The CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association helps Jon knock down some common misconceptions about ethanol.
The rising cost of food and fuel are everywhere right now.
From big headlines in the news to your own wallet, Americans are feeling the pinch of rising prices.
And in the corn industry, we're still leveraging a powerful tool to help take the edge off the financial pain we all feel each week: corn ethanol.
In this episode, we’re talking to Geoff Cooper, CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, about how ethanol can help Americans weather this economic storm.
And we’re busting some common ethanol myths that keep on turning up everywhere from policy discussions to social media.
Geoff Cooper:
Consumers, the most obvious sign that they see of inflation is when they drive past a gas station and see that record pump price. We've got a good story to tell there. Ethanol reduces those gas prices.
Dusty Weis:
Hello and welcome to Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast. This is where leaders, growers, and stakeholders in the corn industry can turn for big picture conversations about the state of the industry and its future. I'm Dusty Weis, and I'll be introducing your host, Association CEO Jon Doggett. From the fields of the corn belt to the DC beltway, we're making sure the growers who feed America have a say in the issues that are important to them with key leaders who are shaping the future of agriculture.
Dusty Weis:
You can't turn on the news these days without hearing about the rising costs of food and fuel, and in the corn industry we're leveraging an old tool to take the edge off that inflation, corn ethanol. In this episode we're talking to Geoff Cooper, CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, about how ethanol can help Americans weather this economic storm, and we're busting some common ethanol myths that keep on turning up everywhere from policy discussions to social media. But if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast in your favorite app, also make sure you follow the NCGA on Twitter @NationalCorn, and sign up for the National Corn Growers Association newsletter at NCGA.com.
Dusty Weis:
And with that it's time to once again introduce Jon. Jon Doggett, the CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, and Jon, I won't lie, one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid, and this hearkens all the way back to the day when there was actually science on the Discovery Channel still, it was a little program called the MythBusters, and I understand that that's what we've got on tap for today's episode, is a little myth-busting of our own.
Jon Doggett:
Absolutely. You know, Dusty, over the years we have heard so many arguments against ethanol, and we wanted to get together to debunk some of the most common arguments that we hear or see, and we've all seen or heard or read about all sorts of terrible things that ethanol does, I'm especially thinking about the contributions from those pesky keyboard warriors on social media, and some questionable scientists who have made some wild claims even as of late. So we figured who better to help me debunk some of these wild claims than Geoff Cooper, who is the President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association. So Geoff, welcome, and thanks for joining us on the NCGA podcast.
Geoff Cooper:
Well thanks for having me, Jon, I was thinking I might not ever get an invitation, so glad to be here today.
Jon Doggett:
Sooner or later we get to everybody Geoff, but before we get too much further into busting ethanol myths, can you tell our listeners about your background? I mean, you're certainly no stranger to corn.
Geoff Cooper:
Sure, Jon, happy to, and thanks again for having me. And as I was thinking about my background it occurred to me that I'm celebrating 14 years at RFA, So I've been with the Renewable Fuels Association for 14 years now, the last three and a half years have been serving as the CEO, and prior to that, as you know, Jon, I worked for your great organization, the National Corn Growers Association, I was there for about five years, started out in communications there at NCGA, but our old friend Dr. Richard Glass pulled me over into the research and market development in of the corn growers organization and put me to work on a number of ethanol issues. And that was, of course, right in the middle of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and Energy, Independence, and Security Act of 2007, where we got the first RFS and the expanded program.
Geoff Cooper:
So Jon, I was working very closely with you and the rest of the DC staff at that time to make sure we were arming our allies and our champions with the facts, with the data, with the right information, to debunk the myths around ethanol that were rampant at that time. So that brings us full circle to this conversation, 15 years later, we're still debunking a lot of those same myths and a lot of that same misinformation that just continually gets regurgitated and recycled.
Jon Doggett:
So Geoff, let's just dive in, and let's start with one of the easy myths. You've heard it and I've heard it, ethanol ruins my boat engine.
