Triangle Biofuels Blog

You’d think after all the rants on this blog about how the media botches stories on biofuels that I would know better than to do an interview with a local business journal. Apparently not.

Several weeks ago I did a 20 – 30 minute interview with the Triangle Business Journal regarding the biofuels industry in North Carolina. I did not know the context of the article, but simply answered Frank’s questions regarding the status of the industry in this state and how the market economy was treating biofuels in general. I stated over several sentences that if the commodities market didn’t improve to invert high feedstock prices and low petroleum prices, that the biodiesel industry would be in trouble and that we (NC biodiesel plants in general) would be in trouble like many of the other plants in the industry which are either idle or out of business.

Somehow that 20 minute conversation got translated into one sentence that quotes me as saying “We’re not that far from shutting down”. Thanks.

So to all of my customers, creditors, and friends out there worrying about whether or not I’m about to go bankrupt, the answer is no, we’re doing fine. Things are a little tight for us just like everybody else right now, but we’re far from shutting the doors and turning out the lights.

Thanks Triangle Business Journal for your very succinct and insensitive journalism. That will be my last interview with you.

Read the full story on the Triangle Business Journal at: http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2009/07/06/story2.html

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From domesticfuel.com:

A YouTube video of EPA official Margo Oge testifying before a House panel in May reveals her providing radically incorrect information about the amount of corn and soybeans it takes to make biofuels.

The blunder occurred when Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) asked Ms. Oge, who is responsible for regulating all emissions within the United States, about the indirect land use issue. “It’s my understanding that the EPA’s Renewable Fuels Standard 2 methodology assumes that for every acre of soybean crop that is used to produce biofuel, an equal acre of ground is used in the Brazilian rainforest to replace that acreage, is that correct?” asked Schock.

“Obviously we know that it takes about 64 acres for a gallon of soy biodiesel,” she begins, and then corrects herself, even more incorrectly. “It’s actually the opposite. It takes 64 acres for corn ethanol and over 400 acres for a gallon of biodiesel.”

Actually, one acre of soybeans makes 64 gallons of biodiesel and one acre of corn makes over 400 gallons of ethanol. This may have been just a simple mistake – or maybe she really doesn’t know – but it is now possible that members of the U.S. House Small Business Committee believe that it takes a huge amount of corn and soybeans to produce biofuels because that is what she told them.

The YouTube video with commentary was posted anonymously by an account called “FreedomIs1st” and no one in the biofuels industry has taken credit for it – but it is very good and should be shared. In fact, it might be good for people in the industry to write to their congressional representatives, especially if they are on the House Small Business committee, to make sure they have the facts.

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