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Ethanol Advances for Fourth Day With Stockpiles at Lows

Ethanol extended its longest streak of gains in almost two months with stockpiles at a record low for the time of year. Futures jumped 0.7 percent as the Energy Information Administration may report tomorrow that supply of the motor fuel declined last week. Ethanol stockpiles are down 26 percent from this year’s high in January, according to the Energy Department’s statistical arm. “We do have fairly tight supply,” said Mike Blackford, a consultant at INTL FCStone in Des Moines , Iowa . “It’s had a better bias, a firmer tone.” Denatured ethanol for December delivery rose 1.2 cents to $1.718 a gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade. The gain was the fourth in a row, the most since Sept. 19. Prices have dropped 22 percent this year. Gasoline for December delivery dipped 0.11 cent to $2.5954 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange . The contract covers […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push

AP Photo CORYDON, Iowa (AP) — The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America’s push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. And when President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country “stronger, cleaner and more secure.” But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today. As farmers rushed to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The secret, dirty cost of Obama’s green power push

AP Photo CORYDON, Iowa (AP) — The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America’s push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. And when President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country “stronger, cleaner and more secure.” But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today. As farmers rushed to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The Hunt for Biofuels Looks Beyond Ethanol

For biofuels, the future won’t look much like the past. We’re heading, some believe, for a post-ethanol age. Today, nearly all plant-based liquid fuels are either used to make ethanol, which is blended with gasoline, or biodiesel. But efforts to increase the amount of ethanol in gas are opposed by auto makers and others who say the environment and economy are better served by more efficient engines and the shift to hybrid, electric and natural-gas vehicles. There are critics, too, who say making biofuel from edible plants—most ethanol is based on corn or sugar cane—is a poor use of land and crops needed to feed growing populations. Now energy experts see a growing role for new biofuels that use nonedible plant material and are hydrocarbons, like petroleum fuels, and so don’t require a separate infrastructure. “Biofuels have a much broader future than ethanol,” says Thomas Foust, director of biofuels […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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GE Aviation signs 10-year supply agreement for biomass FT jet fuel for engine testing; baseline of 500,000 gallons per year

  « Study shows connected-car ecodrive system can increase fuel savings 27% without increasing inter-vehicle spacing | Main | DOE launches alternative fueling station locator app » Print this post GE Aviation signs 10-year supply agreement for biomass FT jet fuel for engine testing; baseline of 500,000 gallons per year Web Schematic 2013 Updated740x442 Schematic of the DG Energy facility that will produce the cellulosic synthetic jet fuel. Click to enlarge. GE Aviation, which consumes more than 10 million gallons of jet fuel annually at its engine testing centers, has signed an agreement to purchase cellulosic synthetic biofuel from The D’Arcinoff Group (DG), based in Washington, DC, to be used for production and development testing of GE jet engines, starting in 2016. The 10-year agreement calls for GE’s baseline commitment of 500,000 gallons annually of the low-emissions jet fuel to be used at the company’s main jet engine testing […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ethanol’s Discount to Gasoline Tightens on Exports, Lower Stocks

Ethanol’s discount to gasoline tightened on speculation that export demand is preventing the highest production rates in 16 months from refilling stockpiles of the gasoline additive. The spread between December contracts narrowed 1.02 cents to 88.62 cents a gallon as the most recent Energy Information Administration data shows stockpiles declining and the pace of foreign deliveries, as of August, at the highest since March. “We have seen stockpiles hit a record low,” said Chris Krukowski, an ethanol broker at SCB & Associates LLC in Chicago. “In general we are seeing tightness.” Denatured ethanol for December delivery fell 0.7 cent, or 0.4 percent, to $1.642 a gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade. Prices have fallen 21 percent this year. The November contract, which expires tomorrow, slumped 5 cents to $1.72. Gasoline for December delivery slipped 1.72 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $2.5282 a gallon on the New York Mercantile […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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US ethanol stocks, days of supply plunge to lowest recorded level: EIA – Agriculture

Biofuelscan Houston (Platts)–30Oct2013/1251 pm EDT/1651 GMT US overall ethanol stocks and days of supply for the reporting week ended last Friday both fell to their lowest recorded levels by the Energy Information Administration, agency data showed Wednesday. Specifically, US overall weekly ethanol stocks plunged 538,000 barrels to 14.961 million barrels. The previous record low was at 15.39 million barrels for the reporting week ended October 4. The EIA first started tracking ethanol stocks in the reporting week ended June 4, 2010. Article continues below… Request a free trial of: Biofuelscan Platts Biofuelscan is a daily report, covering the latest worldwide biofuel news and prices. It provides a daily summary of market events and developments, along with closing market price assessments from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Platts Biofuelscan includes prices assessmenst for ethanol, ETBE, renewal indentification number (RIN) biofuels (US market0 and biodiesel. It also includes graphs depicting historic […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ethanol Tumbles Against Gasoline as Corn Declines

Ethanol tumbled, widening the discount to gasoline, as cheaper corn enabled distillers to boost production of the biofuel. The spread widened 7.38 cents to 79.99 cents a gallon, the biggest one-day expansion since Oct. 4. Pratt Energy said Oct. 24 that it restarted operations at a plant that was idle for more than five years. “There’s been news of plants coming back online,” said Will Babler, a broker at Atten Babler Risk Management in Galena, Illinois . “It seems like production is trending higher.” Denatured ethanol for November delivery fell 3 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $1.831 a gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade. Futures are down 16 percent this year. Gasoline for November delivery rose 4.38 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $2.6309 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange . The contract covers reformulated gasoline, made to be blended with ethanol before delivery to filling stations. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple