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POET: Politics is hurting the ethanol industry, corn growers
The world’s largest biofuel producer says Washington bureaucracy is stalling the ethanol agenda.
Doug Berven is the Vice President of Corporate Affairs with POET. “A lot of things are frustrating for us, but it seems to be an awful lot of politics around the status quo energy system out there and we’re talking about reinventing energy.”
Berven says uncertainty is growing for corn growers and the ethanol industry. “We’re waiting for Renewable Volume Obligations. There is still a lot of small refinery exemptions sitting out there,” Berven says. “The RFS has been the talk for a long time and we don’t know exactly where things are going to come out.”
He says ethanol is an ideal vehicle to meet climate goals because it’s a cheaper fuel option that burns cleaner. “If this administration wants to get to zero carbon by 2050 or whatever goal that might be, you have to start now with things that are working.”
Berven spoke with Brownfield during the 2021 National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention in Kansas City.
Doug Bervin, POET:
corn farmers should ban togetger and use their crops to grow hogs, sell the hogs, butcher the hogs, sell the pork, make ethanol, sell the ethanol and burn it to make electricity, sell the electricity, use the CO2 from the corn fermentation and the ethanol combustion in greenhouses to enhance greenhouse production which will boost their productivity and economic profits and carbon credits while at the same time drive the price of corn up. End monocrop production of corn; do it all on the farm. Reduce and eliminate transportation costs of raw materials transport. Only sell and ship end user products like pork, vegetables and electricity.