Ethanol’s chief benefit is environmental.  …Last summer, there were no smog alerts in the GTA and 5.5 million Canadians breathed easier. Ethanol was a major factor in cleaning the air above Canada’s biggest metropolis.

A lesser-known fact is that the smaller, lighter car engines with high horsepower coming on to the market today require a higher-level octane gasoline. The traditional way to increase octane is to boost the level of aromatics in the fuel, specifically benzene, toluene and xylene. All three of these compounds are carcinogenic. The alternative method of increasing octane is to add ethanol, which has an octane of 114 and delivers plenty of extra power. That’s why Indy and NASCAR racers use ethanol.

Ethanol also reduces the price of gasoline at the pump. With about 15 billion gallons of ethanol in the North American gasoline pool today, gasoline is about 10¢ cheaper per litre in Canada and about 40¢ cheaper per gallon in the United States.  READ MORE

The committee debated the merits of the bill and a pair of amendments for about 45 minutes before passing the bill by a vote of 19-7. If passed into law, Sensenbrenner’s bill would delay the implementation of E15 by at least 18 months while the NAS conducts its testing. The bill allows for up to $900,000 of the U.S. EPA’s research and development funds to be used to finance the testing.

…Opponents, however, claim that Sensenbrenner’s proposal is little more than an effort to disrupt the EPA’s regulatory abilities and expressed confidence that the bill will not be passed into law.

… “Those of us in California and around the country do have concerns about corn-based ethanol,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said. “It’s a complex and important issue…but we should not stop the EPA from conducting its required activities under the Clean Air Act. To do so would weaken and undermine our environmental laws and procedures.”  READ MORE

An independent peer review meeting is scheduled for March 14, 2011 in Arlington, VA. [Federal Register Jan 28, 2011] READ MORE  Download Report

…Mabus pointed out that the oil shocks cost the US Navy in terms of readiness and operation. “The only place we’ve got to go get that money is operations or training, so our ships steam less, our planes fly less, we train our sailors and Marines less.”

His focus, he insists, is not on the adoption of renewable energy for reasons of reducing carbon emissions, but US naval preparedness. “We’re moving away from it for one reason, that is it makes us better war fighters. We would never give these countries the opportunities to build our ships, our aircraft, our ground vehicles, but we give them a vote in whether those ships sail and whether those aircraft fly or those ground vehicles operate when we allow them to set the price and the supply of our energy and we’ve just got to move away from it.”

…”In the 1850s, we went from sail to coal. In the early part of the 20th century, we went from coal to oil. In the 50s, we pioneered nuclear. We were the first service, first people to ever use nuclear power for transportation. And now, we’re changing it again. And every single time, from the 1850s to today, you’ve got nay sayers, they say you’re trading one form of energy that you know about, that’s predictable, that’s affordable for another that’s not and you just shouldn’t do it. And every single time, they’ve been wrong and I’m absolutely confident they’re going to be wrong again.

…(C)ould airlines, that are urgently seeking affordable aviation biofuels, provide the financing, in the form of advanced payments for aviation biofuel orders?

Here’s how such a scheme might work. (In our example, we are using a $400 million, 38 million gallon plant producing in-spec aviation biofuels at $4 per gallon. Actual project capital requirements may vary.)

Step 1. A consortium of 10 airlines each provide $30 million, which will ultimately pay for 7.5 million gallon initial orders at $4 per gallon, for each airline. …

Step 2. Working with the USDA, the project secures a 15-year, affordable feedstock supply; the airlines provide 15-year off take contracts, with the US Navy providing a backup off take guarantee on the full faith and credit of the United States.

Step 3. A 38 million-gallon advanced aviation biofuel facility is constructed using the airline financing and project equity.

Step 4. Following completion, start-up and demonstration of the facility – essentially, taking out the technology risk – the project is refinanced at commercially-viable rates using the traditional project lending sources, or the bond market.

Step 5. The airline’s debt portion is converted to pre-paid orders, and the 38 million gallon facility delivers 75 million gallons of fuel to the airline buyers over a two-year period.

Step 6. Following completion of step four, the project moves to a “business as usual” relationship with its buyers.   READ MORE and MORE  and MORE (C-SPAN/Q&A.org)

Both plentiful and a potentially low-cost source of fuel, biomass residuals are also less controversial than traditional corn ethanol because they are not a source of food or feed. Turning stover (the stalks, leaves and cobs that remain in corn fields after the grain is produced) into ethanol or using anaerobic digesters on livestock farms to generate bioenergy from animal manure are seemingly win-win propositions — more income for agricultural producers, new home-grown energy sources, and environmental protections for states and their communities.

