Ethanol. Right. Now.

American Coalition for Ethanol announces final agenda for conference

The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) today announced the final agenda for its conference to be held August 3-5 in Kansas City.  The organization’s 23^rd annual ACE Ethanol Conference & Trade Show will take place in Bartle Hall at the Kansas City Convention Center.

The full, final agenda is published here: http://www.ethanol.org/index.php?id=94&parentid=30

Activities begin on Tuesday morning with the Jeff Fox Memorial Golf Tournament, and continue that evening with the Welcome Reception in the ACE Trade Show.

The conference begins Wednesday morning with breakout sessions on a variety of topics, and the general session begins Wednesday afternoon with addresses by leadership from ACE and the National Corn Growers Association, and a keynote address by Anne Korin, co-author of “Turning Oil into Salt: Energy Independence through Fuel Choice” and co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

The general session continues on Thursday morning, with a concluding keynote address by Marc Rauch, co-founder of The Auto Channel.

Online registration for the event will remain open until Thursday, July 29 at www.ethanol.org under the “Conference” menu heading.  People interesting in attending may also register on-site in Kansas City beginning Tuesday morning, August 3.  Members of the media may register for a complimentary media pass by contacting Kristin Brekke ([email protected]). 

Ethanol efficiency to be featured at ACE conference in Kansas City

Two new studies on ethanol efficiency have found that the ethanol production process itself is more efficient and the resulting ethanol has a more positive energy balance.

The first is from Dr. Steffen Mueller at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studied the dry mill ethanol process and found that today's ethanol producers are using far fewer energy inputs than they did in 2001, as well as producing more ethanol per bushel of corn.  That study can be read here.

The second is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a study on the net energy balance of ethanol.  The agency has updated data from 2004 and found that for every 1 BTU (British Thermal Unit) of energy used to create ethanol today, 2.3 BTUs of energy are produced in return.  This is a clearly positive energy balance, up from the 1 to 1.77 positive energy balance from 2004 data.  The USDA report can be read here.

The technology innovations that are driving these increases in efficiency will be featured at the American Coalition for Ethanol conference in Kansas City on August 3-5.  The full agenda may be viewed here.  We hope to see you there!