Geoff Cooper:
Yeah, this one we hear a lot, and it happens to be one of those myths that's seasonal in nature. Every Memorial Day weekend we really start hearing from the boating community again, and summertimes here, so we've been hearing a lot about this one lately. And I think it really stems from the fact that some of these gas stations that are located near big lakes and places where people take their boats out, or at marinas, they've got one of the biggest rackets going that I've ever seen. They sell what they're now calling marine gas, or ethanol-free gasoline, and they scare boaters into buying this stuff for a dollar or more per gallon higher than what they would spend on E10. But the bottom line is E10 is approved for all inboard, all outboard Marine engines, certainly any engines that have been made in the last 20 to 25 years all carry the manufacturer's approval to use E10.
Geoff Cooper:
In fact you've got some of the manufacturers, big ones, like Mercury Marine, Brunswick, that actually recommend the use of E10, they say it's a superior fuel for many cases and many uses, and they also recognize that it's better for water quality and better for the environment. I think a lot of this stems from the notion that ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning it does entrain water, and that's a fact. It doesn't pull water out of the air per se, but if you get moisture in your fuel tank the ethanol molecules are going to bond with that water, but it's actually a benefit because if you get moisture in your fuel tank ethanol actually carries it out of the fuel system. So this is a myth that we continue to hear time and time again, and again, it seems like especially in the summertime when people are pulling their boats out, that's when we really hear it.
Geoff Cooper:
And along with that we hear, "Well, you can't leave E10 in the tank of your boat because it's really going to cause problems." And that's true of any fuel, whether it's got ethanol in it or not, and in fact the department of energy a few years ago really compared E0 versus E10, and they found that the E0, the gasoline without ethanol, actually degraded faster and became unsuitable for use more quickly than the E10 did. So this is another one of those common myths that, again, I believe it's being perpetrated by folks who stand a benefit from selling that more expensive ethanol-free gasoline to boaters who don't know any better.
Dusty Weis:
See, and I want to know what lake you're boating on, Geoff, because up here in Wisconsin, finding marine fuel for just a dollar above the going rate, that's a bargain compared to what they're charging on the Madison chain of lakes, let me tell you.
Geoff Cooper:
Well, that's right, And even here at Lake of the Ozarks, not far from St. Louis, I know that marine fuel, again, which I think is a misnomer, but that fuel was selling for $2 a gallon more than E10 in that area as recently as Memorial Day.
Dusty Weis:
Yikes.
Jon Doggett:
Wow, boy, that makes it pretty tough to run a boat all day long when you're spending that kind of money. So Geoff, here's another one we've heard a lot about lately with the supply shortages, and the situation in Ukraine, the RFS increases food and gas prices. What do you say to that?
Geoff Cooper:
I say it's absolutely ridiculous. And again, I think all you have to do is go to your nearest gas station and you'll find ample evidence there that renewable fuels are lowering the price of gasoline today. Jon, as you know, ethanol in the last few days, the last few weeks, is selling for $1.50 a gallon less than gasoline at the wholesale terminals where gasoline is blended, $1.50 a gallon less. And so obviously when you blend more of that low cost product with gasoline it's going to result in a lower cost for the finished fuel. And we're certainly seeing that at retail stations across the country today, the lowest priced fuel available anywhere in the country today is going to be the fuel with the most ethanol in it, and right now that's E85, but even E15 blends, we're seeing those priced 30 cents, 40 cents per gallon, less than E10 and oftentimes 60 to 80 cents below the cost of E0, the gasoline without ethanol.
Geoff Cooper:
So to suggest that the RFS, and really the RFS is what helps drive ethanol production and consumption, to suggest that the RFS is somehow contributing to higher fuel costs, especially right now, is just insane. The same thing could be said on the food inflation side, this is another battle we've been fighting forever, but we all know, and the data and the evidence show quite clearly, that there's no relationship between the RFS and what consumers pay for food at the grocery store, and I'm sure we'll get more into that as we go through our conversation today.
Jon Doggett:
Another myth that we've heard a lot over the years, and that is the production of ethanol requires so much fossil fuel energy that its energy benefit is only about 20%.
Geoff Cooper:
Jon, you might recall that one of the first projects I worked on at NCGA was a big debate at the National Press Club that we sponsored on this very issue, the so-called ethanol energy balance, and this notion that it takes more energy to make ethanol than you get out of it. We wanted to settle that once and for all back in 2005 or 2006, and at that time somehow the media's view of the experts on this topic was a bug doctor from Cornell, David Pimentel, an entomologist, and a former Chevron engineer. So those two guys came to the Press Club and debated Bruce Dale, a professor from Michigan State, an engineer, and I thought he did a great job of dispelling the myth back then, but we're still talking about it all these years later.
