In this podcast, Elgin Bergt of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association and a farmer from Schuyler, notes that Nebraska farmers are really good at growing corn. Since the production per acre continues to rise, we need to continue to grow markets for that corn. One of those markets is corn-based ethanol. Bergt said that not only does the ethanol industry use a lot of corn, it also produces the feed ingredient distillers grains, which is important to livestock producers. Right now most gallons of gasoline sold contain about 10 percent ethanol or e10. This is the highest blend the EPA allows for regular vehicles.
"Yet we’ve reached the point where there are no more gallons of gasoline sold to blend 10 percent ethanol into," he said. "That means the ethanol market isn’t going to grow much and we won’t reduce our dependence on oil much further."
To solve this problem, he said, the ethanol industry has asked EPA to make a higher ethanol blend of up to e15 an option for retailers to provide and motorists to use. Since EPA is taking its time to approve the higher blend, Bergt said a move to e12 (a 12 percent ethanol blend) may make sense.
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