In 2007, Congress set a goal of mixing 36 billion gallons of biofuels, the bulk of it coming from second-generation “advanced” fuels, into gasoline annually, beginning in 2022. Economist Jonathan Coppess of the University of Illinois says the “actual, effective floor” for biofuels will be 20 billion gallons, based on the recent U.S. appellate court ruling that clarifies the EPA’s power to adjust the so-called Renewable Fuels Standard.
“That 20 billion-gallon floor will be made of 15 billion from conventional ethanol and 5 billion from advanced biofuels, largely biomass-based diesel,” writes Coppess at farmdoc Daily. Corn is almost exclusively the feedstock for conventional ethanol.
The 2007 energy law set the target for corn ethanol at a maximum of 15 billion gallons annually from 2015, but EPA lowered the mandate in 2015 and 2016 on grounds the gasoline market was saturated with ethanol and there was no room to absorb more of it. The appellate court overruled EPA on that point but agreed the agency could reduce the advanced biofuels target, which includes cellulosic ethanol made from grasses and woody plants, because production was billions of gallons smaller than expected when the law was enacted.
“It is certainly feasible for EPA to increase the mandate if cellulosic biofuel production increases but there is little argument left that it can lower it beyond deficiencies in cellulosic production,” writes Coppess. “Ultimately unable to meet the ambitious numbers set down in statute, the RFS has nevertheless persevered on the numbers that lie in between; billions of gallons of homegrown renewable fuels have been and will be added to the tanks of American automobiles.”