ISU professor studies growing infrastructure needs for biofuels

Drovers Cattle Network
Iowa State University Extension Updated: February 11, 2012

AMES, Iowa -- Even though a federal $6 billion tax credit for ethanol expired on Jan. 1, the U.S. government still mandates that the fuel industry blend 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol this year -- up from 2.1 billion gallons in 2002. And nine years from now, the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard calls for a target of 36 billion gallons of biofuel to be blended into the U.S. domestic auto and truck fuel supply.

That's having a tremendous impact on the distillers' grain markets in Iowa and across the Midwest -- and the small towns that support their production. Bobby Martens, an Iowa State University assistant professor of supply chain management, says ethanol industry leaders need to reconsider investments in transportation equipment and infrastructure while the government adjusts policies to effectively move all that biofuel to market.

Martens and Frank Dooley, a professor in the Department of Agriculture Economics at Purdue University, teamed up on a chapter titled "Transportation and Logistics in Distillers Grain Markets," for the book "Using Distillers Grains in the U.S. and International Livestock and Poultry Industries" (2008 Midwest Agribusiness Trade Research and Information Center).

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