U.S. crop sector insulates itself from world market with biofuels, says analyst
After decades of pursuing sales to foreign buyers, the U.S. crop sector is “once again becoming domestic market-focused, due mainly to biofuels policy,” said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois, on Wednesday. It would be a significant, albeit gradual, change in focus.
Soybean oil rapidly gaining ground as renewable diesel feedstock
The skyrocketing growth in the production of renewable diesel has been accompanied by a dramatic expansion of soybean oil as a feedstock for the fuel, said three University of Illinois agricultural economists on Wednesday. Soybean oil’s share of the feedstock market has tripled in the past few years, to 27.4 percent.
Renewable diesel boom is wild card for U.S. soybeans
Thanks to a rush in investment, the renewable diesel industry is in a building boom in the United States and abroad "that is very comparable, I believe, to the ethanol boom of the mid-2000s," said economist Scott Irwin of the University of Illinois on Thursday.
Biden seeks 50 percent cut in U.S. emissions, sees farming as carbon frontier
By deploying clean technology, the United States can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by the end of this decade, said President Biden at an Earth Day summit intended to spark global action on climate change. "That's where we're headed as a nation, and that's what we can do if we take action to build an economy that's not only more prosperous but healthier, fairer, and cleaner for the planet."
Cruz says he’ll block USDA nominee until White House calls ethanol meeting
The winner of the 2016 Iowa presidential caucuses, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said he will block a confirmation vote on a key USDA nominee until President Trump convenes a meeting to hash out oil-state complaints about the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Countervailing duties levied on Argentine, Indonesian biodiesel
Argentina and Indonesia unfairly subsidize the production of biodiesel fuel, so the United States will levy countervailing duties as high as 68 percent on the imported fuel, which competes with U.S.-made biodiesel, said the Commerce Department in a preliminary ruling. “Even friendly nations must play by the rules,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Appeals court overturns EPA’s 2016 biofuel mandate
The EPA erred when it set the target for biofuels use in 2016 below the levels specified by Congress, said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a decision that vacated the regulation and ordered EPA to try again. The three-judge panel said EPA improperly interpreted the "inadequate supply provision" that allows it to waive the statutory targets for renewable fuel use.
EPA will consider permanent reduction in mandate for advanced biofuels
Two months behind schedule, the EPA has proposed the targets for renewable fuel use in 2018 — corn-based ethanol in its usual place as the primary biofuel, at 15 billion gallons, and so-called advanced biofuels at 4.24 billion gallons. The agency said it will begin the technical analysis that could lead to a permanently lower mandate for advanced biofuels, which are being produced in far smaller quantities than envisioned in a 2007 law.
Citizen watchdog group and Carl Icahn growl over ethanol
The avowed watchdog group Public Citizen says in letters to the U.S Senate and House that businessman Carl Icahn, a special adviser to the White House, may have violated federal lobbying laws when he tried to change the Renewable Fuels Standard, reports DTN. Icahn says the group is inciting a "witch hunt" against him.
Ethanol group gets the cold shoulder
The largest of the ethanol trade groups, the Renewable Fuels Association, is out in the cold for supporting a change in the program that gives biofuels a share of the U.S. gasoline market. Fuels America, an agribusiness coalition "committed to protecting America's Renewable Fuels Standard," severed ties with RFA, while the second-largest ethanol group, Growth Energy, said the RFA was doing the dirty work of the oil industry.
Ethanol makers ask EPA for rules change to aid E15
An ethanol trade group says the EPA can open the door to year-round sales of E15 - a 15 percent blend of ethanol into gasoline - and the eventual use of even higher blends such as E20 or E25 if it would "eliminate an arcane regulatory barrier."
The first – and last? – big U.S. cellulosic ethanol plants
With Abebgoa to open its $300 million celllulosic ethanol plant in Kansas on Friday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune says there is worry within the industry that debut of large-scale cellulosic plants in the United States may also be the closing act for big plants domestically.
Federal loan guarantee for biorefinery making a drop-in fuel
The Agriculture Department announced a $91 million loan guarantee for an advanced biofuel plant in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, that will turn pine chips into 8-10 million gallons a year of reformate, a drop-in ingredient for gasoline and jet fuel that can be added during the regular refinery process.
EPA chief indicates ethanol mandate will be higher
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says the recent upturn in gasoline consumption will be reflected in the ethanol mandate for this year, which should be announced in coming weeks. "You will see the rule coming out with changed numbers as a result," she told the National Farmers Union fly-in. EPA proposed a relaxation of the so-called Renewable Fuels Standard on grounds that U.S. fuel consumption was lower than expected, so it was becoming impossible for oil companies to meet the targets set by law for ethanol use.
Senate panel to vote on CFTC chairman, review biofuels
The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to vote on April 8 on three nominees for commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, including Timothy Massad for chairman.