Renewable Energy Report: February 2015 Report

The AgMRC Renewable Fuels Monthly Report is now being produced as a partnership between the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center operated by the Value Added Agriculture Program at Iowa State Extension and Outreach (ISUEO), and the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative (IGQI) (www.iowagrain.org), an ISUEO program directed specifically at grain processing and handling.
Connection of the IGQI and the monthly report will provide a long-term connection with the research and technical expertise of Iowa State Extension and Outreach, as well as provide expanded student opportunities for interaction with industry.

From late September 2014 to late January 2015, global crude oil prices fell by 51%. Declining crude oil prices triggered a sharp decline in gasoline prices, with a resulting sharp decline in ethanol prices. Since U.S. ethanol is produced primarily from corn starch, these dramatic price changes raise important questions for ethanol producers, livestock farmers, industries that provide inputs to corn production, the transport sector, the petroleum industry, motorists, and other users of petroleum and biofuel products. In this article, we address these questions.

The recent sudden and precipitous drop in crude oil prices caught the energy industry and the world in general by surprise.  The price decline has resulted in a reevaluation of both short and long-range plans by the world’s oil industry.  While, the impact of declining crude oil prices on biofuels will be discussed in other articles in the Monthly Renewable Energy Report, the impact on solar energy will be discussed here.