by Ike Wilson (Frederick News Post) Donald C. Erbach recently became the newest board member of Advanced Biofuels USA in Frederick. Erbach has clocked 40 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service with a focus on technologies related
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Back TO HOMEAmerican Soybean Association Expresses Concerns about EU Renewable Energy Directive to USDA and USTR
(American Soybean Association) The American Soybean Association (ASA), joined by other U.S. oilseed producer and industry organizations, has expressed serious concerns to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk about the requirements
March 21, 2011 Read Full Article
USDA Calls March 21 Meeting with Major US Biofuels Trade Association Heads
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Washington, the USDA has called the heads of nearly every major biofuels association into a “friendly, open” discussion, but on an urgent timetable, to discuss opportunities to find common ground and synchronize biofuels industry
March 17, 2011 Read Full Article
USDA Seeks Applications for Renewable Energy Funding, Loan Guarantees
(US Department of Agriculture) Funds Will Help Win the Future by Spurring Investment to Increase the Production and Use of Renewable Energy Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA is seeking applications to increase the production and use of renewable energy
March 15, 2011 Read Full Article
Who’s the Boss? The Salt-Water, Fresh-Water Divide in Agricultural Research
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...Reporter Bob Brooks followed up on the Digest’s story on phosphorus reserves with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, asking about opportunities with and research in aqua farming and salt-water tolerant species. “USDA’s scope is limited to
March 08, 2011 Read Full Article
USDA Expands Efforts to Develop Crop Insurance for Biofuels Producers
(US Department of Agriculture) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced February 25, 2011, that USDA will soon seek proposals to study the feasibility of providing crop insurance to producers of biofuel feedstocks, including corn stover, straw and woody biomass. These feasibility
February 28, 2011 Read Full Article
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack to Sign MOU to Support Continued Development of Biofuels and Related Products
(US Department of Agriculture) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that he will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to encourage the continued development of bio-based products for energy consumption, animal feed, chemicals and other uses. " This agreement will strengthen public,
February 28, 2011 Read Full Article
Ethanol Is Valuable State Crop, Group Says
(Ashland Current) A recent report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture says the total value of Wisconsin crops rose by more than $1 billion dollars last year to $4.8 billion, up from $3.5 billion in 2009. More than half of
February 22, 2011 Read Full Article
The Money Identity, the Bond Supremacy, the Washington Ultimatum: Biofuels and Loan Guarantees
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...Essentially, despite rising banking sector profits and good results from stress tests, the bank financing market has not returned for biofuels – the financing source for whom the USDA loan guarantee was developed in the
February 22, 2011 Read Full Article
Advancing Biocrop Alternatives in the Pacific Northwest
by Ann Perry (USDA ARS) Pacific Northwest farmers could someday be filling up their machinery's tanks with fuels produced from their own fields, according to ongoing research by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Since 2003, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologist Hal Collins and
February 07, 2011 Read Full Article
Plant Would Turn Waste to Ethanol in Holland, MI
by Andrea Goodell (The Holland Sentinel) From the dump to powering your toaster in the morning — a company is proposing to turn waste into energy with a plant in Holland. Renewable Energy Technologies LLC wants to retrofit an empty factory
February 02, 2011 Read Full Article
Educators Will Be Trained in Ways to Teach about Biofuels, Thanks to $5 Million Grant
by Stacey Shackford (Cornell Chronicle) From the farm to the fuel pump, Cornell educators hope to get youngsters excited about science, technology, engineering and math through interactive lessons in bioenergy with the help of $5 million from the U.S. Department
January 30, 2011 Read Full Article
USDA Accomplishments in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
