REG Biodiesel powers transports at Farm Progress and Beer Tour

Chuck and Joanna have been giving you some great coverage of Farm Progress Show from Boone, Iowa here on Domestic Fuel and over at AgWired.com. It only seems fitting that the country’s premier farm show is being powered by Iowa-based biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group (REG). And in the same tradition of having a cold beer after a long day at Farm Progress (I understand that maybe one or two have been consumed during the time in Boone, Iowa), REG is playing a major role in a beer tour throughout the Midwest.
New Belgium Brewing of Ft. Collins, Colo. recently called on biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group of Ames, Iowa to provide sustainable, clean-burning B100 to power the Midwest portion of the brewing company’s renowned thirteen-city, national bicycle festival.
The Tour de Fat—named for the brewery’s signature Fat Tire beer—spreads the good word about the positive societal offerings of bicycle use as well as showcases the outstanding green practices of New Belgium.
“We try to minimize the environmental impact of our events at every turn and that’s why our transport trucks ran on pure biodiesel,” said New Belgium’s Matt Kowal. “Our philanthropic bike festival, Tour de Fat, celebrates bicycling as a viable form of alternative transport.”
Decker Truck Lines, LLC of Fort Dodge, Iowa served as the event hauler for the Midwest portion of the Tour de Fat’s and burned B100.
“New Belgium has made a commitment to using biodiesel made from sustainable sources like waste oils, fats and greases in order to help reduce our corporate carbon footprint by at least 25 percent. We are pleased that we can continue that commitment by burning Iowa-produced biodiesel produced from another industry’s waste stream,” stated tour impresario Matt Kowal, who works at the brewery year ‘round producing the festival and emceeing its 13 stops (this year) around the country.
Now that’s something you can truly raise a cold one to.
In this event, they used pure biodiesel, or B100, which is not usually done, and that pleases me to no end. I want to know what you can do with pure biodiesel, and any project doing that should post in our forum, www.biodieselnow.com because it is significant progress and a gathering of knowledge.
Interview with Rob Joslin, President, American Soybean Association

Commodity group leaders always make time to visit with the media at Farm Progress Show. One of them I spoke with yesterday was Rob Joslin, President, American Soybean Association. Rob is a soybean grower from Ohio. In the photo he’s on the left and speaking with Stu Ellis. I asked him about the issues that ASA is working on and the biodiesel tax extension is number one since with Congress allowing it to expire last year it has “virtually idled the vast majority of the domestic biodiesel industry” which he finds very disappointing.
You can listen to my interview with Rob here:
Interview With Rob Joslin
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Farm Progress Photo Album
In some countries, they have palm trees, but Ohio is full of soybean farmers, more than 20K of them, and biodiesel is a clear path to financial well-being if you grow soybeans. Good interview.
Australian mining company will use B20 biodiesel in operations

Photo from: http://www.sioux.com/mining.html
Emerging Australian iron ore miner IMX Resources Limited (IMX) has announced that its Cairn Hill mine will be the first mine in Australia to use B20 biodiesel from the mining operation right through to the loading of the ore into vessels at the port of Adelaide, Australia. The resulting greenhouse gas savings are almost 2,300 mt CO2 per year, the company said.
IMX will provide the B20 biodiesel for use on site in mining, drill and blast, crushing, off-road haulage and rail loading activities. In total, the Cairn Hill pit to port solution will use approximately 15.6 million liters per year for a saving of 2,294 mt CO2 per annum.
All the B20 biodiesel supplied to IMX and its supply partners will be provided by Logicoil. In addition, tankers transporting the biodiesel to the Cairn Hill mine will also run on B20 biodiesel and will consume 100,000 litres per year.
Why not biodiesel for mining? This is the first mine in Australia to use biodiesel, of all companies that should worry about keeping the earth clean, mines have a long way to go to convince the planet they care about the planet.
Canada lays down the law for biodiesel and ethanol blending mandates

The rule will entail the use of approximately 2 billion liters of renewable fuel across the country annually.
Fuel producers and distributors in Canada will be required to mix renewable fuels into their products to meet a 5 percent quota that the government will lay down later this year.
Scheduled to be enforced by mid-December, the rule will entail the use of approximately 2 billion liters of renewable fuel across the country annually. The state will also fix a 2 percent renewable requirement for diesel fuel and heating oil by 2011.
Canada hopes to supplement independent rules its provinces are adopting to produce up to 4 million metric tons of renewable fuel in 2012, the rough equivalent of taking away a million vehicles.
Once again, while the US plays around with a tax break for biodiesel blenders, Canada pulls ahead with a strong, country-wide approach to biofuel. I just hope we don’t end up buying all our biodiesel from our neighbors to the North.



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