Geoff Cooper:
It's not a hard one to dispel, all you got to do is track the energy use throughout the process to produce ethanol, it's pretty easy to do that, you sum up all of that energy use, and when you do that currently the energy balance, or the energy ratio, the return, is about three to one currently. And that means for every BTU, or every unit of energy that you invest in the process to make ethanol, you're getting three units worth of usable energy in the form of ethanol back out.
Geoff Cooper:
The other thing I'd just quickly point out on that one is the energy used in the process is really not that much crude oil or petroleum, it's not an oil dependent process. Yes, tractors and combines use diesel, trucks moving corn and ethanol around use diesel, but when you look at how much they're using on a per bushel produced basis, or a per gallon basis, it's tiny. And in fact, Argonne National Lab said for every barrel of petroleum used in the ethanol production process, you're getting 20 barrels of ethanol. Most of the energy that we use in the process, most of the fossil energy, is in the form of natural gas, whether that's embedded in the fertilizer at the farm level, or natural gas used at the ethanol facility. So we feel like that's a myth that should be dead and buried, we've killed it a number of times, but it does tend to pop its head up from time to time.
Jon Doggett:
There are days that I think that we need stakes and garlic to go ahead and get these things to finally die, but if we could, Geoff, you mentioned energy balance, what's the energy balance for gas, the basic component of gasoline?
Geoff Cooper:
I think you know the answer to that Jon, and that's probably why you're asking the question. The energy balance for gasoline has been shown to be negative in some cases, meaning that there's more energy invested in the process to extract and transport and refine crude oil and distribute it then you're getting out of it, or it's roughly neutral. But again, I go back to what Professor Dale said at that event years ago, and he said, "Look, energy balance is probably the wrong metric to look at anyway, it's fairly useless. If we based all our decisions on the energy balance we would've never used coal, because it takes two or three BTUs worth of coal to generate one BTU of electricity." So we need to look at how we use these fuels and different energy sources, and it's easy to get hung up on BTUs, and in many cases that's the wrong argument.
Geoff Cooper:
It's like saying apples or tomatoes are terrible foods because they're low in protein and the body needs protein. You don't eat an apple or a tomato for protein, you eat it for fiber or potassium. And in that same way we don't use ethanol primarily for its BTUs, we use it for its octane value, we use it for its lower carbon content, we use it because it dilutes sulfur and gasoline. So we got to take a more holistic approach and just get beyond this ridiculous debate over BTUs and energy balance.
Jon Doggett:
Well, and somewhat tied to that is the other myth about the cost of gas made with ethanol is actually higher per gallon because ethanol reduces gasoline's energy per gallon. So if I'm using a high blend of ethanol in my car, am I going to lose a lot of my mileage advantage?
Geoff Cooper:
Yeah, and we're hearing a lot of that one today, Jon, aren't we? Because again, we're talking about E15 being 30, 40 cents a gallon cheaper than E10, we're talking about E85, seeing huge discounts for E85. But then you get the naysayers saying, well, because of that lower energy content, that lower BTU value, you're getting worse mileage, and so you might not be saving any money. There's really two issues there, and the first one is with low-level blends, like E15, you're really not losing any fuel economy or seeing much reduced mileage.
Geoff Cooper:
A study that's just been completed at the University of California Riverside took 20 vehicles and compared the emissions, primarily, but also looked at the fuel economy in those vehicles when they're using E10 and E15, and what they found is on average, across those 20 vehicles, when you're using E15 you got 1.3% lower mileage. That's less than you're going to notice if your tires aren't properly inflated. And in four of those vehicles we actually saw better mileage on E5 than we saw on E10, and why do you think that is? Because they had higher compression ratios, because they had direct injection and they're able to take advantage of that slightly higher octane value that you get with E15 than E10. And if we had high octane fuels like E25 or E30, and automakers were optimizing or tuning their engines to take full advantage of that octane, you'd see no difference in mileage per gallon, and you'd be getting the same mileage on fewer BTUs, and that's really the definition of energy efficiency.
