And this article from the Wall Street Journal says that Peter Voser of Royal Dutch Shell says he expects in the next 40 years, 40 percent of the world’s cars will be electric:

Mr. Voser sat down with The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray and Kimberley Strassel to talk about the future of climate-change legislation, the company’s push beyond oil, the prospects for electric vehicles and more…

MR. VOSER: We are focusing a lot on biofuels at this stage. We just announced a few weeks ago a big joint venture in Brazil where we are bringing our first- and second-generation biofuels technologies together with Cosan, a sugar ethanol producer there, in order to speed up the second-generation capabilities because we need to speed up that process. So biofuels is one.

We are in wind. We have gone out of solar. We tried both silicon and thin-film solar, but we can’t see that as being something that we can scale up globally and get the economies of scale. So we leave that. It’s a technology that will be developed, no doubt, but we leave that to a smaller, medium-sized players.

Voser goes on to tell the WSJ that by 2012, Shell will have more natural gas production than oil.

This company press release says Imperium re-opened the facility after a glycerin tank rupture idled operations last December:

“We are thrilled to be producing again,” said John Plaza, founder and CEO of Imperium Renewables. “We have replaced the damaged equipment and re-designed the glycerin neutralization system to ensure such a rupture won’t happen again.”

The first of more than 40 rail cars containing millions of gallons of vegetable oil from canola grown in the Northwest arrived yesterday at the Imperium Grays Harbor facility. Imperium will convert the oil into biodiesel, which has been shown to reduce carbon emissions by 78 percent compared to petroleum fuel. The fuel will be distributed and consumed within the Pacific Northwest as well, embodying the preferred approach recently recommended by President Obama’s Biofuels Interagency Working Group.

The re-opening comes just in time as nearby British Columbia had a new biodiesel mandate go into effect at the beginning of this year, while in the U.S., biodiesel prospects have brightened in the wake of the U.S. Senate’s passage of the $1-a-gallon federal tax incentive and the EPA’s issuance of the new Renewable Fuel Standard, better known as RFS-2, which mandates the consumption of 1.15 billion gallons of biodiesel nationally in this year.

The 62-36 vote now moves the measure into a reconciliation phase with the House’s version of the bill.

I caught up with Michael Frohlich, the director of federal communications for the National Biodiesel Board’s office in Washington, D.C. earlier this evening. He says final passage of this important measure can’t come soon enough.

“It’s an immediate need for the industry at this point,” says Frohlich, pointing out that biodiesel has been without the credit since the beginning of the year. Fortunately, if the bill does pass and is signed into law, it will be retroactive back to January 1, 2010.

But Frohlich is worried that the biodiesel will be back in the same boat next December 31st as it was last December 31st, because this version of the tax credit expires at the end of this year.

“Although it’s slightly a bit of a hollow victory in the sense that we’ll have to go back to the drawing table once this gets enacted to make sure that it continues to get enacted again next year, it is traditional that [Congress does] pass these extenders, and we haven’t seen any objection from any senator or House member.”

He says last year, the Senate got so caught up in the health care debate, lawmakers worked on Christmas Eve … and that never happens … and the incentive got left by the wayside. Frohlich doesn’t expect that the biodiesel credit will get left behind again, but it has reinforced that the NBB’s number one legislative priority is to get a multi-year tax credit into effect.

And hopefully, there won’t be a health care debate at stops all business.

You can hear all of my conversation with Michael below.

According to Popular Science ,

“This first-ever experiment to test a possible biofuel in microgravity aims to improve cell structure, growth and development in the Jatropha curcas plants. An identical set of samples that represent the experimental control are located at the University of Florida’s Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead.

Crops grown in space have already been used to produce space beer, courtesy of the Sapporo brewery company. But the possibility of improving biofuel stock courtesy of a space ride might have far greater implications for the world, assuming that the crops do respond well to microgravity.”

What does this mean for the future? Space farms aren’t right around the corner. Popular Science concludes,

“Sadly, we won’t see any space farms really get going until launch costs go way down. Perhaps the new era of commercial spaceflight might also help usher in that future vision.”

The vote came Tuesday as eight Republicans sided with 58 Democrats to end debate on the $150 billion measure.

The cloture vote clears the way for final passage in the Senate. H.R. 4213, the American Workers, State and Business Relief Act includes retroactive extension of the biodiesel tax credit, and it will have to be reconciled with the US House’s version.

The American Soybean Association is urging lawmakers to work together to get a final bill done:

“Expiration of the biodiesel tax incentive has essentially caused the production and use of biodiesel in the U.S. to cease and has placed thousands of jobs currently supported by the domestic biodiesel industry in immediate jeopardy,” said ASA President Rob Joslin, a soybean producer from Sidney, Ohio. “Companies have already started laying-off employees, and this situation is certain to worsen the longer the tax incentive is allowed to lapse.”

