With the start of the summer driving season just a couple of weeks away, President George W. Bush will seek to gain momentum for his plan to cut U.S. gasoline consumption by 20% over the next 10 years.

Bush will make an announcement on energy issues from the Rose Garden at 1:25 p.m. (EDT) on Monday to “announce his latest effort to ensure that the nation is taking aggressive steps to reduce gasoline consumption and to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday. “He will ask the administration to start implementing the 20-in-10 plan through regulatory action. At the same time he will continue to urge Congress to pass legislation to advance the goal.”

The national average for regular gasoline is now above $3 per gallon, so lawmakers are renewing their vows to crack down on price gouging. Last week, lawmakers said they want to look into whether OPEC, oil-industry mergers, and a lack of refining capacity are behind the rising prices.

In March, President Bush called on Congress to pass energy legislation by Memorial Day.  The White House sent lawmakers a draft bill to change the current renewable fuel standard to an alternative fuel standard and reform Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards for cars. Both are key parts of the administration’s strategy to boost the supply of renewable and alternative fuels to 35 billion gallons by 2017 and lower gasoline consumption.

Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell will brief reporters after Bush’s announcement Monday.

Distillers dried grains (DDGs), coproducts of converting corn into ethanol, are usually fed to livestock, but DDGs may soon be used to fight weeds and reduce herbicide. 

Plant physiologist Steve Vaughn and colleagues with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR) are seeking to identify new, value-added uses for farm-based commodities like DDGs and help bring them to commercial fruition by developing novel processing technologies.

Vaughn’s work over the past few years has shown that applying DDGs to soil as a surface mulch can not only suppress weeds, but also bolster the growth of tomatoes and some turfgrasses.  In one study, for example, Roma tomatoes in DDG-treated plots yielded 226 pounds, compared to 149 pounds from untreated control plots.

Vaughn attributes some of the increase to nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients released by the DDG mulch as it decayed.

In another study, using various analytical methods, NCAUR collaborator Mark Berhow is seeking to identify, measure, and monitor the activity of the chemicals in the DDG mulch that may have kept chickweed, annual rye, and other weeds from germinating.  Rick Boydston, an ARS collaborator at Prosser, Wash., tested the mulch’s weed control in potted ornamentals, including roses. He observed that DDGs worked best when applied to the soil surface, because mixing them into the soil harmed both ornamentals and weeds alike.

On another front at Peoria, ARS chemist Rogers Harry O’Kuru is examining DDGs for phytosterols, lecithin and other substances with potential use as health-promoting food ingredients.

The team’s efforts to expand the market for DDGs are timely.  In the Midwest, ethanol producers generate 10 million tons of DDGs annually. Farmers buy most of it for about $80 per ton and feed it to cows and other ruminants, but the nation’s increasing production of ethanol may create a DDG surplus that exceeds the current demand, Vaughn notes.
 

Yesterday, Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Pope Benedict XVI that Brazil will help Africa develop biofuels.
Brazil is  Pope Benedict arrived on Wednesday in Brazil, a world leader in developing ethanol from sugarcane.

Lula told the Pope he wanted to help with reducing African poverty by helping countries there develop biofuels, like ethanol.  Brazil’s ambassador to the Vatican, Vera Machado, said that although the Pope didn’t know much about biofuels, he certainly appreciated any action in support of Africa. Brazil currently has collaboration agreements with African crop scientists in Ghana through Brazil’s Embrapa crop-science institute.

Brazilian officials have said that it is also in the country’s economic interest to help create new ethanol-producing markets in order to expand global trade of the renewable fuel.  Brazil is the world’s only major ethanol exporter.

The U.S. Senate will consider a bill that would require the production of 15 billion gallons of renewable fuel from feedgrain-based ethanol by 2015.

An estimated 5.4 billion bushels of corn, whcih is roughly equal to 43% of the entire U.S. corn crop, would be needed to produce the 15 billion gallons proposed in the bill.
 

NCBA is providing information to Congress about the negative consequences S. 987 could have on beef producers; the impact of a 15 billion gallon renewable fuel standard for feedgrain-based ethanol could dramatically increase costs of gain and pressure feeder cattle and calf prices.
 

