corn ethanol

A convenience store chain in six mid-Atlantic states, Sheetz Convenience Stores, said it will offer E15 at 60 of its fuel stations in North Carolina by spring 2016.

Ethanol makers are likely to need at least 5 billion bushels of corn for making the renewable fuel in the coming year despite the biofuel selling at a premium to gasoline, say economists Scott Irwin and Darrel Good of U-Illinois.

Ethanol makers produced 14.15 billion gallons of ethanol during the 12 months ending on Sept 1, coinciding with the corn marketing year, says economist Darrell Good of U-Illinois.

With two more cellulosic ethanol plants to come on line in coming months, annual production of the biofuel should exceed 1 million gallons for the first time in 2014, says the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We still have a ways to go until cellulosic ethanol is as abundant as corn ethanol but with commercial production under way, we are making progress much faster," said UCS's Jeremy Martin on the day Poet-DSM plant formally opened its cellulosic plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

With 2014 nearly two-thirds over, EPA sent its proposed biofuels mandate for this year to the White House for review, said The Hill newspaper, quoting an EPA official as saying the agency's goal "is to put the RFS (Renewable Fuels Standard) program on a path that supports continued growth in renewable fuels over time."

Recurrent drought has combined with a smaller cattle inventory to begin shifting the cattle industry, centered in the southern and central Plains, to the north and east, says Meatingplace in a seven-part story, "Dry Age Beef."

"Rep. Bruce Braley is betting the farm on corn — and Democrats’ hold on the Senate may be in danger if he’s wrong," says the lead sentence in Politico on the Senate campaign in Iowa. The Hawkeye state is No 1 i corn and ethanol production, with several thousand people working at ethanol plants. Braley

The ethanol mandate is likely to be set higher than initially proposed by the EPA, says Sen Al Franken, Minnesota Democrat, in comments quoted by The Hill newspaper. Franken was among 10 Democratic senators, including Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, who met White House advisor John Podesta to discuss biodiesel.

Ethanol makers have enjoyed a run of high profits since March 2013, "driven by a combination of steady or rising ethanol prices and falling corn prices," write economists Scott Irwin and Darrel Good at farmdoc daily.

Rulemaking for this year's ethanol mandate "has been more time-consuming than originally anticipated," says the Environmental Protection Agency.

Using corn residues - stalks, husks and cobs - to make biofuels appears to create more carbon dioxide over their life cycle than the target set by federal standards, says research at the University of Nebraska.

USDA has lowered its forecast of the U.S. corn stockpile for five months in a row and the current estimate, of 1.33 bln bu, is down 29 pct from November, when growers were harvesting a record-large crop, writes economist Darrel Good of U-Illinois.

Sen Debbie Stabenow and Rep Collin Peterson told NAAJ they were optimistic the administration will set a higher mandate for biofuels consumption this year than it initially proposed.

The government could issue an updated target for biofuel use by late spring or early summer, said EPA administrator Gina McCarthy at the North American Agricultural journalists meeting.

The EPA proposal to relax the ethanol mandate could pinch the market for biofuels made from crop debris, grass and wood, says a front-page story in the Des Moines Register.

President Biden signed a stop-gap government funding bill over the weekend that calls for speedy payment of $10 billion to farmers to buffer lower commodity prices and high production costs. Congress voted to fund the government through March 14 after a fight that showed the limits of President-elect Trump's control over Republican lawmakers.