Obama visits Poet ethanol plant, but that doesn't mean industry is all happy [w/video]

Even though President Obama visited an ethanol production facility run by Poet yesterday and spoke once again about tripling the amount of ethanol the U.S. produces over the next 12 years, the ethanol industry probably wasn't too pleased with the whole event. Domestic Fuel, a site dedicated to the biofuel, said the speech "lacked substance." This is because Obama didn't talk about the E15 waiver issue or the renewal of ethanol production tax incentives, and that, "Without those actions, the future of the ethanol industry is questionable."

Still, the industry – through the representation of Poet president Jeff Broin – got to have Obama's ear for a while. Broin told Domestic Fuel:

We talked about the fact that cellulosic ethanol had the potential to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and that there were some policy issues that are very important to move that forward, the first being the fact that today the market is full. Basically ten percent ethanol is what's allowed in gasoline today and we need to move that wall and open up the market.

You can watch the President's speech (most of it was about the economy and Wall Street) after the jump. The first few minutes are all "thank yous," so feel free to skip to the meat starting at 1:55. It's a good bet that he meant ethanol and not biodiesel when he talked about "the technologies that are being developed in places like Poet."

[Source: AP, Domestic Fuel, White House]

The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.