Not all biofuels made energy bill's 'nice' list

Tom Gilbert for The New York Times

        The energy bill received applause from not just corn but from backers of many advanced biofuel technologies that stand to gain from the increase in the RFS to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022.
         That is not to say that all biofuel interests were politically convincing. Among the most vocal of the disenfranchised has been Syntroleum, the Tulsa, Okla.-based company which is using a chemical process to make synthetic liquid fuel from sources including natural gas and animal fat.
        As recently explained by Richard Bond, CEO of Tyson Foods, which is working with Syntroleum to bring the product to market: "Part of the beauty of those plants is you could take very low-cost, cheap feedstocks, grease that no one else can use, and convert those not only into diesel, but into very high-end jet fuel."
        Lawmakers yanked a provision that would have extended the 50¢/gal  federal tax credit that makes viable the whole project, which is also backed by ConocoPhillips.
        ConocoPhillips officials last week warned that change could shelve the project, including plans for a 75 million gallon plant at which by-product fat leftover from Tyson food operations would be converted into biodiesel.
        House Democrats has hoped to pay for their tax incentives largely by rolling back tax breaks for oil and gas companies that were enacted in 2005, but that didn't sit well with many in the Senate, not to mention the White House.