The Environmental Protection Agency will not meet its goal of blending 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel into the nation’s fuel supply by 2022, according to a senior official with the Energy Department’s statistical and analytical arm.
“The RFS is not expected to come close to the legislative target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel use by 2022,” said Howard Gruenspecht, deputy administrator of the Energy Information Administration, said of the Renewable Fuel Standard. The RFS requires refiners to blend ethanol and other biofuels into the nation’s liquid fuel supply.
Despite a recent surge in advanced cellulosic biofuels in the last two years, the growth is still so low that the goals of the RFS cannot be met. Cellulosic biofuels are required to meet nearly half of the 2022 target, while the rest is to come from more conventional renewable fuels like corn-based ethanol and biodiesel from soy.
“Virtually all of the shortfall involves cellulosic biofuels,” Gruenspecht said at an oversight hearing held by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Cellulosic biofuels must emit 60 percent less carbon dioxide compared to gasoline, and development of these fuels are part of the administration’s climate change agenda.
“The hope that large volumes of liquid cellulosic biofuels with a decade following adoption … has not been realized,” he said. About one tenth of 1 percent of the cellulosic target under the program was achieved in 2015.
Much of the volume of cellulosic biofuel is coming from EPA’s decision to allow landfill gas to be counted as cellulosic biofuels, he explained. But a gaseous fuel “does not displace petroleum use,” a stated goal of the RFS program. Yet, biogas “provided more than 97 percent of total cellulosic biofuel credit in 2015,” he said.
In addition to the problems facing these advanced biofuels, conventional ethanol fuel is faced with a number of challenges. “Ethanol faces demand, distribution and regulatory challenges that make it difficult to increase its use as a motor fuel,” Gruenspecht said.
Ethanol has been successful as an additive in gasoline, helping it burn more efficiently as an ocane enhancer, he explained. But it has been less successful in its ability to provide high enough energy content compared to gasoline.
Gruenspecht said the low oil price is also making it more challenging to comply with the RFS, making compliance with the program by refiner higher.