Jon Doggett:
So the three of us are of an age where when we were growing up muscle cars were cool, but they're not cool anymore. The sweet sound of catback exhaust doesn't thrill motorists any longer, instead they prefer the anti-climactic whisper of nothingness that comes from electric motors. So talk about that, Geoff, electric vehicles, are they better for the environment because they don't use fossil fuels and they have no tailpipe emissions?
Geoff Cooper:
Well, no, they're not, and I for one love the sound of a muscle car firing up, and that four barrel car, and again, that high octane bump that you get from ethanol really provides additional horsepower for those sorts of vehicles. But on the environmental question, no. There's this misnomer out there that because electric vehicles don't have a tailpipe that they are zero emissions vehicles. That's the terminology that everybody uses, ZEVs or zero emissions vehicles. Well, what about upstream of the vehicle, and where is the electricity coming from that is charging that battery? Those are all very important implications, and that electric vehicle is not zero emissions unless it is using a source of electricity that generated zero emissions.
Geoff Cooper:
And in this country today we're still getting 60% of our electricity from fossil fuels, we're getting 20% from nuclear, and 20% or less from renewable forms like solar and wind, so when you factor that full supply chain in, where the electricity was generated, when you factor in the emissions related to extraction of the rare minerals that are in the battery, when you factor in the emissions related to disposing of that battery at the end of its life, electric vehicles, in many cases, again, depending on the source of the electricity, are no better than liquid fuels, and certainly no better than a high ethanol blend, or a flex fuel like E85 is going to perform better in terms of life cycle, carbon intensity, than an electric vehicle.
Geoff Cooper:
It just reminds me of a guy that works in the building where our office is, drives a Tesla. And one day I was curious and just asked him, "Why did you buy that thing? What was it that convinced you to buy the Tesla instead of another internal combustion engine vehicle?" And for him it was all about, "Well, the environment. I want to reduce my carbon footprint and reduce my emissions." And you should have seen his face when I told him, "Sir, the electricity that you are charging that vehicle with when you plug in every night is coal fired. The Missouri grid is largely served by coal fired power plants, and so you're not doing the environment any favors, and you're certainly not reducing your carbon footprint by driving a Tesla. So those are the sorts of things that we just need to do a better job of educating the public about.
Jon Doggett:
And one of the things that we do in our organization a lot, and I know that you worked on it when you worked for us, and that is corn production's bad and it increases greenhouse gas emissions, and that means ethanol has high greenhouse gas emissions, and it isn't good for the environment at all. Compare that to the electric cars not having quite the carbon footprint that people would think, what about corn production?
Geoff Cooper:
I think it's just the opposite with corn ethanol. A lot of people have bought into the myth that corn ethanol is somehow not climate friendly and doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but again, it's fairly easy to track the energy use and the emissions related to every step in the process to produce corn ethanol. You can look at how much natural gas is used to make the fertilizer that is applied to the fields, and you can look at how much of that volatizes and becomes nitrous oxide, and you can look at how much natural gas is used at the ethanol facility, how much diesel fuel is used in either the locomotives or the trucks that are moving all this stuff around. Take all of that, add it all together, look at the emissions associated with it, and you will find that corn ethanol today is about 50% lower in terms of its life cycle carbon intensity than gasoline.
Geoff Cooper:
And again, that compares very favorably to electric vehicles, depending on what source of electricity is charging the battery. And we actually see a pathway to get to fully carbon-neutral corn ethanol through carbon capture and sequestration through the things that your members are doing at the farm, and so we could have a fully carbon-neutral corn based ethanol fuel, we think, in the next few decades, even when you consider all the energy involved in the process, there will be enough carbon sequestration to offset those emissions and give us a carbon-neutral or net zero-carbon liquid fuel.
Jon Doggett:
Before we started rolling tape here this afternoon I was mentioning that I had been talking to one of my neighbors yesterday, and he was absolutely amazed that you can get more out of corn in the ethanol process other than just ethanol, and he didn't realize that, I think a lot of people think that, that corn goes into the ethanol plant and ethanol comes out the backside and that's it. What are the other products that are being extracted in this process?
