Breaking Down the Obama Biofuel Plan

10 by Timothy Hurst on February 4, 2010

A cornfield at dusk on the Great Plains (Photo: James Jordan/flickr)

Last year the U.S. produced 11.1 billion gallons of biofuel. Obama's new plan states that by 2022, 21 billion gallons of renewable fuels will need to come from so-called advanced biofuels.

[There are few people with a better grasp on the politics, business and science of biofuels than Gas 2.0 editor, Nick Chambers. In light of new biofuels guidelines released yesterday by the Obama administration, I asked Nick if he could break down the new rules, EPA's analysis and what it all means for the future of biofuels. -TH]

This decision has been a long time in coming. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) actually started the whole process. Until now, however, the strategy to get to the goals set forth in the EISA were terribly murky. With yesterday's announcement, the Obama Administration has set clear goals to achieving the required 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. Last year the U.S. produced 11.1 billion gallons of biofuels. The new plan announced today states that by 2022, 21 billion gallons of renewable fuels will need to come from so-called advanced biofuels—biofuels that have at least a 50% reduction in GHG emissions when compared to their gas and diesel counterparts.

In addition to the 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels, requirements set forth by EISA dictated that any new renewable fuel facility constructed after enactment of EISA had to have at least a 20% reduction in GHG emissions when calculated on a lifecycle, cradle-to-grave basis—this includes any new corn ethanol facilities.

(Photo: Andrew Stawarz/flickr)

EPA's new data and analysis show that modern corn ethanol facilities powered by natural gas, biomass, or biogas that use advanced technologies and use corn that is grown using modern methods will meet the 20% reduction criteria on a lifecycle basis. This sounds plausible to me, especially considering the thorough analysis by EPA using the best available models and data. EPA also took into consideration over a thousand pages of public comment and has asked the National Academies of Sciences to review its methodology. Based on what I've read, I do think the EPA has done the most thorough analysis of lifecycle emissions to date.

What this means, however, is that the roughly 10 billion gallons of biofuels that are currently made in the U.S. with older technologies do not have to meet the 20% GHG reduction criteria. Biofuels made at those facilities may or may not be any better for the environment than their gasoline and diesel counterparts. Some of them are corn ethanol facilities that are powered by coal electricity—which means, according to EPA data, they produce 34% more GHG pollution than their gasoline counterparts. These facilities will continue to exist until such time as they are replaced by newer facilities or the laws change to force retrofits.

So, in 2022, if the Renewable Fuels Standard can be implemented successfully and 36 billion gallons of biofuels are being produced, roughly 21 billion gallons (58%) of them will be "advanced" with a 50% reduction in GHG, 5 billion gallons (14%) of them will be EISA mandated to have at least a 20% reduction in GHG, and 10 billion gallons (28%) of them will be of the older type with questionable environmental benefit. To me, 28% is still a large amount of our total biofuels to be of questionable environmental benefit. Continued...

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http://www.rhapsodyingreen.com Nathan Schock

Nick,

I think that’s a pretty fair assessment of what the EPA did. Keep in mind that this rule still includes the disputed indirect land use change theory that planting corn in the U.S. somehow leads to deforestation in Brazil. Even with that penalty, the EPA found that corn ethanol was more environmentally friendly than gasoline.

However, you got a couple of things wrong. First, you said that the EPA did not take into account the impact on food. That’s not correct. They estimated that 36 billion gallons of fuel would increase the average consumer’s food cost by only $10. Consumers will save far more than that at the pump since biofuels acts to keep domestic fuel prices from climbing higher.

Second, you said: “Let’s say that by 2022 our farmers are really good at growing corn for ethanol and have been able to squeeze about 500 gallons of ethanol out of every acre of corn.” We’re doing that today. The 2009 corn yield was an average of 165.2 bpa. If you multiply that by the three gallons per bushel that our company gets, that’s 496 gallons per acre. By 2022 we will be far better than that.
Nick Chambers

Nathan,

Fair enough, but let’s say that our farmers are getting even 800 gallons per acre, that’s still 9 Yellowstones or roughly 19 million acres. No matter how you slice it, that’s a heck of a lot of land. Also, my point about the effect on food supply was more related to the garagantuan amount of food farmland needed to make biofuels based on the RFS. EPA’s calculations about the effect on food prices have always been their weakest argument. Even ballpark calculations in this respect are exceedingly difficult.

In the end, as I see it, the major point about shifting away from food-based biofuels is really important and it would not be that difficult to mandate a phase out after 2022. At that point, all of those corn ethanol facilities could easily be converted to cellulosic ethanol facilities. Heck, they could even shift to only using corn STOVER at that point and let the grain go into the grain supply chain. Doesn’t that just make sense? You avoid all the food vs. fuel issues regardless of what they may or may not be. In most cases avoidance is not the best policy, but in this case it sure as hell is.

http://www.rhapsodyingreen.com Nathan Schock

Nick,
I see your point, but 19 million acres really isn’t as big of a number as it sounds. For instance, we produced last year’s record corn crop on 7 million FEWER acres than the last record corn crop. 19 million acres is the amount of farmland in South Dakota. By contrast, a Stanford University study found that 1.2 BILLION acres of former cropland now sits idle around the world.

Also, ethanol is only made from the starch in the corn kernel. The protein put back in the feed supply as distillers grains in your scenario would be the equivalent of corn from 6.3 million acres, so the net acreage for ethanol would be 12.7 million. That’s a far cry from the 30 million you had in your post and I think a manageable number.

Will the majority of ethanol in the future have to come from cellulose? Absolutely. That’s why you see my company and many others working so hard to commercialize the process. But there is likely to be a role for ethanol from corn for a long time and I think the RFS passed by Congress did a good job of identifying that.

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http://www.cleanairchoice.org Bob Moffitt

I can’t speak for all states, but here in Minnesota (which produces roughly 10% of the nation’s ethanol) only one of our plants (a fairly small one) is coal-fired, the rest are natural gas, some also get power from burning biomass or from dedicated wind-turbines.

With our large number of public outlets (350+) we have pretty well proven that if the price is right and the stations are there, consumers will use E85 instead of gasoline. When gas prices soar, E85 use here spikes.
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http://www.saxifrageschool.org Tim Cook

Another aspect that seems unanswered is the fact that the majority of these corn (and other bio-fuel crops) will be using a large amount of fossil-fuel based fertilizers/pesticides to grow such large volumes… is the produced amount of bio-fuels really enough to offset this cost?
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