US Farmers Big Winners in Booming Ethanol Business

CHICAGO – There’s an even bigger winner in the green fuel revolution than the environment — US farmers.

They’ve found themselves at the center of a booming industry, with corn-based ethanol poised to make up 6 percent of US gasoline consumption by 2012, about double the current level.

Much of the growth is tied to the latest US Energy Bill, which mandates use of green fuel. Also, several states have ordered refiners to use ethanol as a clean-burning fuel additive in place of petroleum-based MTBE (or methyl tertiary butyl ether), which is a cancer-causing pollutant.

“For the next four or five years it’s going to grow like wildfire, like it is right now, ” said Tom Branhan, chief executive of Glacial Lakes Energy LLC, a 50 million-gallon ethanol plant in Watertown, South Dakota.

Reuters