Biofuels Digest Index jumps 6.59 percent to 57.41 on US election hopes
Biofuels Digest
November 5, 2008
The Biofuels Digest Index™ (BDI), a basket of public biofuels stocks, jumped 6.59 percent to 57.41 as the US election took place. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) leaped 15.25 percent to $24.33, while Aventine Renewable Energy (AVR) fell 22.50 percent to $1.55. Among small caps, Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) jumped 39 percent to $1.39. Overall, advances led declines 2 to 1 for the day.
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Obama Camp Closely Linked With Ethanol
By LARRY ROHTER
New York Times, June 23, 2008
When VeraSun Energy inaugurated a new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa, some of that industry’s most prominent boosters showed up. Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, for instance, came to help cut the ribbon — and so did Senator Barack Obama.
his friend Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota…now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, “he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy.”
Mr. Obama’s lead advisor on energy and environmental issues, Jason Grumet, came to the campaign from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan initiative associated with Mr. Daschle and Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who is also a former Senate majority leader and a big ethanol backer who had close ties to the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.
Not long after arriving in the Senate, Mr. Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation’s largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state.
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Corn ethanol generates less than two units of energy for every unit of energy used to produce it, while the energy ratio for sugar cane is more than 8 to 1. With lower production costs and cheaper land prices in the tropical countries where it is grown, sugar cane is a more efficient source. “It does not serve our national and economic security to replace imported oil with Brazilian ethanol,” he argued.
Mr. Obama does talk regularly about developing switchgrass, which flourishes in the Midwest and Great Plains, as a source for ethanol. While the energy ratio for switchgrass and other types of cellulosic ethanol is much greater than corn, economists say that time-consuming investments in infrastructure would be required to make it viable, and with corn nearing $8 a bushel, farmers have little incentive to shift. Ethanol industry executives and advocates have not made large donations to either candidate for president, an examination of campaign contribution records shows. But they have noted the difference between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain.
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The candidates’ views were tested recently in the Farm Bill approved by Congress that extended the subsidies for corn ethanol, though reducing them slightly, and the tariffs on imported sugar cane ethanol. Because Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama were campaigning, neither voted. But Mr. McCain said that as president he would veto the bill, while Mr. Obama praised it.
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Inside Obama’s green plan for energy and the economy
Edward Silver
Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2008
A detailed look at Sen. Barack Obama’s proposals on energy — and which companies could benefit most from the candidate’s blueprint if he wins the White House.
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Obama energy policies and pronouncements
Biofuels Digest
November 5, 2008
Recap of major Obama policies, staff announcements, and some investigations on Obama positions and the candidate himself.
Links:
Obama candidates for Energy, Agriculture, EPA, Interior and climate czar
Obama will declare CO2 a pollutant, regulate under Clean Air Act, EPA,
says top energy adviser
Sen. Barack Obama says “corn-based ethanol is not optimal”
Sen. Barack Obama calls high feed prices a short-term problem
Sen. Barack Obama says “We have to invest in research on biodiesel,
biomass and new forms of ethanol.”
NY Times probes ties of Obama advisers to ethanol industry
Obama a consistent supporter of ethanol
Obama endorses cap-and-trade
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U.S. biofuels sector sees ally in Obama
WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Reuters)
U.S. biofuel makers, struggling to make a profit at a time of tumbling oil and gasoline prices, look upon President-elect Barack Obama as a staunch ally for growth.
Obama has expressed support for the federal requirement to use ethanol, made mostly from corn, as a motor fuel and says he will accelerate the development of new feedstocks. That is a great contrast from foodmakers and livestock producers who tried last summer to scale back the ethanol mandate.
Ethanol makers believe Obama’s victory will give them a more assured path into the future. The 2007 energy law sets a target of using 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, including 15 billion gallons of grain-based ethanol by 2015.
“What is good for biofuels is good for much of agribusiness — particularly elements leveraged to the crop sector such as farm equipment, seed developers and others,” said analyst Mark McMinimy of Stanford Washington Research. “And in this sense, the election outcome may be the gift that keeps giving for biofuels and crop-related industries.” Voters in western Minnesota reelected Collin Peterson, the House Agriculture Committee chairman. A Democrat, Peterson advocated programs in the 2008 farm law that will encourage commercial development of cellulosic ethanol.
“I’d like to see us do nationwide a 15 percent blend,” said Peterson in an interview with Reuters, up from the current 10 percent ethanol content in gasoline. “Obama would be supportive of whatever we (Congress) come up with.”
The Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group, said Obama was steadfast in backing ethanol, biodiesel and other biofuels throughout the campaign. Ethanol output, running at an annualized rate of 10 billion gallons a year, is approaching a “blend wall” when production equals the legal limit for use.
“In order to achieve the full promise offered by America’s ethanol industry, expanding markets for ethanol is critical,” said RFA earlier this week.
Ethanol production has tripled since 2003 and, at latest count, equaled 10 billion gallons a year. The industry has been stressed by highly volatile oil and corn prices.
The second-largest U.S. producer, VeraSun Energy Corp, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.
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American Corn Growers Association endorses Obama
Biofuels Digest
August 25, 2008
In Washington, the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) endorsed Senator Barack Obama, becoming the first major biofuels-related trade association to issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential campaign.
Keith Bolin, ACGA president Keith Bolin released this statement: “While John McCain is a great man and a true hero, he has built a very pronounced and consistent record on agriculture and ethanol during his twenty-two years as a U.S. Senator, and it is perhaps the single most negative record of any Senator. When compared to Senator Obama, who supports the expansion of renewable energy such as advanced ethanol, biodiesel and wind generated electricity, our decision was obvious.”
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Farm Progress, a Rural Press/Fairfax Media subsidiary in the United States, posed a series of agricultural policy questions to the Obama and McCain camps late in the long campaign.
Q: What are your views on the food vs. fuel debate?
Obama:
“Corn-based ethanol has been an important transitional technology in helping make America more energy independent.
However, it has limitations, and that’s why I am committed to accelerating the transition to advanced biofuels.
I support an array of policies to speed the transition away from corn and toward low-carbon, sustainable alternatives that do not rely on food crops.
There are many flavours of ethanol – different feed stocks, different production approaches, different carbon footprints.
In contrast, there is only one flavor of oil – expensive, polluting and largely imported.
As president, I will work to phase in at least 2 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol into the national fuel supply by 2013.”
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Adam Shake in Gas 2.0 blog
November 5, 2008
In Terre Haute, Indiana last March Barack Obama said: “Corn-based ethanol is not optimal. I’ve been a big supporter of corn-based ethanol. I come from a corn state, Illinois, and it’s a good transitional technology, but the truth is, it is not as efficient as what the Brazilians are doing with sugar cane.”
He has said he intends to charge polluters for their negative impact on global warming and then reinvest those funds in wind, solar and clean coal.
