EPA Raises Renewable Fuel Requirement to 10.21% for 2009; 11.1B Gallons
19 November 2008
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) raised the 2009 Renewable Fuel Standard to 10.21% to ensure that at least 11.1 billion gallons of renewable fuels be blended into transportation gasoline. This standard is used by obligated parties—refiners, importers and blenders (other than oxygen blenders)—to calculate their renewable volume obligation. The EPA expects the 11.1 billion gallons of renewable fuel required in 2009 ultimately to include approximately 0.5 billion gallons of biodiesel and renewable diesel.
The 2009 standard marks a 23.3% increase by volume of the 2008 RFS of 9 billion gallons, but a 31.6% increase by percentage volume from 7.76% in 2008. The larger relative increase is due to expectations of lower fuel consumption in 2009.
The EPA expects 138.47 billion gallons of gasoline blends will be sold in 2009 in the 48 contiguous states plus Hawaii, down from the 144.5 billion gallons EPA expected to be sold this year—a 4.2% decrease.
The 2009 RFS requirement is being issued under the auspices of the Renewable Fuel Standard established by The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) (RFS1). This has been superceded legislatively by Renewable Fuel Standard requirements established by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) (RFS2).
Some of the major changes enacted in RFS2 include:
Expansion of the volume of renewable fuel (36 billion gallons by 2022).
Separation of the renewable fuel volume requirements into four categories: cellulosic biofuel, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel.
Changes to the definition of renewable fuels and criteria (e.g. life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emission performance including such factors as indirect land use) for determining which if any of the four renewable fuel categories a given renewable fuel is eligible to meet.
Expansion of the fuel pool subject to the standards to include diesel and certain nonroad fuels and expansion of the obligated parties to include refiners, certain blenders, and importers of those fuels.
Inclusion of specific types of waivers and EPA-generated credits for cellulosic biofuel.
EPA is still developing a rulemaking that will outline its approach to all these changes to the RFS2 program. Until EPA issues final regulations to implement the changes, however, the changes required by EISA are generally not applicable, and the RFS1 regulations continue to apply.
One major exception to this is in the volume amount. The new statutory renewable fuel volume must be used under the RFS1 regulations to generate the standard for 2009. Under RFS1 volumes, the target for 2009 would have been 6.1 billion gallons. The RFS program in 2009 will continue to be applicable to producers and importers of gasoline only.
This leaves, for the moment, unanswered the question of how to implement the EISA requirement for use of 0.5 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel. The EPA says that it will propose an approach in its forthcoming Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for RFS2: The EPA plans to increase the 2010 biomass-based diesel requirement by 0.5 billion gallons and allow 2009 biodiesel and renewable diesel RINs to be used to meet this combined 2009/2010 requirement.
EPA outlines the full calculation to reach the 10.21% standard for 2009 in its notice published in the Federal Register.
Resources
2009 RFS notice for Federal Register
Wow, truly amazing! This will ensure the legacy of Bush as the renewable energy president. Time will tell if the present ethanol program will be sustainable. We all remember Carter in the Whitehouse wearing a sweater but mostly had an ineffective energy policy. Modern wood fired power plants and anaerobic digesters of animal manure can be credited to starting with Carter. The Clinton administration promoted them to reduce ghg, but it was not until Bush that wood and anaerobic digesters started getting the incentives for new projects to actually get built. For ethanol to be sustainable, anaerobic digesters and fluidized bed biomass boilers will need to provide the process energy.
For the record, Senators Clinton and McCain were both against ethanol and the 2003 energy bill that did not pass. Corn ethanol would not directly help the economy of NY or Arizona. However, as a result of the 2005 Energy Bill those states are directly benefiting. We now have many new options of energy and each state must figure out what best suits the local environment.
Posted by: Kit P | 19 November 2008 at 07:19 AM
A 2009 projected reduction in blended gasoline sales of 6 billion gallons. Nice beginning. Looks like the Administration's EPA despite all the hate is actually getting things done.
But let's not go overboard and give Bush the credit. Everyone here knows his only objective has been to consume more and make war on false gods...er, enemies.
Posted by: sulleny | 19 November 2008 at 11:06 AM
Wow, this is truly sad! I thought most people realized the environmental disaster unleashed by corn ethanol. Synthetic fertilizers, high water usage, contaminated runoff, degradation of farmland, and ocean deadzones, just to name a few. Plus, it only marginally reduces GHG (at best). And we're paying the big agrobusineses huge subsidies for this! And to think Bush might get credit as a renewable energy president for this disaster?
Wow. Too bad Obama supports this crap too (he "has to" since he's from the midwest). I guess we'll keep on this path downward until the consequences become so bad they can't be ignored, or until cellulosic comes through somehow.
Posted by: Karkus | 19 November 2008 at 01:24 PM
@Karkus
I have been looking closely for any environmental disasters associated with energy production including ethanol. While I have heard your long list of non specific complaints before folks like Karkus never have any solutions that work. During my life time there clear trend to reducing the environment impact of producing energy.
Posted by: Kit P | 19 November 2008 at 03:31 PM
I wonder if people can grasp the concept of "transitional actions?" Building a renewable liquid fuel infrastructure requires enough incentive for people to install E-85 pumps. Corn is the feedstock currently available. There is nearly a $billion being spent on cellulosic pilot and R&D projects. Coskata is building a revolutionary cellulosic plant that will use a diverse stream of feedstock from wood to waste.
Mr. Obama will support the near term expansion of infrastructure to allow us to transition from corn feedstocks to cellulosic. Practical, realistic, and it is happening now. Get used to the changes. And read how even the United Nations admits that ethanol does not affect food pricing.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/un-report-paint.html
Posted by: reel$$ | 19 November 2008 at 06:53 PM
There's is one VERY simple solution:
Raise the gas tax !