by Tom Vilsack (USDA) At President Obama’s direction, the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working hard to unleash the power of America’s innovators and entrepreneurs to build a green energy economy. By producing renewable energy – especially biofuels – America’s farmers,
January 28, 2011 Read Full Article
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces Producer Payments to Promote Bioenergy Production in Rural America
(USDA) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced new investments in 33 states to support the production and usage of advanced biofuels. Vilsack highlighted these projects as ways the Obama Administration is working to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil
January 21, 2011 Read Full Article
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Outlines Progress on Effort to Advance Renewable Energy Production in America
(USDA) Expansion of Biofuels Reaches All Regions of the Country Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced January 20, 2011, that biofuels and biomass energy projects across America have been selected for funding to continue the Administration's support for the development of renewable
January 20, 2011 Read Full Article
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces BioPreferred Final Rule
(USDA) BioPreferredSM Program Designates Eight New Biobased Product Categories; More than 600 additional biobased products now eligible for preferred Federal purchasing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the designation of eight additional biobased product categories which are eligible for Federal procurement preference. With
January 20, 2011 Read Full Article
Enerkem Awarded Loan Guarantee from U.S. Department of Agriculture for Its Mississippi Waste-to-Fuel Biorefinery
(Enerkem) Enerkem Inc. today announced that Enerkem Corporation, its wholly-owned U.S. affiliate, has obtained a conditional commitment for an US$ 80 million loan guarantee by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), for the construction of its landmark waste-to-biofuels project in Pontotoc, Mississippi, which
January 20, 2011 Read Full Article
Effort under Way to Restore BCAP Funding in 2011 Appropriations Bill
by Sue Sterling (The Daily Star-Journal) Agricultural and environmental groups hope to convince legislators to restore funding for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program in the Senate Omnibus Appropriations Bill that will be considered in March. The BCAP program, enacted as part
January 07, 2011 Read Full Article
Vilsack Pushes to Turn Waste into Ethanol
by David DeWitte (Sioux City Journal) USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack expects a forthcoming round of federal grants to help start non-corn-based advanced biofuel plants outside the nation's traditional ethanol heartland boosting support for ethanol. The government plans to announce measures in early
January 04, 2011 Read Full Article
Vilsack's Emphasis: Make Ethanol More Available
(IStockAnalyst/Cedar Rapids Gazette) U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack thinks soon-to-be announced federal grants for cellulosic ethanol plants are helping boost flagging ethanol support in Congress. Vilsack said the government plans to announce measures in early 2011 to provide support
December 27, 2010 Read Full Article
House Votes to Extend Ethanol, Biodiesel, Renewable Diesel Tax Credits; Senate Drops Biofuels-Slashing Omnibus Bill
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Washington, the US House of Representatives voted by a 277 to 148 margin to approve the Obama tax deal, which extends the ethanol tax credit through 2011, and retroactively extends the biodiesel tax incentive and the renewable
December 17, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA Joins Effort to Increase FFV Awareness
by Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Surveys show that as many as 75 percent of flex-fuel vehicle (FFV) owners don’t know they can fill their vehicles with E85. Now, a new public awareness campaign will aim to change that. ...On Dec.
December 16, 2010 Read Full Article
DOE and Seven Other Agencies Launch Energy Export Initiative
(U.S. Department of Energy) U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today joined seven other U.S. Government agencies in launching the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Export Initiative, a coordinated effort to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency exports. In partnership with the
December 13, 2010 Read Full Article
New USDA Loan Guarantees, $50 Biofuels, Asia, Syngas among New Biofuels Trends, Gossip at Pacific Rim Summit
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Honolulu, much of the leadership of the advanced biofuels and renewables chemicals industries have gathered this week at BIO’s Pacific Rim Summit. ...(W)hat are the key trends? Here are 11 that the Digest spotted. 1.
