Ethanol in Spotlight at Outlook Forum

“Getting It Right: Responding to Market Forces” was the plenary session at USDA’s 2008 Outlook Forum last week. The topics were livestock issues, trade issues, biotechnology and biofuels with the moderator saving “the man of the hour” - Bob Dinneen of the RFA - for last on the program.

Bob made it clear - once again - that ethanol is “not a silver bullet” for all of America’s energy, economic and environmental issues, but “biofuels are absolutely a part of addressing each of them to some extent.”

“We have become a critically important part of the nation’s economy,” Dinneen noted, talking about how ethanol has revitalized small towns across the country.

Dinneen also talked about how increased ethanol production has equaled the increase in gasoline usage over the past several years. “We have stemmed the tide of increased gasoline imports into this country,” he said.

And he talked about cellulosic ethanol. “We recognize that in order to grow our industry we need to move beyond grain,” and Dinneen says it is already happening.

The entire webcast of Bob’s remarks on the panel is posted on USDA’s website. The cast is almost two hours long and Bob is about an hour in to it, but its all worth listening to/watching.