Based on what happened with $4 gas this year (reduced vehicle miles and shift in car purchasing), there is no doubt this would work.
The only problem is that doing so is political suicide in the US.
High fuel taxes are the main reason why the Europeans buy smaller/more efficient cars than we do. Over there, the taxes outweigh the cost of the gasoline, whereas here it's a small fraction thereof. (And on a side note, the super high taxes on gasoline in Europe is also the reason why many diesels are sold there, since it is not taxed quite as high as gasoline, but that artificial subsidy is decreasing).
Posted by: Karkus | 20 November 2008 at 09:00 AM
I agree that there is a lot of reserach going into cellulosic, and I really hope they make it happen. I can also agree that building the infrastructure is not entirely a bad thing.
My main point is that we should stop increasing the requirement for ethanol, UNTIL the cellulosic production can start to make up that difference. (i.e. limit corn ethanol to it's current 10% level).
There's are in fact studies on the connection between corn/ethanol/deadzones/etc.
For example, this article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22301669/
mentions studies by the EPA and U of Michigan.
NREL has also done lots of analysis of energy balance of ethanol, as well as water usage (785 gallons water/gallon ethanol for irrigated corn).
As for that UN report article, it states that there IS an effect on food price - just that's it's not as big as previously thought. And the record corn prices this year, a lot of corn ethanol became unprofitable, and some shut down.
That article is also very critical of the subsidies that are driving ethanol in in the US.
Posted by: | 20 November 2008 at 09:33 AM
Quoth real$$:
I wonder if you can grasp the concept of "Bridge to Nowhere".There is no guarantee that cellulosic ethanol will ever work (as Robert Rapier notes, the typical cellulose-fermenting bug reaches its limits of alcohol tolerance at around 4%, which is a mixture that's not worth the energy to distill). There is no point setting up an infrastructure for ethanol unless and until that is proven.
We already have a proven infrastructure for electricity, and we can make it with ease from all the non-food biofuels we've got. That should be our main "alternative".
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 21 November 2008 at 07:33 AM
@E-P
How is your electricity car working? Yes, there is an infrastructure to distribute electricity but there are no electricity cars that anyone wants to buy. It is nice to see that E-P now recognizes biofuels as a significant sources of electricity that reduces ghg emissions. Credit that improvement to the electricity generating industrty.
However, hauling batteries around will increase ghg and demand LNG. If you live somewhere with bad air maybe BEV will have a positive environmental impact.
Posted by: Kit P | 21 November 2008 at 09:31 AM
Golly EP: humans have been distilling plant matter (biomass) into alcohol for some 15,000 years. Range Fuels is making "wood alcohol" down in Georgia on the scale of 20-30 million gallons annually. The target is 100 million gal annual. Guess they've got a bug that seems to do what has been done for thousands of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_Fuels
AT this point the bridge infrastructure is well under way with the support of both political parties and Administrations. But it will require the paid doomsmen to... change. We know it's hard to change EP - but that's what's heading your way.
Posted by: reel$$ | 21 November 2008 at 08:28 PM
@reel$$
Do not be fooled by E-P's talk. He drives an ICE powered POV like the rest of us. E-P may link magazines with cool pictures of POV converted to BEV but he does not convert one himself.
There is a difference between a hobby and a business that must make a profit and meet environmental and safety regulations. Ten years ago, renewable energy conferences were attended by few people and even fewer high level government official. The technologies to produce renewable energy existed and if only:
California would ban MBTE
Natural gas was not $1.50 MMBTU
There were low cost loans
There were a consistent PTC
More states had a RPS like Texas
If only there was a RFS
If only Bill Clinton was not president.
It is amazing to see what has happened in the last ten years starting in places like Texas. Ethanol is one of the biggest and is significant. Wind is doing fantastic too. I would not have believed 10 years ago that we would be building about 8000 MWe of capacity a year which is not really very significant part of the mix.
Posted by: | 22 November 2008 at 09:16 AM
Quoth the troll:
"Electricity car"? Is English your first language? You're marginal even with spell-check picking (the wrong) words for you, and you'd be incomprehensible without it.I'd be in the market for a Tesla, if circumstances were a bit different. I'm tentatively in the market for an Aptera PHEV. And I would already have a Prius and be considering a PHEV kit if they hadn't been so danged scarce when I last needed a car. People are buying the PHEV kits.
I only give credit where it's due, and that's due to environmentalists. If it were up to the electric industry, we'd probably be 80% coal-fired instead of 50%.As opposed to hauling fuel around, which is not only guaranteed to increase GHG but is more or less fixed at the time of manufacture? Electrics and PHEVs can "improve" after the fact as the grid mix changes. The GM EV1 at 200 Wh/mi, running on coal at 900 g/kWh, emits 180 g/mi CO2 (112 g/km). This is competitive with the Toyota Prius at 104 g/km (not including the roughly 21% upstream overhead of petroleum refining for the Prius which is not incurred with coal).
This drops well below any combustion-powered production car if you use the average US fossil-fired generation mix (1.341 lbm/kWh, 76 g/km), and to zero if you use carbon-free electric. Given the option I'll take the car I can "fuel" with uranium, thanks.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 24 November 2008 at 04:36 PM
Quoth reel$$:
15,000 years? You mean, before agriculture and human settlements? Don't be silly. Distilled liquors were invented in the 9th century, though there's evidence of alcohol for perfumery in Babylonia.Great. That's about half a million barrels a year. What's the EROI of the process? What's the cost? Is it remotely competitive without subsidies?
Range Fuels is using gasification and catalytic synthesis, not "bugs". See their site. You may consider yourself pwned.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 24 November 2008 at 04:37 PM