Policy approved by NCBA members earlier this year opposes additional mandates for grain-based ethanol.  Beef producers support a sunset on current ethanol subsidies and greater emphasis on renewable fuels derived from sources other than feedgrains.

The O Globo newspaper reports that Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, last week made its first shipment of ethanol to the United States last week.

According to thew publication, a vessel with 12,000 cubic meters of ethanol left the port of Rio de Janeiro for the U.S., and that Petrobas plans another shipment of 20,000 cubic meters of ethanol to the U.S. this month.

Despite imposing an import tax of more than $0.50 per gallon against Brazilian ethanol, the U.S. is Brazil’s top ethanol export market.  Petrobras said it should export around 850 million liters of ethanol in 2007, which includes markets like Nigeria and Venezuela and test volumes to Japan.

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson has introduced what he calls “groundbreaking legislation that offers tax breaks and guaranteed loans for small business for the development of bio-gas derived from animal waste.”
 

Biogas, a natural gas substitute that is created by the anaerobic digestion (AD) of animal wastes, is composed of at least 60%  methane, the principal ingredient in natural gas.  Biogas can be used as is on the farm, co-located with an ethanol plant, and cleaned up to be used as a renewable substitute for natural gas, propane, or other fossil fuels.  Nelson acknowledges that the technology to break down animal wastes to create bio-gas already exists and that it needs encouragement from the federal government to become a commercially-viable alternative to natural gas.
 

The bill, the Biogas Production Incentives Act of 2007, would encourage greater production of biogas for energy purposes by doing a number of things and would provide bio-gas producers with a tax credit of $4.27 for every mmBtu of biogas produced.
 

Biogas production also offers environmental benefits such as a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions of both carbon dioxide and methane, as well as improved water quality through better manure management.
 

Sen. Nelson says the bill “would provide loans, loan guarantees and/or grants for the multi-farm collection and transportation of qualified energy feedstock from smaller livestock operations to a qualified facility, or for the purchase or construction of equipment or facilities for collection and transportation,” as well as creating a counter-cyclical safety net for biogas producers by providing payment from Commodity Credit Corporation funds to qualified biogas producers only when the annual average daily prices of natural gas falls below a certain level.
 

“We’ve made great strides in developing an ethanol industry in Nebraska and we should do more to diversify and expand our production of bio-fuels and renewable energy. My legislation will put into place tax incentives and financial support for large scale and small scale producers to get involved in biogas production and help America win the battle for energy independence.”

Texas A&M Agriculture is scheduled to host U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Gale Buchanan and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples today for a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the most promising biomass research efforts within The Texas A&M University System.
 

“Corn is a viable way to produce ethanol from starch,” said Dr. Elsa Murano, who serves as Vice Chancellor of Agriculture and Life Sciences for the A&M System and also directs the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, where scientists are digging into a range of biofuels alternatives. “But that’s not the only option for Texas and the southern part of the country.”
 

Texas not only grow corn for biofuels, but it can also capitalize on decades of sorghum research at the Experiment Station, Murano said. The giant sorghum varieties being grown in experimental plots today are drought-tolerant, can be grown across the state, and offer high yields in ethanol.  “Based upon our analyses, we find it’s efficient to take something like our new sorghum varieties or sugar cane that produces large volumes of biomass, rather than producing grain and then converting grain-starch to ethanol,” Murano said.
 

Texas is uniquely posed to take advantage of this developing technology as a leading agricultural state with a large forest industry, a major biomass producer with diverse growing environments, and major universities and agencies with energy expertise, said Bob Avant, program manager for the A&M System’s Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.
 

Avant adds that Texas is an energy-friendly state, producing 26% of the U.S. domestic oil and 29% of natural gas.  The state already has an “extensive energy infrastructure in place,” with 26 existing refineries, 135,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, and a large structure of pipelines for transporting crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas.

University of Missouri Extension livestock specialist Dona Funk says that the first thing you should think about when hearing of a cow or steer that went down is not mad cow disease; it’s polio.
 