An interesting note: I found out about this passage earlier on Tuesday when our friend Jessica Robinson from the National Biodiesel Board (@Biodiesel_Media) tweeted, or more accurately, re-tweeted @agripulse’s tweet to my Twitter account (@jdavisreporter) when the vote happened. Didn’t take long for at story to travel around the social media! No wonder Chuck and Cindy (@AgriBlogger and @FarmPodcaster) have been such big advocates!

This story from the Journal of Commerce says the feasibility study on the container ship Maersk Kalmar will be funded in part by the Dutch government:

Using fatty acid methyl esters – a biodiesel product known as FAME — the tests will use a blend of between 5 percent and 7 percent biodiesel to examine a long list of potential problems.

“One of the aims of the tests is to establish the degree to which issues experienced by the automotive industry in the use FAME, will be duplicated on board ship, in particular the impact on storage stability, handling and its subsequent use in the engine. Where adverse effects are arising it is hoped to find solutions to overcome them,” said Kim Tanneberger, specialist of Lloyd’s Register’s Strategic Research Group.

In addition to testing the performance in its engines, Maersk will be looking at storage issues with the biodiesel.

They are Strawberry Plains Pike and Crossville locations in East Tennessee and in Dickson, Tenn., along Interstate 40 west of Nashville.

Earlier locations were in Knoxville at Northshore Drive at Pellissippi Parkway, and Walker Springs Road. They offered the fuel beginning in 2007.

E85 contains 85 percent ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, which helps reduce air pollution, is biodegradable and does not pollute groundwater. It is for FlexFuel vehicles.

Pilot, based in Knoxville, bills itself as the largest operator of travel centers in the country with more than 300 locations in 40 states.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Prior to the event, however, Cooper prepared some responses in advance of the meeting. There were six questions proposed by NRC that RFA responded to four in detail. Specifically, the questions asked and responded to were:

• 1. What are the costs and disruptive effects on the economy and environment of meeting the RFS mandate by 2022?
• 2. In your view, what are the potential beneficial impacts of the RFS mandate in addition to improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
• 3. Which groups would gain or lose most from meeting the RFS mandate?
• 4. What are the most important barriers to meeting the RFS mandate?

In response to the first two questions, Cooper wrote, “We believe the positive economic and environmental effects associated with meeting long-term RFS2 requirements far outweigh any potential negative consequences. Further, some “disruptive” effects are in fact positive for the U.S. economy and environment. The disruption of crude oil markets that would result from meeting RFS requirements is one example.”

In response to the second question above, Cooper wrote, “We believe it is important that committee members have a full understanding of all of the beneficial impacts that would result from meeting RFS2 requirements so that likely benefits can be properly weighed against potential risks.”

Benefits highlighted by RFA for the committee include increased energy security, reduced dependence on foreign oil, reduced GHG emissions, increase in green jobs, increase in farm income and decrease of gas prices at the pump. Cooper also noted that the barriers to success of the RFS include blend wall limits, infrastructure and logistics, and access to capital, to name a few.

You can read the full response from RFA by clicking here.

“We need it now,” Joslin said. “It’s costing U.S. soybean farmers 25 cents for every bushel. On my 500 acres of soybeans, that’s over $6000 a year. Couple that with all the jobs loss, that’s our goal right now.”

Joslin says the tax credit is back in the second jobs bill that is being considered by the Senate right now. “I kinda feel like a bride that goes to the altar that comes away without a ring. We’ve been to the altar 2 or 3 times and we haven’t gotten a ring on our finger yet.”

Rob was interviewed by session moderator Mark Mayfield about this issue and others important to soybean producers – listen to that exchange below.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

“This report would be laughable if the risks associated with our dangerous reliance on oil were not so serious,” said Bliss Baker, spokesperson for the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance. “OPEC has dedicated its history to keeping oil prices artificially high and combating any threat to the shocking wealth of its members. It was only a matter of time until it attacked biofuels.”

GRFA notes that biofuels represent a competitive threat to crude oil but also acknowledge that the implementation of renewable fuels standards by governments around the world have the practical effect of lowering prices at the pump.  A trend, not surprisingly, that OPEC has no interest in seeing continue. For example, according to a report from Merrill Lynch commodity strategist, “retail gasoline prices would be $21/bbl higher, on average, without the incremental biofuel supply.”

Countries around the world are expanding their biofuels production to meet increased energy needs at the same time as addressing growing greenhouse gas emission concerns that lead to global climate change. In 2009, global biofuels production exceeded 80 billion litres.

According to Baker, the report ignores the horrific impact on economies due to high crude oil prices, especially those in developing nations as well as fails to address the positive impact biofuels production has on fuel supplies and prices. “In an era of ever increasing oil prices, biofuels production is more important than ever,” added Baker. “Our industry is calling on the OPEC oil cartel to embrace biofuels and the competition that it brings to the global fuels markets instead of stifling competition and keeping prices high.”

Baker concluded, “I can only conclude that this self-serving piece of research is an attempt to slow down biofuels production. Perhaps OPEC finally sees biofuels as competition. If that’s the case I suspect we can see similar future so-called reports on biofuels from OPEC.”