Geoff Cooper:
That is something that is often overlooked, Jon, and again, we've been talking about it since the beginning of the ethanol industry, but when you take a 56-pound bushel of corn and run it in the front gate of an ethanol plant, you're getting multiple products out the backside of that process. And yes, you're getting nearly three gallons of ethanol, but you're also getting about 15 or 16 pounds of high protein, very nutritious animal feed that's called distillers grains, we produce in this industry 35, 40 million tons of that animal feed every year, about a third of that is exported to countries around the world. It's a very popular, very economical feed source for beef, dairy, swine, poultry, fish. It's become just an integral component of the global feed supply. So that's one of the main co-products that comes out of the ethanol process, but we're also getting distillers corn oil. The fat, or the oil, that's in that corn kernel can be separated out and used as a feedstock for other biofuels, like renewable diesel or biodiesel, or in itself is a valuable feed ingredient, especially for certain species, like poultry.
Geoff Cooper:
So those are the main co-products, but we're seeing other things coming out of some of these ethanol plants that is just really fascinating stuff. They've learned how to extract the optimal value out of that corn kernel that comes in the front end of the process, there's some fiber separation things going on, there's all sorts of interesting things happening with that process, and we tell people, look, these aren't really ethanol plants, per se, these are biorefineries. Ethanol just happens to be one of the products that they're producing, but it goes far beyond that.
Jon Doggett:
The beginning of the pandemic, when much of the ethanol industry was either shut down or at least cutting way back, I got a call from a good friend of mine in the livestock industry, and you probably know who I'm talking about, called me up and he said, "I want to talk to you about ethanol." "Oh boy, I don't want to talk to you about ethanol one more time," and he said, "No, you need to get these plants going," and I said, "What?" He said, "You need to get these plants going because we need that carbon dioxide to stun and chill hogs." That was an interesting phone call to get, one I hadn't anticipated."
Geoff Cooper:
Well, and I'm glad you brought that up, Jon, because that is another co-product that we often fail to mention. As a byproduct of fermentation we also get 15 or 16 pounds of carbon dioxide from every bushel that runs through the process, and we've got about quarter or a third of the industry today that is capturing that CO2 rather than venting it to the atmosphere, because there are very valuable uses for carbon dioxide, you mentioned one of them, but it's also used to make dry ice, it's used in refrigeration, it's used in medical procedures, it's used in welding, waste water treatment, I could go on and on, bottling, I mean, the bubbles in your beer or your Pepsi, that's CO2 and it probably came from an ethanol plant. So you're right, when the pandemic hit and we shut 50% of the industry down, we were getting calls from all of those users of CO2 saying, "What's going on? We need to get these plants back online."
Jon Doggett:
Good things to remember, good things to remember. So Geoff Cooper from the Renewable Fuels Association, tell me, how much did the American taxpayers support ethanol through the subsidies?
Geoff Cooper:
Good one, Jon. The ethanol industry is not subsidized today, and again, that's a myth that just will not die. We hear it every day, I can't tell you how many times, and you mentioned social media earlier today, we see comments on Twitter or Facebook that well, nobody would be using ethanol if not for the subsidy. And it's like, what subsidy are you talking about? There was, as you know, Jon, for many years, a blender's tax credit that did allow gasoline blenders who used ethanol to take an excise tax credit and claim that on their annual taxes. And it was a strong incentive to get those blenders to increase their use of ethanol and blend it into the fuel supply when they otherwise probably would not have done so.
Geoff Cooper:
That tax credit expired more than 10 years ago, it expired at the end of 2011, it expired because the ethanol industry and our friends in the corn world agreed that that program had served its purpose, and it had done what it was intended to do. And that's what subsidies are for, is to help infant industries get on their feet. That program did that with the ethanol industry, it was no longer needed, and so we let that program expire. Yet today we continue to hear this notion that well, the ethanol subsidy is the only thing that makes ethanol economical. That's nonsense. We've also heard the Renewable Fuel Standard described as a subsidy for ethanol, and that again is nonsense. The RFS, the reason it exists at all, is to help our industry, to help renewable fuels, which are lower carbon, lower priced, access a market that otherwise would be closed to competition. That's what the RFS does, that's not a subsidy, it's just a wedge that helps us get into a market that otherwise would be closed to us because it's essentially a monopoly.
Jon Doggett:
So over the years, what is your favorite myth to debunk? The one that when you hear it you smile because you know that you've got the Geoff Cooper answer to it.
