How is the U.S. doing on its 15-year plan to reduce the dependence on oil by producing 36 billion gallons of fuel based on renewable sources by 2022? Biodiesel production approached 1 billion gallons in 2011, while ethanol reached 14 billion gallons, just over 10 percent of the approximately 136 billion gallons of liquid fuels consumed that year, Leighton Walter Klein reports for Journalist's Resource. a service of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University.
But, there are some downsides to using biofuels, Klein notes. "That biofuels are crop-based may seem like an advantage — if you need more, just grow more — but there are limits and downsides, too: Feedstock supplies can be volatile, something recent droughts have brought home, and in 2012 U.S. ethanol production began to fall behind the Renewable Fuel Standard as harvests suffered." The 2012 drought significantly hurt production of corn ethanol. More corn could be planted, "but at the cost of increased land-use change, pollution and water consumption."The solution, Klein writes, could be second-generation biofuels, which are produced from algae, plant cellulose or other sources.
"For all the big questions, the impact of biofuels is also intensely local," Klein writes. "Government policies can make the difference between a good year and a bad one for farmers — or complicate an already difficult situation: As the drought in the summer of 2012 dragged on, U.S. biofuel interests, livestock producers and farmers wrangled over whether the ethanol mandate should be suspended — it required that nearly half of the domestic corn production go to ethanol refineries, not feedlots. Consumers play their role, too: Energy-use per capita is expected to fall 20 percent by 2040 compared to 2000, with more people choosing hybrids and all-electric vehicles; this is good for the environment, but pushes the ethanol market toward the 'blend wall',” the capacity of the fuel market to absorb ethanol production with the current limit of 10 percent ethanol in gasoline. The article concludes with a list of studies on issues related to biofuel production and consumption.
But, there are some downsides to using biofuels, Klein notes. "That biofuels are crop-based may seem like an advantage — if you need more, just grow more — but there are limits and downsides, too: Feedstock supplies can be volatile, something recent droughts have brought home, and in 2012 U.S. ethanol production began to fall behind the Renewable Fuel Standard as harvests suffered." The 2012 drought significantly hurt production of corn ethanol. More corn could be planted, "but at the cost of increased land-use change, pollution and water consumption."The solution, Klein writes, could be second-generation biofuels, which are produced from algae, plant cellulose or other sources.
"For all the big questions, the impact of biofuels is also intensely local," Klein writes. "Government policies can make the difference between a good year and a bad one for farmers — or complicate an already difficult situation: As the drought in the summer of 2012 dragged on, U.S. biofuel interests, livestock producers and farmers wrangled over whether the ethanol mandate should be suspended — it required that nearly half of the domestic corn production go to ethanol refineries, not feedlots. Consumers play their role, too: Energy-use per capita is expected to fall 20 percent by 2040 compared to 2000, with more people choosing hybrids and all-electric vehicles; this is good for the environment, but pushes the ethanol market toward the 'blend wall',” the capacity of the fuel market to absorb ethanol production with the current limit of 10 percent ethanol in gasoline. The article concludes with a list of studies on issues related to biofuel production and consumption.
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| Graphic by Energy Information Administration |
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