Biofuels Forum Underscores Increased Emission Benefits from Ethanol

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May 23, 2014

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(25 x ’25) Ethanol’s role in the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was underscored this week in a forum of biofuel value chain partners, conservation and greenhouse gas experts organized by the 25x’25 Alliance at the request of the Energy Future Coalition.
Critical points made during the forum on the current state of biofuels came from Steffen Mueller, a researcher with the University of Illinois at Chicago and principal economist with the university’s Energy Resources Center, who underscored the opposite directions being taken by the rising carbon intensity of the nation’s petroleum mix and the falling carbon intensity of corn ethanol and other biofuels. He also shared the center’s concerns with EPA’s analysis of ethanol’s GHG emissions in formulating a proposal to reduce biofuel blending requirements this year under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
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But that upsurge in “tight oil” extraction brings with it a spike in the carbon intensity generated in large part by the process of getting it out of the ground. “Well-to-wheels” GHG emissions for shale oil runs about 70 percent higher than the petroleum baseline established by EPA (by comparison, a majority of the oil produced in the Middle East, Alaska and California run under the baseline).
Meanwhile, the latest research modeling, conducted by Mueller and his associates, show GHG emissions from corn-based ethanol has run well below the petroleum baseline, currently running about 30 percent lower. In fact, they say, the actual carbon intensity of corn ethanol was lower in the 2005-2007 era than EPA assumed it would be in 2022.
And that carbon intensity will continue to drop as stover-based cellulosic biofuel production rises, producing only a little more than a third of the baseline GHG emissions attributed to petroleum fuels by EPA by 2022. READ MORE

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