cars and trucks that are 2007 or newer to run on E15 gasoline.

The American Petroleum Institute and food industry groups already are challenging the EPA's E15 decision.

The ethanol limit has long been 10 percent for all vehicles with the exception of "flexible fuel" cars and trucks that are manufactured to run on ethanol or gasoline.

The partial approval of E15 "sets a bad precedent of how to introduce a new fuel," said Kris Kiser, executive vice president of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute. "This partial waiver would allow fuel to come on the market with inadequate testing, inadequate misfueling controls and without a dedicated legacy fuel for use in those products for which E15 was not approved."

WikiLeaks details battle over biotech seeds

The latest batch of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks shows that in 2007 Craig Roberts Stapleton, the U.S. ambassador to France, outlined how the United States should play hardball against France and the rest of the European Union if the EU continued to block biotech seeds.

Stapleton recommended that the United States draw up a list of European products against which it would retaliate should France and the EU continue their bans against biotech seeds, produced principally by Pioneer Hi-Bred of Johnston and Monsanto of St. Louis.

Stapleton, a Connecticut investment banker whose wife is a cousin of former President George H.W. Bush, was appointed ambassador in 2005 by then-President George W. Bush.

In a 2007 cable to U.S. trade negotiators, Stapleton said, "Mission Paris recommends that the U.S. reinforce our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology by publishing a retaliation list when the extend 'Reasonable Time Period' expires. In our view, Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the Commission."

It is not known if the United States carried out Stapleton's recommendation, but resistance to biotech seeds has continued throughout the EU.

Stapleton was replaced as ambassador in July 2009.

Pricey offshore wind project is tough sell in New England

Big wind projects off the Atlantic coast region of New England have been the talk of the wind energy industry in recent months, but Offshore Wind Daily reports that the Cape Wind project is having trouble selling its output.

Cape Wind, famously opposed for years by the likes of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and TV anchor Walter Cronkite, would be built near Nantucket Island. It was approved by Massachusetts regulators earlier this year, one of a series of offshore wind projects that would extend from the New England coast to the Carolinas.

The offshore wind projects are touted as part of the response of Eastern utilities and states that are reluctant to buy wind energy generated in Iowa and the Upper Midwest.

But offshore wind is expensive. Offshore Wind Daily quotes the cost for Cape Wind electricity at 18 cents per kilowatt hour. That is double what MidAmerican Energy customers in Iowa are paying for electricity.

source: desmoinesregister