World Perspectives
biofuel energy

Drinking the Kool-Aid

U.S. ethanol production is plunging, and producers are demanding a fix. Some sources say that this week was the lowest ethanol output and highest stocks on record going back to 2010. Ethanol advocate and powerful Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is suggesting USDA/CCC funds could be used to stockpile ethanol, noting that the government is currently buying crude oil to store in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), easing a glut on the market caused by lower U.S. driving demand and a global oversupply caused by a disagreement between major producers Saudi Arabia and Russia over cuts to oil output. However, there are several issues related to the proposal. For one, ethanol is an additive and without it, the nation’s motor vehicles woul...

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From WPI Consulting

Communicating importance of value-added products

Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.

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