Geoff Cooper:
Well, I'd like to think that we do pretty good responding to all those, but Jon, the food versus fuel argument is a really easy one to debunk if you can get just two minutes of someone's attention, and it gives us a chance to tell a good story, and I like to do that, I like to hopefully educate people and tell them something they don't know about the ethanol industry. It gives us a chance to talk about those co-products, it gives us a chance to talk about the tremendous gains in efficiency that we've seen throughout the process, whether we're talking about corn yields, whether we're talking about more efficient nutrient use on the farm, whether we're talking about what's happening at the biorefinery, it really gives us a chance to explain to people that, hey, this is a high tech, highly efficient industry and process, and there is no competition between food and fuel. The industry has risen to the occasion, and we're able to meet demands for all uses.
Dusty Weis:
You know, Geoff, I think that ethanol, and certainly the corn industry, have a really great story to tell here. It's not necessarily a story that certain segments of the public has always been receptive to, but sometimes when you're in the business of telling stories you find a moment and that is a great moment to tell a particular story. And when you look at the news headlines that you see right now, record-high inflation yet again, and people struggling to pay at the pump, or at the grocery store, and all that, is this a great moment to get out there and redouble our efforts to tell ethanol stories.
Geoff Cooper:
This is one of the best moments, one of the best opportunities, I think, that has presented itself to our industry in recent memory, and that's because of a combination of factors. Like you said, we got consumers, the most obvious sign that they see of inflation is when they drive past a gas station and see that record pump price. We've got a good story to tell there, ethanol reduces those gas prices. Then they go to the grocery store and they see that their grocery bill has gone up. We're able to tell a good story there that, hey, ethanol is food and fuel. We're producing that more efficient, lower-cost animal feed, and then the climate benefits are also very much front of mind right now. We got a lot of people concerned about climate change and increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and we've got a phenomenal story to tell there.
Geoff Cooper:
At the same time we've got the situation in Ukraine, and that's what's really driving the record-high pump prices that we're seeing today. And I think people forget about the energy security benefits of producing domestic renewable fuels, and the fact that we're adding 15 billion gallons of volume to the US fuel supply, and that's helping keep prices down and making us less dependent on imports from Russia and other places like that. So this is a moment in time, I think, where we've got a great opportunity to tell the industry's good story and really open some eyes to the benefits of renewable fuels.
Dusty Weis:
Now because if you think that $5.30 cents a gallon is bad, you should see what they're paying in Europe right now.
Geoff Cooper:
Yeah, that's right, and just think about what prices would be if we didn't have 10% of every gallon, that demand being satisfied with domestically produced ethanol, which is $1.50 a gallon lower than gasoline right now. If we didn't have that 15 billion gallons being added to the supply, we wouldn't be talking about $5 gasoline, we'd be talking about $7 gasoline. So again, this gives us an opportunity to do some education and bust some of these myths and misunderstandings that people have about what we do.
Dusty Weis:
You know, Geoff, for some reason, I can't help myself, but I will occasionally crack open my Twitter app, or my Facebook, and I'll page through and I'll see the latest zaniest thing that comes across my feed. But I have to ask you, as someone who's in the business of batting down myths around ethanol, what's the most egregious, weirdest, over the top ridiculous claim that you've ever heard against ethanol?
Geoff Cooper:
We've heard a lot of them. I'm not even sure I could tell you what the most egregious is, I'd have to go back and look at my file, which is that thick. But I'll tell you one of the latest ones that has just made me laugh because it's so ridiculous, there's something going around on TikTok, and I know nothing about TikTok, but my staff says, "You got to see this," and there's something going around saying that gasoline has lost its smell. Gasoline has lost that pleasant, aromatic aroma that it used to have, and it's because of ethanol. That's what's going around right now.
Geoff Cooper:
It's like, boy, I certainly don't remember ever thinking that the smell of gasoline was like lilacs, or anything like that. And I told one of our staffers, the solution there is we need to invent a gasoline scented candle that would satisfy their appetite for that sweet smell. I mean, that's the kind of crazy stuff that we see. We've seen ethanol blamed for riots in Mexico over high tortilla prices, we've seen ethanol blamed for reduced population of pheasants, we've seen it all, so really nothing surprises me anymore.
