Americans Can Be Thankful for Renewable Energy Addressing Climate Change Impacts. Traditional Fuels and Renewables Are Complementary, Especially in The Near-Term

WILCOX, NE, November 21, 2022---WILCOX, NE, November 21, 2022: “With the Thanksgiving Holiday celebration here Americans can be thankful for our abundance of agriculture/food resources and energy sources, especially renewable energy,” said Gale Lush, corn, soybean and wheat farmer from Wilcox, NE and Chairman of the American Corn Growers Foundation (ACGF). “Renewable energy (ethanol/biofuels, wind, solar and hybrid battery storage systems) are essential for America’s sustainable energy future and the energy needs of American consumers. Likewise, Americans need traditional fuel supplies because renewables and traditional fuels complement each other. For instance, ethanol blends enhance gasoline by providing the consumer cheaper motor fuels that are higher octane and cleaner burning. Farmers are environmental stewards of the soil and focused on sustainable practices as articulated in a video segment on the American Corn Growers Foundation (ACGF) website, at ACGF.org, “Land and Water: Farmers Adapt to Climate Change” produced by University of NE Journalism students. It covers timeframes when Nebraska went from extremes, excessive rainfall in 2019, to excessive drought. The segment interviews farmers and experts on renewable energy, sustainability, and local food production.”

Lush added, “America needs both older and newer energy generation sources and resources, working together, just as we need older and younger generations working together to transition our farming operations into the future. My generation implemented sustainable, no-tillage and lower water-use irrigation technology. My son and his generation are implementing IT and modern technology on everything from precision GPS-driven planting, fertilizing, production and pest management to grain harvesting and storage, all for the benefit of the American economy and the American consumer. Energy and food go hand-in-hand, just like farming from one generation to the next. This is a timely and timeless renewable perspective.”

Dan McGuire, ACGF Policy Director, interviewed in the UNL “Land and Water: Farmers Adapt to Climate Change” video stated, “As I emphasized in the interview, ethanol was the savior of the farm economy at a time when excessive corn inventories would have driven grain prices and farm income seriously down. Instead, the 5 billion plus bushels of annual corn use for ethanol has strengthened farm income, enhanced land values, increased renewable energy employment and driven rural economic development overall. At the same time, within the corn-to-ethanol processing system, distillers grain is produced for the benefit of the livestock feeding and consumer sector, along with other higher value-added products, such as corn oil.”

McGuire added, “Just as Americans need a balanced, aggressive approach to our renewable and traditional energy resource development, America and our political leaders must pursue and advocate new age technologies. America must develop our own sustainable domestic supply of critical elements that are required for clean energy. It’s great to see that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced $39 million to fund 16 projects across 12 states to develop market-ready technologies. The selected projects, led by universities, national laboratories, and the private sector aim to develop commercially scalable technologies that will enable greater domestic supplies of copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and other critical elements. U.S. Energy Secretary Granholm emphasized that having a reliable, sustainable domestic supply chain of critical materials that power longer-lasting batteries and other next-generation energy technologies is crucial to reaching our clean energy future. Secretary Granholm is on target as America needs all these energy resources to reinvigorate American manufacturing, a point that the ACGF has been making for many years relative to ethanol, wind energy, solar power and ethanol-wind-solar-hybrid-storage systems.”