I did a double take when I read the headline of a news release from the Renewable Fuels Association: “What the Music Man and ethanol have in common.”

The RFA is trying to be clever:

with apologies to Meredith Wilson, ‘we…

Show Me Ethanol of Carrollton, Mo., which said in January that it needed $10 million to stay in business, has raised $5.9 million from shareholders and reached a loan-modification agreement that will let it keep operating.

Show Me disclosed the financial transactions…

A new University of Minnesota study is bound to cause controversy in corn country: It says that corn ethanol is no better — and may even be worse — than gasoline for health and the environment.

Cellulosic ethanol, on the other hand, carries…

Show-Me Ethanol, which had to raise extra cash to start operations last June in Carrollton, Mo., is again asking its investors to ante up. In a letter filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company asks shareholders to participate in a…

Terry Angstadt,  president of the Indy Racing League’s commercial division, says the U.S. ethanol industry didn’t include all the facts when it criticized the IRL’s sponsorship deal with Brazil. In an email, Angstadt points out that U.S. producers essentially had first…

The ethanol industry tends to issue a press release after any perceived slight, and the targets usually are Big Oil or the food industry.  This week, it’s taking on the hallowed ground of auto racing, the Indianapolis 500.

The IndyCar Series, it seems,…

An official of Poet, the largest U.S. producer of ethanol, says his company can still make money despite market conditions that forced its largest rival, VeraSun, into bankruptcy.  Mark Stowers, vice president of research and development at Poet, spoke at a St.…

Carl Hausmann, chief executive of Bunge North America, doesn’t view the conflict between food and fuel as a moral issue. His company is an investor in several ethanol and biodiesel plants. But he nevertheless opposes government mandates for biofuel production,…

Sarah Steelman’s about-face on ethanol makes this a good time to look at the costs and benefits of the E-10 mandate that Missouuri enacted in 2006. As it happens, both the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council and the Show-Me Institute have studied the…

Alternative Energy Systems, a Kansas City company that was building ethanol plants in Boone County, Iowa, and Kankakee, Ill., told the SEC today that it plans to go out of business. It is the latest of several biofuel firms damaged…