Competing with China

by Susanne Retka Schill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) ... Hart Energy’s Tammy Klein wrote a piece, published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Election is finally over; now let’s lock in an energy policy.”
...To blend all the ethanol required by the RFS by 2022 with the declining volume of gasoline consumed in the U.S. would require E25 or E30, she wrote.
“We need a direction and a plan,” Klein wrote, “And neither political party has put together anything that's credible. The necessity for regulatory certainty for the industries involved -- and for us as consumers -- simply cannot be emphasized enough. One suggestion: Let's encourage development of advanced biofuels by providing greenhouse gas credits.”
...It would be nice if a sense of competition with China or Brazil on the development of biofuels and renewable energy would stimulate more support in the U.S., a la the competition with the USSR that stimulated the race to the moon. I don’t recall stakeholders in the moon race, though, that are comparable to the oil industry giants, which on one hand fight renewable fuels tooth and nail, even as they prudently invest in biofuel R&D, just in case they lose the battle to keep renewables at bay. READ MORE