December 13, 2010 Read Full Article
Report Questions Cellulosic Ethanol Merits
by Philip Brasher (Des Moines Register) A study making its way around the Agriculture Department raises doubts about the prospects for biofuels made from crop residue and other types of plant cellulose and calls for shifting the focus of government
November 21, 2010 Read Full Article
Summary of Cellulosic Biofuels & Biorefineries Summit Day 1
by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuesl USA) The Renewable Fuel Association's Bob Dinneen started the Cellulosic Biofuels & Biorefineries Summit with a call to the biofuels community--ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, advanced biofuels, renewable and biodiesel--to realize their common bonds and interests. Particularly,
November 16, 2010 Read Full Article
Summary of Cellulosic Biofuels Finance & Investment Forum
by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuels USA) Faith and Belief. Most impressive about the 2010 Cellulosic Biofuels Finance & Investment Forum, as compared to the 2009 event, was the whiff of positive belief that somehow, some way, cellulosic biofuels are becoming
November 15, 2010 Read Full Article
Utilities’ Perspectives on Biomass-to-Power Opportunities
by Cindy O'Connor (Advanced Biofuels USA) Washington, DC Biomass Finance & Investment Summit, October 13-15 2010: Friday Session Highlights The physical location of the utility plants determines the biomass –to –power opportunities. Reed Willis, President, ADAGE (Duke Energy investor) said currently power is
November 12, 2010 Read Full Article
U.S. Biofuel Production, Use Lags
by Philip Brasher (Zanesville Times Recorder) Motorists will use just a fraction of the next-generation biofuels in 2011 that Congress intended, and even that small amount depends on a single project in Iowa that isn't ready yet. ... Cellulose and algae are
November 10, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA Looks into Pennycress for Biodiesel
by John Davis (DomesticFuel) The USDA is looking into turning a common weed into biodiesel. Researchers with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have found that field pennycress, better known in some circles as stinkweed, puts out a large amount of oilseeds good
November 08, 2010 Read Full Article
Secretary of Agriculture Looks to Expand Local Ethanol Plant's Efforts Nationwide
by Sarah Bleau (MySouthwestGA.com) ...Congressman Sanford Bishop brought Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to tour First United Ethanol and talk about their plan to expand Southwest Georgia’s renewable energy efforts to a national level. “I’ve been to a few ethanol facilities in
October 26, 2010 Read Full Article
Illinois College to Develop Biofuels Program
Erin Voegele (Biodiesel Magazine) Ina, Ill.-based Rend Lake College has received a $60,835 grant from the USDA to support a three-part biofuels education program, which will include training on farm-based biodiesel production. The program is currently slated to run 18
October 22, 2010 Read Full Article
Remarks by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Biofuels as Prepared for Delivery at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
(EIN News/USDA) ...USDA announced assistance under the Recovery Act for 334 broadband expansions designed to reach more than 6 million people and 250,000 businesses in rural and remote areas. ...By launching the USDA led effort "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food"
October 22, 2010 Read Full Article
Vilsack Announces Funding for 5 New Biorefineries, FAA Partnership, among Major New Bioenergy Measures
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... "Today, I am directing the Rural Development mission area of USDA within 60 days to announce funding under the current Biorefinery Assistance Program for the construction (to commence in 2011) of a biorefinery or
October 22, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA Report Shows Improving Corn-Ethanol Energy Efficiency
(US Department of Agriculture) Harry Baumes, Acting Director of USDA’s Office of Energy Policy and New Uses, says a report that surveyed corn growers in 2005 and ethanol plants in 2008 indicates the net energy gain from converting corn to ethanol
September 22, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA Seeks Applications from Producers to Conduct Renewable Energy Feasibility Studies
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced September 7, 2010, the availability of funding under the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) to conduct feasibility studies for renewable energy systems for agriculture producers and rural small businesses. "Renewable energy production represents a promising
September 09, 2010 Read Full Article
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces Repowering Assistance Support to Reduce Biorefinery Fossil Fuel Use
(U.S. Department of Agriculture) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced September 9, 2010, the selection of a biorefinery producer to receive payments under a program to encourage the use of renewable biomass as a replacement for fossil fuels that provide process heat
September 09, 2010 Read Full Article
Company to Demonstrate Ethanol Extraction in Woodbine
by Ben Leach (Press of Atlantic City) A multimillion-dollar ethanol plant is planned for a former landfill site, but members of the community can get a sneak peak of the technology in action next week. Garden State Ethanol will demonstrate extracting the
August 20, 2010 Read Full Article
Advanced Biofuel Payment Program Stakeholder Announcement
(US Department of Agriculture) On March 12, 2010, the Rural Business-Cooperative Service (the Agency) published a notice in the Federal Register for the Advanced Biofuel Payment Program seeking requests from eligible advanced biofuel producers for additional, supplemental payments from the
August 16, 2010 Read Full Article
Vilsack: Unlikely Partnership for Our Clean Energy Future
Tom Vilsak (USDA/Richmond Times-Dispatch) ...America can no longer rely on energy sources that are growing increasingly difficult to find and utilize. We cannot accept an energy future that allows oil producers, whether they are controlled by a foreign state or
July 15, 2010 Read Full Article
ABO Recommends Three Key Changes to USDA Biorefinery Assistance Program
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...Among the changes proposed by the (Algal Biomass Organization) were: providing more flexible revenue requirements for qualifying under the program, including allowing consideration of co-product, or chemicals sales as part of revenue floors; increasing the
July 07, 2010 Read Full Article
The Name is Bond: New Concepts in Bond Financing May Break Biofuels Finance Logjam
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) A team from the investment bank Stern Brothers, the law firms Mintz Levin and Kreig DeVault have developed a bond-oriented approach that has received favorable initial reaction from the USDA, and may well break the logjam
May 14, 2010 Read Full Article
The Presidential Biofuels Directive: One Year Later, Where Are We?
