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Category: Bioeconomy

Program to Promote Biobased Products Draws Praise From Iowans
Farm groups in Iowa and elsewhere welcomed the recent announcement by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that USDA has published a draft rule in the Federal Register regarding USDA's proposed label for identifying biobased products. The drafting of rules for the voluntary label is vie... Continued...

Senate Agriculture Panel Begins to Stake Its Claim in Climate Bill
Members of the Senate Agriculture Committee will vet options this week for the sweeping energy and climate bill, which they are expected to play a significant role in shaping. The panel will have a hearing Wednesday to explore the role for agriculture and forestry in climate change legislation. T... Continued...

Senate Ag Panel's Members Look to Stake Major Claim in Climate Bill
Powerful members of the Senate Agriculture Committee are angling to include even more farm and ethanol-friendly provisions to their chamber's energy and climate legislation than the House added to its bill last month. Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and other members of his panel say they want to en... Continued...

House Ag Subcommittee Asked to Provide Oversight for Bioenergy Program
The American Soybean Association has submitted comments to the House Ag Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management regarding Farm Bill implementation, voicing concerns about the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels. According to ASA President Johnny Dodson that program affects t... Continued...

Senate Committee Votes to Double Funding for Rural Energy
Late yesterday the US Senate Committee on Appropriations voted to boost funding for farm energy programs that will create more clean energy and new income for rural Americans. The committee voted to increase fiscal year 2010 funding for the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) from $60 million... Continued...

Let's Not Go Backwards on Biofuels: Fixing the Climate Bill's Biofuels Provisions
I welcomed the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act last month. It is a good bill that gets us going down the road toward clean energy and climate solutions. But passing the bill in the House required some last-minute deal making, and one of the most troubling concessions made -- an... Continued...

Getting Ethanol Right
Representative Collin Peterson is furious that the Environmental Protection Agency is doing its job. The Minnesota Democrat says the agency is trying to kill off the biofuels industry — to the dismay of the corn farmers and ethanol producers he represents. He has vowed to vote against any bill, incl... Continued...

Don’t Overlook Biomass Stimulus in Farm Bill
All of the attention focused on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act may have caused many folks to overlook other energy/fuel-centric federal “stimulus” programs. As of this writing, Title IX of the Farm Bill offers a number of good programs currently waiting in the shadows of the ARRA. The... Continued...

House chair says he has votes to torpedo Pelosi-backed bill
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said on Thursday that he has the votes to take down Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-Calif.) climate change bill. Peterson’s boast comes as Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Waxman has backed off on his desire to have his bill go straight ... Continued...

Weak crop prices end feast in farm states
WAHOO, Neb. (AP) — Farming communities that were largely insulated from the recession last year by high crop prices and other factors are now feeling the nation's economic chill more acutely as corn, wheat and soybeans become cheaper, and land values fall. Farmers across the Midwest and Plains st... Continued...

Bipartisan Senate bill seeks lower tariffs on ethanol imports
A bipartisan group of senators is seeking to lower U.S. tariffs on ethanol imports to achieve "parity" with the blender's credit, which was reduced in last year's farm bill. The farm bill knocked the blender's credit from 51 cents per gallon to 45 cents per gallon. A new Senate measure (pdf) is a... Continued...

Farmland-energy programs left out of final stimulus
A push to get stimulus cash for farm energy programs failed to survive the House-Senate negotiations over the bill. The conference agreement, which the House passed this afternoon, zeroes out Agriculture Department energy programs for which the Senate had allotted millions in its version of the b... Continued...

Cellulosic Ethanol May Benefit Human Health And Help Slow Climate Change
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2009) — Filling our fuel tanks with cellulosic ethanol instead of gasoline or corn-based ethanol may be even better for our health and the environment than previously recognized, according to new research from the University of Minnesota. The study finds that cellulosic etha... Continued...

Green Jobs are Not Always Good Jobs
As the federal government prepares to spend billions of dollars promoting the creation of green jobs as part of the huge economy recovery bill, a new report warns that the jobs already being created in climate-friendly sectors of the economy do not always measure up in terms of wages and other terms... Continued...

Grain growers urged to see other side
Which came first? The corn industry or livestock production? "The corn came first," Al Mussell told grain growers here, and because of that, corn policy leads livestock production - and corn growers should work more co-operatively with the livestock groups to preserve this domestic market for the... Continued...

Whatever Happened To The Move Toward Cellulosic
There is no secret that when corn becomes too high priced or there is an insufficient supply, ethanol will be refined from cornstalks, switchgrass, miscanthus, wood chips, potato peels or some other form of low value biomass. The bugs are being worked out of the processes, but since it is all in the... Continued...

First flight of algae-fuelled jet
A US airline has completed the first test flight of a plane partly powered by biofuel derived from algae. The 90-minute flight by a Continental Boeing 737-800 went better than expected, a spokesperson said. One of its engines was powered by a 50-50 blend of biofuel and normal aircraft fuel. We... Continued...

Braskem Approves Green Polyethylene Project
LATIBEX: XBRK), the leading company in the thermoplastic resins industry in Latin America and third-largest resin producer in the Americas, announces that its Board of Directors has approved the Green Polyethylene Project. This project, for which investment of $500R million was approved, will produc... Continued...

State's 'new energy' edge
Minnesota's renewable energy boosters point to iconic images like Buffalo Ridge in the southwest part of the state, where rows of giant wind turbines spin; or to ethanol plants rising above green fields of corn; or maybe to onyx-colored solar panels tilting into the sun from the roofs of the Mississ... Continued...

Court says VeraSun must work with suppliers’ reps
A group of about 100 corn suppliers with outstanding contracts to deliver corn to VeraSun Energy's 22 ethanol plants got their day in court this week, but they found the results not entirely satisfactory. The motion, which was joined by the Iowa Corn Growers Association, was heard Tuesday in Vera... Continued...