The corn-based ethanol target is in line with the 10 percent “blend wall”, or the maximum percentage of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline, but below the original goal of 15 billion gallons set in 2007.
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The volume mandates for 2014, 2015 and 2016 are less than the rules proposed in the 2007 law that established biofuel policy, angering some farm groups. The final 2016 standard for advanced biofuel is almost 1 billion gallons, or 35%, higher than the actual 2014 volumes; and the total renewable standard requires growth from 2014 to 2016 of more than 1.8 billion gallons of biofuel, which is 11% higher than 2014 actual volumes.
The EPAs initial proposal outlined on May 29, as directed by a court settlement with the oil industry, would have required refiners to use some 17.4 billion gallons of renewable fuels next year, with about 14 billion of those coming from traditional corn ethanol.
Novozymes, which has a huge operation in Franklinton and is the world’s largest provider of enzymes and other technologies to create biofuels, reacted angrily to new EPA guidelines for biofuel and ethanol production issued Monday. The total renewable fuel percentage however, increased slightly from the originally proposed 9.02 percent. Cars are more efficient and Americans have been logging fewer miles on the road, although gasoline consumption did increase in 2015.
The American Coalition for Ethanol’s Executive Vice President Brian Jennings, who said that the group’s priority would be to “continue to ensure EPA holds oil companies legally responsible for making cleaner and less expensive fuel choices available to consumers”. “Unfortunately they didn’t go all-in”, said Adam Monroe, president of Novozymes Americas.
In June, Gov. Nixon joined Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad to testify at a public hearing regarding the proposed standards at which he urged the EPA to increase and align the RFS targets with those that Congress intended. The Obama Administration’s unprecedented decision today lowering the amount of corn ethanol that refiners must add to gasoline misses an opportunity to go even further and pave the way for second-generation biofuels, EWG said.
Broin said the overall higher national blend rate will be met mostly by growth in so-called E-15.
The Environmental Protection Agency laid out a rule Monday for how much biofuel must be mixed into the nation’s gas supply next year.
Corn-based ethanol has also taken a large number of hits. “Now, the President is saying that, if oil companies refuse to comply with the law, that the EPA can waive the obligation”, said Americans for Energy Security and Innovation Chairman Jim Talent.
In the presidential race, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has said she will seek to strengthen the standards, and her fellow Democratic candidates have also supported it. Shares of Green Plains Inc., one of the biggest US ethanol producers, rose 5 percent after the EPA released its numbers. First, the final rule continues to rely on a new reading of the statute to allow for ‘distribution waivers, ‘ which now permits EPA to waive the RFS from year-to-year if the oil industry refuses to make arrangements to distribute renewable fuel and comply with the law.
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Biomass-based diesel: 1.63 bill gal (2014), 1.73 bill gal (2015), 1.90 bill gal (2016), and 2.00 bill gal (2017). “We’ve multiplied wind power threefold and solar power more than twentyfold, helping create parts of America where these clean power sources are finally cheaper than dirtier, conventional power”, Mr. Obama said at the outset of the climate change conference Monday. “We can’t do that because it’s not produced at that level”, Irwin said. Unlike Big Oil, the ethanol industry does not receive billions in tax subsidies and the RFS is our only means of accessing a marketplace that is overwhelmingly and unfairly dominated by the petroleum industry.