Polio is rare in cattle but could become more common as more livestock producers feed cattle ethanol byproducts, which can have enough sulfur to cause polio in cattle.  Polio can be in an acute form that causes sudden death, or it can trigger staggering and blindness or cause animals to be down.
 

In addition to high sulfur, polio also can be caused by lead toxicity, salt toxicity, or thiamine deficiency.  The amount of sulfur and other chemicals in ethanol byproducts (dried distillers grain with solubles) varies among ethanol plants and among loads from the same plant.  Funk said farmers feeding ethanol byproducts to livestock should seek to have each load they get tested each month.  Most area farmers feed the byproduct in liquid form that is spread on hay bales in limited quantities, Funk said.
 

Most potential for polio could be in parts of Western Missouri that have elevated sulfur levels in the water.  Combine this with sulfur from another source and polio potential is increased, agreed Al Decker, Butler extension livestock specialist.
Although the National Research Council recommends that the maximum tolerable dietary concentration of sulfur in the ration on a dry matter basis should not exceed 0.4 %, Decker says that not all cattle getting that amount - or more - will develop clinical polio.  He cites research in South Dakota that indicate dietary sulfur levels of 0.7% or more of dry matter may cause polio in growing cattle.  Ruminant microbial populations - trace concentrations of ruminant pH - can impact sulfur production and absorption, he said.

John Nowatzki, a North Dakota State University Extension Service agricultural machine systems specialist, says that using biodiesel in diesel engines helps reduce harmful emissions.

“With the increasing availability of biodiesel for both on- and off-road use in diesel engines, there also is increasing interest in the effect of its use on the environment,” he says.

In 2002, the EPA conducted a comprehensive analysis of biodiesel impacts on exhaust emissions and found that tailpipe emissions from engines using biodiesel are significantly lower than the emissions from similar engines operated on petroleum diesel.  Particulate matter, hydrocarbon emissions, and carbon monoxide emissions from engines using biodiesel were all less than those using petroleum diesel.

“The pollutant that is more serious from engines operated on biodiesel, compared with petroleum, is nitrogen oxide,” Nowatzki says. “Nitrogen oxide emissions are about 10 percent higher using biodiesel. Reducing nitrogen oxide emissions is a crucial component of EPA’s strategy for cleaner air and reducing acid rain. There is an effort to modify diesel engine combustion and exhaust systems to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.”

CO2 emissions are similar from engines operated on biodiesel or petroleum diesel, but the CO2 produced from burning petroleum diesel and emitted to the atmosphere comes from sources long sequestered in the earth. Oil seed crops actually take carbon from the atmosphere during their growth cycles and store that carbon in the ground.

“When comparing the total life cycle of carbon emissions from the two fuels, petroleum diesel has a more negative effect on the environment,” Nowatzki says. “A study of the biodiesel and petroleum diesel life cycles jointly found that because biodiesel production requires such small amounts of fossil fuel, its CO2 life cycle emissions are much lower than those of petroleum diesel. Biodiesel reduces net CO2 emissions by more than 78 percent compared with petroleum diesel. A primary conclusion of the study is that displacing petroleum diesel with biodiesel in urban buses is an extremely effective strategy for reducing CO2 emissions.”  The aforementioned study was conducted by the USDA and Department of Energy.

The Sao Paulo Sugarcane Industry Association, or Unica, said that it will some time this week (no meeting date had been reported) to discuss potentially increasing the ethanol output from the current 2006-07 sugarcane crop.

 
Unica president Eduardo Carvalho told Dow Jones Newswires that Brazil, the world’s leading sugar and sugarcane ethanol producer, is expected to crush roughly 50% of the cane for sugar and another 50% for ethanol, but low sugar prices and high ethanol demand could see the ethanol mix increase.

 
Carvalho said Unica associates, which are the top executives at Brazil’s main sugar and ethanol mills, would also discuss presenting the government another proposal to raise the ethanol content mix in gasoline from current levels of 23%.  He did not say what the new number could be, but the sector has asked for a 25% mix in the past.