However, it doesn't address fuel economy standards or include a mandate for ethanol production.
Brazil, another large ethanol producer, uses sugar instead of corn for ethanol production.
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Hundreds of filling stations in Bangkok offer gasohol made with ethanol from sugar cane, helped by Thai tax breaks for ethanol production.
In 2008, the federal mandate for ethanol production was 9 billion gallons.
An immutable fact is now clear for all to see: Food prices track oil prices, regardless of how much corn is used for ethanol production.
Since U.S. farmers provide about 70% of all global corn exports, even small diversions for ethanol production have produced high inflation levels in America and shortages abroad.
Because corn is increasingly used for ethanol production, it has decoupled from historical livestock cycles and changed the margin relationship between feed costs and the sale of livestock products.
Gore's "mistake" was a whopper: Corn is a poor substrate for ethanol production because it takes a lot of conventional fossil energy to grow and ferment it, and its diversion to ethanol production creates a conflict between two of our most fundamental needs--food and energy.
So I asked Joel Valesco, Chief Representative in North America for the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) about specific subsidies Brazil provides for their ethanol production.
The standard sets targets for the amount of ethanol production in the country through 2022 and allows for long-range planning in the industry, says Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association.
Still, the group this week joined other animal producers in calling for a reduction in corn ethanol production mandates, saying pricing and availability of corn for feed is threatened by the combination of a small corn crop this year and the government mandate, which will use about four of every 10 bushels of corn.
But regular corn-based ethanol is unlikely to be the fuel choice of American motorists anytime soon--not least because only so much farmland can be devoted to growing corn for ethanol without denting food production.
Late Thursday night, the Senate voted 65-27 in favor of legislation to overhaul of the nation's fuel economy standards for autos and dramatically boost ethanol production.
Roughly 40% of the U.S corn crop was diverted to the production of ethanol for gasoline in 2010, up from 20% in 2006.
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Not only is the Brazilian real weakening, the long term commodity trend in the U.S. is for higher corn prices on account of ethanol production.
The United States, for its part, has several reasons to encourage ethanol production in Latin America.
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They would as well provide tax credits for high-ethanol fuel pumps, refineries and other biofuels production.
Even if the country did increase its bioenergy crops and started doing a better job of collecting agricultural wastes for use as cellulosic ethanol feedstocks, the cost of biofuel production is still higher than the market would likely tolerate.
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Pure Power processes the woody biomass to produce ethanol for fuel, xylitol for food sweetening and lignin for the production of biopolymers.
On the list: an ambitious plan to increase ethanol and biofuel production, and a distinction between fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks.
In particular, state-level ethanol-production incentives and bans on certain gases by California and other states have spurred demand for more environmentally-friendly corn-based fuels.
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