According to newratings.com, Analyst Heather L Jones of BB&T Capital Markets has in a research note published today, given VeraSun and Aventine Renewable Energy holdings both a buy rating.

VeraSun gets a buy because the company is competitively well positioned on account of its sound management and comparatively sizeable scale. And Aventine because of the company’s large marketing scale, low-cost profile and management represent major competitive advantages.

No doubt about it, we have been going through an ethanol boom - as decribed in this google video. A more sceptical view was recently expressed by a Swiss Bank - Sarasin - who said that the ethanol boom was unsustainable for two reasons;

(a) insufficient land to support corn grown for both food and fuel

and

(b) an insufficient market for the byproducts of ethanol production.

I think Sarasin is probably right. The mistake though is to assume that if a technology like ethanol cannot be all of the solution, that it cannot be even a part of the solution. Bioethanol and biodiesel make up such a tiny fraction of transport fuels in the USA, that a growth to double digits - say 10% and no further - represents an enormous growth opportunity between now and then.