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...The invite-only meeting, which attracted more than 100 attendees, was structured around two panels, one focused primarily on policy and led by USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber and featuring biofuels consortium head Jose Olivares (Los
May 14, 2010 Read Full Article
Vilsack: USDA Needs to Take Chances
by Jerry Hagstrom (Ag Week) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a White House clean energy forum May 6 that USDA may have to take bigger chances with its business loan guarantees if it is going to finance energy plants
May 14, 2010 Read Full Article
Biofuels Industry Eyes Growth
by Thom Gabrukiewicz (ArgusLeader.com) ...Tom Vilsack, the president's agriculture secretary, said Thursday that much progress has been made - but more must be done. "We're conducting the first national on-energy production survey to find out among 20,000 farms and ranches precisely
May 12, 2010 Read Full Article
An Interview with Chris Cassidy, Business and Renewable Energy Advisor to the USDA
by David Schwartz (Algae Industry Magazine) ...When we look at the markets, it will come down to transportation as the deal killer on biofuels, including algae. The longer the distance from the production site to the processing site and to
May 11, 2010 Read Full Article
DOE, USDA Announce Funding for Biomass Research and Development Initiative
(US Department of Energy) The U.S. Departments of Energy (DOE) and Agriculture (USDA) today jointly announced up to $33 million in funding for research and development of technologies and processes to produce biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products, subject to annual
May 11, 2010 Read Full Article
Indiana Biodiesel Operation Could Lose USDA Incentives
by Andy Eubank (Hoosier Ag Today) USDA Rural Development has a proposed rule on the table that would exclude the Louis Dreyfus biodiesel plant from USDA Advanced Biofuel Payment Program eligibility because of its foreign ownership. Many in Indiana, including
May 07, 2010 Read Full Article
Ethanol Co-Product Boosts Nutrition in Asian Flatbread
(PhysOrg.com) South Dakota State University food scientist Padu Krishnan said it is one example of the ways in which distillers dried grains with solubles, or DDGS, can help improve human nutrition worldwide. DDGS is produced as a co-product when processing corn
May 07, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA – Strategies for Promoting the Production of Advanced Biofuels
by Chavonda Jacobs-Young, Ph.D. (Director, Office of the USDA Chief Scientist) The USDA has a diverse protfolio of programs supporting the production of advanced biofuels. In this presentation to the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference in Washington, DC in April 2010,
May 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Hawaiian Sugarcane Firm to Drive Navy Biofuel Development
by James Cartledge (BrighterEnergy.org) The Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S) has said it is aiming to become a large-scale “energy farm” to provide biofuels for the US Navy and Hawaii itself. The company based in Pu’unene, Hawaii, is set to
April 09, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA Scientists Sequence Genome of Biofuel Model Crop
by Dennis O'Brien (Agricultural Research Service) U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their colleagues at the Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute announced that they have completed sequencing the genome of a kind of wild grass that will
February 17, 2010 Read Full Article
Navy Pact to Aid in Development of Biofuels
by Phillip Ewing (Navy Times) ... Navy scientists will be able to use the Department of Agriculture’s knowledge of corn, algae and other biofuels to help develop the alternatives the fleet needs if it is to meet (Navy Secretary Ray)
January 18, 2010 Read Full Article
DOE and USDA Select Projects for more than $24 Million in Biomass Research and Development Grants
The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy today announced projects selected for more than $24 million in grants to research and develop technologies to produce biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products. Of the $24.4 million announced today, DOE plans to
November 13, 2009 Read Full Article
Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply
USDA and DOE put together this study finding that there could be adequate biomass to displace 30% or more of current US annual petroleum consumption. READ MORE