But as Steve Brick, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, notes, there are technological, logistical and cost hurdles to overcome in order to expand the use of these energy sources.

And he says states are in a position to help.  READ MORE

“The RFS works,” glowed National Biodiesel Board CEO Joe Jobe, in marking the industry’s first billion-gallon production year in 2011, as industry benefitted from a now-expired $1.00 per gallon biodiesel tax credit, and from the billion gallon mandate called for under the Renewable Fuel Standard.

…“It’s a fantasy to think that global energy prices are based on a free market; they are controlled and manipulated by a cartel,” Jobe said.

…Just now, the EPA has thrown out another 48.1 million fake biodiesel credits, this time sold by Absolute Fuels in Texas. It follows on last year’s scandal when Clean Green Fuels of Maryland had 32.3 million credits declared invalid. Neither company had produced biodiesel equivalent to the credits they pretended to have sold.

The refining industry is up in arms. The EPA has demanded that they pay fines for submitting fake RINs, and also buy new, real ones; and, the agency said that the obligated parties would have to recover the money paid out for fraudulent RINs by their own legal action against the sellers.  READ MORE

Congressman Pete Olson, R-Texas, recently introduced the Domestic Alternative Fuels Act of 2012. The measure seeks to modify the renewable fuel standard to include ethanol and other fuels produced from fossil fuels, like natural gas.

Renewable Fuels Association’s Matt Hartwig says it’s not only a misguided attempt to equate fossil fuels as a renewable, but to eliminate the RFS altogether.

“It is simply lunacy to suggest that a fossil fuel belongs in any sort of renewable energy policy in the country,” Hartwig said. “The fossil fuels industry gives these members a lot of money, they are job creators in their district and so this is pandering to a constituency. I think what is more troubling is this may be little more than a Trojan Horse attempt to try to open up the Renewable Fuels Standard on Capitol Hill with the ultimate goal being to repeal it completely.”   READ MORE

“It is the position of the ethanol and grain industries that the contributing factors to the volatility facing the commodities markets are many and cannot be attributed to one industry,” the statement continues. “These factors include the high cost of fossil fuels, currency fluctuations, massive grain buys from emerging markets such as China, and noncommercial market speculators. In fact, studies that have examined both the impact of crude oil prices and biofuels demand on agricultural prices conclude that oil prices are the more influential factor. While it would be naïve to claim that grain demand for ethanol production has no effect on commodity prices, it is equally inaccurate to speculate that future ethanol policies will have a detrimental effect on the livestock and meat industries.  READ MORE

…However, less than three years after adopting a key law—which mandates that by 2020, 10% of the total energy used in transport will have to come from renewable sources such as biofuels—a tough debate has begun in the EU on whether biofuels really are better for the climate than conventional fuels.

…The majority of European cars run on diesel engines, and companies like Cargill, Sofiprotéol in France or Abengoa in Spain have all together invested billions of euros in building up biodiesel production capacity. But current capacity would already almost be enough to cover the EU 2020 targets, while regulatory uncertainty is doing its part in lowering interest in new investments, experts say.

…A liter of biofuel emits roughly the same carbon dioxide as a liter of fossil fuel when used in a car engine. But biofuels made from refining vegetable oils have been considered virtually carbon neutral because the plants from which the fuel is made has previously absorbed the carbon dioxide that is emitted by burning it.

…The commission itself is divided on the issue: Its energy department wants to stick with the target, but its climate branch is inclined to change it if it doesn’t actually help the environment, officials said.

Neste Oil says it isn’t worried about policy change. In Rotterdam, the company mainly produces NExTBL—a transparent, alcohol-like, odorless liquid, 40% of whose ingredients are waste products, like animal fat from the food industry. NExTBL has the potential to replace other biodiesels because it can be used in higher percentages when mixed with regular fuel, has a higher energy content and can stand lower temperatures, Mr. Lievonen said.   READ MORE and MORE

The EPA discovered that fuel credits, which can be traded, are being fraudulently sold, the committee said in a statement. The EPA’s handling of the fraud — telling buyers of the credits to replace the certificates — has made the situation worse, according to panel chairman Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican.

“The renewable-fuels marketplace is in turmoil,” Upton and Kentucky Republican Ed Whitfield said in a letter to the EPA today which was released by the committee via e-mail. “The costs of this turmoil ultimately will be borne by consumers.”  READ MORE and MORE (House Energy and Commerce Committee)