Comments for Renergie's Weblog

Comment on Florida Companies Follow Renergie’s Lead in Producing Ethanol from Sweet Sorghum by renergie

renergie — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:12:49 +0000

Calvin,

I apologize for not responding sooner. I have been traveling. Renergie is researching sweet sorghum varieties capable of growing in colder climates. At this point, we believe 45 degrees latitude is too far north for sweet sorghum to be commercially viable as a feedstock for ethanol. I will keep you posted.

Comment on Florida Companies Follow Renergie’s Lead in Producing Ethanol from Sweet Sorghum by Calvin Leman

Calvin Leman — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:22:35 +0000

Any chance sorgum grow in Salmon, Idaho at 4000 ft and 45 degrees latitude?

Comment on Measuring Corn Ethanol’s Thirst for Water by bfellow

bfellow — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:36:10 +0000

It is amazing the amount of unintentional harm that can be done when trying to do a good thing. I hope that the money Florida is putting up is well spent.

Comment on Small-scale Distributed Energy in Wisconsin Benefits Farmers, Local Communities by Small-scale Distributed Energy in Wisconsin Benefits Farmers, Local Communities « Christopher A. Haase

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:32:15 +0000

[...] Read more from Renergie’s Weblog Posted by EHS Director EHS News Subscribe to RSS feed [...]

Comment on Measuring Corn Ethanol’s Thirst for Water by Ethanol from corn consumes 3 times more water than previously thought. « Christopher A. Haase

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:32:08 +0000

[...] full from Renergie’s Weblog Posted by EHS Director EHS News Subscribe to RSS [...]

Comment on Four Ways to Solve the Energy Crisis by Gordon Grimes

Gordon Grimes — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:19:31 +0000

If you use Black Liquor for methanol where would the paper companies get the steam and electricity they now generate by burning it in their boilers? Foreign oil? They use Black Liquor to power their mills. You take it away and that forces them to find another source of power.

Comment on Getting Ethanol Right by Gary Edwards

Gary Edwards — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:21:06 +0000

Interesting is the misinformation about alternative sources of biomass not competing with food crops. The reason corn was chosen as the fuel of choice is because it is plentiful, easy to grow, easy to transport, a dense stock making it cheap to transport, and has the greatest chance of increasing yields in the future to meet the demands for bio fuel. Other alternatives as switch grass are bulky and expensive to transport and handle. Corn and switch grass are both from the grass family and both respond equally to productive soils and high management including added nitrogen. The common fallacy to the advanced fuels debate is that switch grass will not divert crops away from the food industry. The Midwest will grow the best alternative fuels in the nation and as a farmer, if I can make more money growing and selling switch grass I will change corn acres to switch grass acres in a heart beat.
On the indirect land issue, why do people think they have the right to tell some farmer in the developing countries they should not have the ability to support their family by producing a crop the world needs. After all, the reason the United States was first settled is because the European nations ran out of room to produce enough food to feed themselves. Now today when U.S. farmers are helping feeding the world as well as providing a renewable fuel, there are those in the developed nations that want to deny the rest of the world a chance to do the same. All in the name of climate change.

Comment on Gov. Culver: Requests Federal Government for E-15 Ethanol Waiver by Rhonda Burnside

Rhonda Burnside — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:01:11 +0000

I am in favor of increasing the ethanol blend to 15% or higher to help clean up
the air and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. This increase will also encourage investment in the renewable fuels industry and increase the demand for corn in the USA.

Comment on Valero May Close Memphis Plant if State Law Passes by stopethanol

stopethanol — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:47:07 +0000

“Federal law mandates each gallon of gasoline sold contains a percentage of renewable fuel such as ethanol.”

This is a lie. The federal RFS act, EISA 2007, defines renewable fuel as E85. There is no mention of E10 or any other ethanol blend but E85. EISA 2007 is not a mandatory E10 law or a mandatory ethanol law. The problem obtains from the fact that nobody wants the ridiculously inefficient flex-fuel vehicles. If car manufacturers would build engines that would run efficiently on E85 only and service station chains would take advantage of the incredible corporate welfare dished out in EISA 2007 for E85, nobody would be pumping E10.

The actual reality that Valero, nor any other refiner, will talk about is that when they make gasoline for E10, they get to manufacture “suboctane” blending product, thus reducing their costs. Valero makes 84 AKI regular gasoline blending product, called BOB, that when blended with 10% ethanol results in 87 AKI regular E10. Same for premium. If they had to supply clear product for blender pumps, they would have to supply 87 AKI regular gasoline so that if someone pumped unblended gasoline into their car by choice, which most people would do if they had a choice, they would get the proper “octane” gasoline. There is nothing in EISA 2007 that prohibits this.

Comment on Why the Ethanol Import Tariff Should be Repealed by Corn Ethanol – Will Obama Cave To Yet Another Special Interest Group | Cincinnatus Blog /// Political, Social and Environmental Commentary

Tue, 05 May 2009 18:53:49 +0000

[...] to sell us ethanol made from more efficient sugar cane we tack on an additional $.54 a gallon in import duties. What better way to stick it to the American consumer? What accounts for this foolishness? There [...]