ethanol

Over the past two decades, the demand for renewable fuels — including corn-based ethanol — has helped drive a strong domestic market for corn, and supported rural America by generating jobs (PDF, 1.5 MB). New research is confirming that corn ethanol also has more greenhouse gas benefits than...

Ethanol, primarily derived from corn, supplies about 10 percent of US motor fuel needs. A new study from ICF which was released today, titled “ A Life-Cycle Analysis of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Based Ethanol,” finds that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with corn-based ethanol...

Erik Chaffer considers himself an optimist. Still, he found himself feeling pretty low as he watched the Great Recession knock the legs out from under the rural Ohio ethanol plant he helped manage. “Everything was pretty good until July 2008. It was just a ‘perfect storm’ type of situation,” said...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA's rich science and research portfolio. Sometimes, the results of USDA science show up in the most unlikely places—maybe even in your cat’s litter box. USDA...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA's rich science and research portfolio. If you’re of a certain age, you might remember General Douglas MacArthur’s famous corncob pipe, or the one sported by...

On Friday, May 17, 2013, in Mexico City, Mexico USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack led U.S. and Mexican agribusiness representatives in a discussion of priority issues affecting North American agriculture. The roundtable’s participants represented the breadth and diversity of agricultural trade between the...

A mid-winter snow storm did not stop more than 200 participants from attending the 7 th Annual Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit and Trade Show held January 30 th in Des Moines. During Under Secretary for Rural Development Dallas Tonsager’s presentation it was clear that everyone in attendance was...

Rob Green’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed “The cause of higher grocery bills isn’t the drought. It’s the failed federal ethanol policy” fails to take into consideration a host of factors, other than demand for corn, that affect food prices. In the domestic and global markets commodity, labor...

As Americans joined family and friends to celebrate America’s independence, tens of millions took to our highways and Interstates – and I know that gas prices were on the minds of many. President Obama understands the impact gas prices can have for families, and he is committed to an “all of the...

At USDA we applaud today’s action by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that essentially completes the federal actions necessary to allow consumers to buy fuel containing up to 15 percent ethanol (E15). This announcement gets us one step closer to giving American consumers a real choice at...