A video from the US Department of Energy showing how cellulosic biofuel technologies can help decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil, spur growth in the domestic biofuels industry, and provide new revenue opportunities to farmers in many rural areas of the country.

The video, shot at a harvesting equipment demonstration in Emmetsburg, Iowa, highlights a new way of producing ethanol from the cellulose fibers in corn cobs, not from the corn kernels.

The technology generates a new opportunity for farmers to harvest and sell the cobs that they’d normally leave in the field. To date, DOE has committed over $1 billion to 27 cost-shared biorefinery projects.

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