Dusty Weis:
You know, Geoff, in the business there's a term, they call it the summer driving season, and really what that means is the weather isn't crap and we're all getting out and making the most of life for a little bit, at least here in the Midwest. And so I've heard, a little bird has told me, that you consider yourself to be quite the music nerd, I know that Mr. Doggett and I are music buffs ourself, so got to ask you, what is on the summer driving season plans for getting out and seeing some live music?
Geoff Cooper:
Well, yeah, that's a great question. I need to look more closely at what's coming through town this summer, it seems like there have been some concerts added recently, and some that have been removed. I do know for a fact that I will be seeing Jason Bonham, the son of Led Zeppelin drummer, John Bonham, he's got a band together and they're doing a bunch of Led Zeppelin music. I know that we've got tickets for that show. We've also got Dead & Company coming up later this summer, some of the remaining members of the Grateful Dead, if you can believe those guys are still around. So I know I got those two for sure, but we'll certainly be adding more as the summer goes on.
Dusty Weis:
What about you, Jon?
Jon Doggett:
If I could find a way to get to see the Stones it would be just wonderful, and better see them pretty soon because sooner or later. But they take good care of themselves and live a lifestyle that is clean and above board, so they might go another 60 years, but to think that they've been going 60 years now, and that's truly amazing. So I would like to see the Stones. I saw the Trucks Tedeschi Band a couple months ago, and I'd love to see them again.
Geoff Cooper:
Jon, they're coming through St. Louis, and I'm glad you mentioned that, I'll be checking that out for sure, they're great.
Jon Doggett:
Great concert, I was there couple months ago and would absolutely go again. Also looking forward to, I think that Joe Bonamassa will be back through the DC area maybe early next year, and for those that don't know who Joe Bonamassa is, he is the greatest white blues guitarist that no one has ever heard of. And so I'm thinking on that, and if Beth Hart is with him for that concert, and man, she can sing, she's a blues singer from the get go. So yeah, there's a lot of great music out there, and I am looking forward to having a summer where we can actually get out and listen to some music under the stars at Jiffy Lube, or at Wolf Trap, there's just a lot of great venues and a lot of great music out there.
Dusty Weis:
It is great to have live music back, and Geoff, I know you mentioned your Led Zeppelin connection that you're getting to see, I've got a little, I guess six degrees of Led Zeppelin connection. But Led Zeppelin had a bass player, I believe, John Paul Jones, and he also played in an act called Them Crooked Vultures with a super group, with Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters and Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age. I saw Queens of the Stone Age open for Rage Against the Machine 15 years ago, we called it the Battle of Alpine Valley up here in southeast Wisconsin, it just so happens that Rage Against the Machine will be playing at Alpine Valley once again, a show that was delayed two years due to COVID. First time they've toured together in a real long time, and I'm excited about it.
Geoff Cooper:
And it's all four of the original members? Tom Morello.
Dusty Weis:
And all four of them. It seems like they can stand being around each other about once a decade these days, and so when they get back together, it's a treat.
Jon Doggett:
You know what they say, every band that gets together starts breaking up after the first day.
Geoff Cooper:
Except for the Stones, right Jon? 60 years.
Jon Doggett:
Except for the Stones, yeah.
Dusty Weis:
Well, and sadly it seems like it's about time to break up this little band of ours. Ah, you see what I did there?
Geoff Cooper:
Well done.
Jon Doggett:
Yeah.
Dusty Weis:
I couldn't resist.
Jon Doggett:
All right, Geoff Cooper, CEO at the Renewable Fuels Association. It's been our pleasure, as always, catching up with you, and thank you for joining us on this discussion. I'm NCGA CEO Jon Doggett, and we hope you'll join us again real soon for the next episode of Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast.
Dusty Weis:
That is going to wrap up this edition of Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast. New episodes arrive monthly, so make sure you subscribe in your favorite app and join us again soon. Visit NCGA.com to learn more, or sign up for the Association's email newsletter. Wherever Jon May Roam is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, with production oversight by Larry Kilgore III, and additional editing by Beatrice Lawrence, and it's produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses, PodcampMedia.com. For the National Corn Growers Association, thanks for listening, I'm Dusty Weis.
