No surprise: RFS missing its target
Source: By Howard Gruenspecht, Iowa Farmer Today • Posted: Wednesday, July 6, 2016
The RFS program is not expected to achieve the legislated target that calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable motor fuels use by 2022. This is not a new or surprising finding. . . .
Substantially increased use of biofuels can only occur if they can be used in forms other than low-percentage blends of ethanol and biodiesel that account for nearly all of their current use. There are four potential alternative pathways:
- Increased use of ethanol blends above 10 percent by volume
- Increased use of biodiesel blends above 5 percent by volume
- The advent of drop-in biofuels, such as renewable gasoline, diesel or jet fuel that can be used as direct replacements for their petroleum-based counterparts
- The development and use of new renewable fuel components, such as biobutanol, that might be more easily blended in increased volumes. . . .
Ethanol faces demand, distribution system and regulatory challenges that make it difficult to increase its use as a motor fuel regardless of its source.
Ethanol potentially has three distinct roles in motor fuels markets: providing octane, adding volume to motor fuel and providing energy content. Ethanol has achieved considerable market success in the first two roles. . . .
With the possible use of mid-level blends such as E15 and higher-percentage blends such as E85, where ethanol provides a larger proportion of the energy in each gallon of fuel, one important behavioral question is when consumers start to notice the impact of ethanol’s lower energy content per gallon on the range provided by a tankful of fuel and factor that impact into their buying decisions. . . .
Howard Gruenspecht is deputy administrator of the Energy Information Administration in the U.S. Department of Energy.