Ethanol. Right. Now.

ACE partners with BBI International on ethanol conference

The American Coalition for Ethanol is excited to announce its 24th annual ACE Ethanol Conference, to be held August 22-24, 2011 at the Downtown Marriott Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa. Registration for the conference will open soon at Ethanol.org.

The ACE Ethanol Conference will continue to provide an outstanding venue for industry speakers, networking opportunities, information-sharing, and updates on what’s happening in the industry today. As in past ACE conferences, the program will include key leaders in public policy, market development, management and leadership, and other topics of interest to ethanol plant board members, management, investors, commodity producers, and goods and service providers to the industry.

In recent years, the American Coalition for Ethanol has paired its annual conference with an industry trade show. This year, to better serve its members, ACE is pleased to announce that it will partner with BBI International as a Supporting Organization for the Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW). This allows ethanol industry suppliers and plant operators to concentrate on one trade show, and gives ACE the opportunity to focus its efforts on providing a top-notch conference.

“ACE is thrilled to continue to provide our members with the best conference event possible, and supporting the Fuel Ethanol Workshop will enable ACE to continue to offer members a trade show option while focusing our efforts on presenting an informative and valuable conference event,” said Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of ACE.

ACE’s status as a Supporting Organization of the Fuel Ethanol Workshop will allow ACE members to receive discounted registration to this summer’s event, to be held June 27-30 in Indianapolis. ACE members will continue to receive discounted registration to the ACE conference in Des Moines.

More information about the ACE Ethanol Conference will be available soon at Ethanol.org

Remembering the BP oil spill, one year later

One year ago, the world watched as an environmental catastrophe unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico. This article recalls the event:

"On the night of April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a rig operated by Transocean Ltd.,  burst into flames as it was drilling a well for BP PLC., killing 11 workers on or near the drilling floor. The rest of the crew evacuated, but two days later the rig toppled into the Gulf and sank to the sea floor. The bodies were never recovered.

Over the next 85 days, 206 million gallons of oil -- 19 times more than the Exxon Valdez spilled -- spewed from the well. In response, the nation commandeered the largest offshore fleet of vessels since D-Day, and BP spent billions of dollars to clean up the mess, saving itself from collapse."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo gallery seen here is well worth the time to page through the 33 pictures, as a remembrance of the 11 lives tragically lost, and a recognition of "the real cost of oil."

Posted by: Kristin Brekke, Communications Director, American Coalition for Ethanol

Guest Editorial: Ethanol must be part of energy independence

This guest editorial is from Mike Jerke, General Manager of Chippewa Valley Ethanol Co. in Benson, Minnesota. It appears in the April edition of "ET Field Notes," the membership publication for members of the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE).

 

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Mexico, China, Norway, Canada, Venezuela, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. These are, in order, the top oil producing countries in the world, and the United States imports between 50 to 70 percent of its oil – around 11 million barrels per day – from nine of them (only Iran is cut off from U.S. import dollars).

This worries me. Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez is openly hostile to the United States and has more than once threatened to halt oil exports to us. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates are known to funnel profits from oil into anti-Western Islamist education around the world. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has noted, when we buy oil from them, we’re basically funding hostility against ourselves.

The bottom line, though, is this: since we consume far more oil than we produce, the health of our transportation system – and thus our economy as a whole – is dependent on governments and events far beyond our control. A shift in the marketplace here, a drop in production there, or political instability anywhere could quickly make $3 seem like a bargain price for a gallon of gas.

If this seems like an exaggeration, consider the oil embargo of 1973, when OPEC nations were able to quadruple the price of gasoline – and cause widespread economic damage to the United States and other nations – simply by reducing output. Even now, the current Oil Minister of Iran shrugs off any concern over oil at $120 per barrel (which translates into gas at $4 per gallon or more).

Nothing short of energy independence will alleviate my worry. If U.S. producers filled all the fuel needs of U.S. consumers, we wouldn’t have to worry about political unrest or, to use Friedman’s phrase, “petro-dictators” disrupting our transportation and economic systems.

But how do we get to energy independence? R. James Woolsey, foreign policy analyst and former CIA director, thinks we should increase the use of ethanol, methanol, and other non-gasoline fuels, along with other measures like making natural gas the fuel for fleet vehicles like trucks and buses, improving mileage standards, electrifying as much automotive transportation as possible, and expanding domestic oil exploration. I agree with Woolsey, but would add that only the ethanol industry has:
•    a well-developed and expanding infrastructure for manufacturing and distribution,
•    plants that consistently produce a profit while also increasing production,
•    the ability to claim one large country (Brazil) and a growing number of areas around the world as places that use ethanol to meet over 25% of their liquid fuel needs.

Ethanol, in other words, is more than a promising piece of the energy independence puzzle. It is an established source of our current energy supply, and it has proven that it can move the country toward a more reliable and sustainable energy future.

If we are willing to subject ourselves to routine economic shocks from undemocratic and unpredictable world players, then ethanol is an unneeded commodity. If we want to move toward energy independence, however, greater ethanol use and production – along with a sound federal ethanol policy – is a must.