Articles by Ron Steenblik

Malaysian company may build an additional 12 plants

According to recent press reports, a Malaysian company, Pioneer Bio Industries Corp. Sdn. Bhd., is about to begin building what it claims will be the world's first plant to commercially produce fuel ethanol from nipah palms (Nypa fruiticans), also known as the mangrove palm, attap palm (in Singapore), and Golpata (in Bangladesh).

Nipah palms grow in soft mud along coasts and slow-moving tidal rivers flowing into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are abundant in Malaysia.

Ag chair presents his vision on biofuels

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), along with two members of Congress from South Dakota, Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D) and Sen. John Thune (R), participated in the annual South Dakota Corn Growers convention on Saturday.

Naturally, a big part of the convention's focus was on ethanol.

Next year’s prize, a flex-fuel Hummer?

The Kansas Lottery has launched a "Truck & Bucks" scratch-card game, the second-chance prize for which is the flex-fuel version of the 2007 GMC Sierra Crew Cab Pickup. Flex-fuel vehicles can burn ethanol-gasoline blends containing up to 85% ethanol (normally abbreviated as E85). The game was developed by the Lottery, in partnership with the 3i Show and the GMC Division of General Motors.

Lesson: be careful to whom you lend your name

Forbes is engaging in some hard-hitting investigating of various companies' finances.

Their latest article considers the alleged troubled finances of Earth Biofuels, a small Dallas-based outfit trying to build a national chain of filling stations dispensing biodiesel. The company took on country-western singer Willie Nelson as a director when it licensed his name for "BioWillie®", the brand under which the biodiesel, made mainly from U.S. soybeans, is marketed.