GoodFuels

Push for higher percentages

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has recently expressed his support for raising the amount of ethanol into the fuel mix to a percentage higher than the current 10%.

“An increase in the percentage that can go into gasoline would be a way to stimulate the corn-based ethanol industry,” Vilsack said.

Vilsack has reportedly been speaking with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and encouraging her to make an adjustment to the blend ratio.

“My hope is that we can get a blend rate that is higher than 10%,” Vilsack said. “That is going to create more opportunities for the ethanol industry.We’re encouraging EPA to do that. We hope that they’ll listen to our concerns.”

Although Vilsack is not quite sure what the blend cap should be yet, he still strongly supports this increase because he believes it will “create more opportunities for the ethanol industry.”

Let’s raise those percentages!

KS adopts blender pump regulations

Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky announced yesterday that Kansas will adopt regulations for at-the-pump blending pumps which will allow the distribution mid-level (E-20, for example) ethanol blends throughout the state.

According to the Wichita Eagle, “Polansky said information and data gathered during the trial run ‘confirm that blending pumps can consistently and accurately dispense a range of ethanol blends from a single pump.’”

The pumps will carry warning labels for consumers who don’t own flex-fuel vehicles:

To help warn consumers who aren’t driving a flexible fuel vehicle, pumps dispensing anything above E10 must have a bright orange label that states, “For use in flexible fuel vehicles only.“

This is great news. The more ethanol blends are available, the more they will be used

Schafer to Braley: ethanol does not raise food prices

Ed Schafer, USDA Secretary of Agriculture, wrote a letter early last week to Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley to express how much Schafer appreciates Braley’s support on ethanol issues.

All of us recognize that high gasoline prices and rising food prices are important “pocketbook” issues for American consumers. We also recognize the national and economic secutiry importance of reducing our dependence on imported oil as well as the urgency of developing new, cleaner fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Administration’s biofuels policy makes important contributions to each of these goals.

The letter also included a state-by-state comparison showing what ethanol saves consumers in any given state.

On July 11, 2008, the Department of Energy estimated that gasoline prices would be 20-35 cents per gallon higher without ethanol. For a typical household, this means saving about $150 to $300 a year. Nationwide, this means a reduction in gas expenditures of $20 billion to $40 billion based on annual gas consumption of roughly 140 billion gallons.

Read the entire letter here (along with the state-by-state benefit analysis).

Photo by Unhindered by Talent via Creative Commons license.

eBIO supports biofuels section of draft of EU’s Renewable Energy Cources Directive

eBIO, The European Bioethanol Fuel Association, has congratulated the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the biofuels section of the draft Renewable Energy Sources Directive.

The section would require 10% of motor fuel used in the EU to come from a renewable source:

The decision to maintain the binding 10% objective and to introduce reasonable greenhouse gas saving thresholds is an important signal to the European industry. The new legislation will safeguard the current production capacity that required capital investments of over € 5 billion as well as thousands of jobs that are indispensable in this time of global economic crisis. Moreover, this mandate will set the scene for new investments to further improve the technological profile of the European ethanol production.

Land-use change (ILUC) is also addressed in eBIO’s press release:

Penalising biofuels producers across the board without studying ILUC first would have been senseless. eBIO is confident that the positive impact of European bioethanol production on ILUC due to its animal feed co-product, as well as the use of vast set aside areas and strong crop yield increases will be eventually recognised.

The EU will be voting on the draft soon. Be sure to check right here on GoodFuels for updates. In the meantime, here is eBIO’s press release for download.

Land Use is Hot Topic in Florida

It’s all about land use - especially indirect land use - here at the Cellulosic Ethanol Summit in south Florida. It came up on every panel that I had the chance to hear.

I got the opportunity to chat with Nathanael Greene, Senior Policy Analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council about the issue, who confirmed that it is a complex issue.

“I think it’s really one of the biggest challenges the industry faces,” Greene said. “There’s a lot of complexity and uncertainty surrounding the calculation of it.” He called the report released by the Renewable Fuels Association last week “a valuable addition to the discussion” noting that it shows “how important yield trends have been over time and how that really has almost shrunk the amount of land we need in the world.”

You can listen to my interview with Greene here: