Earth Day Series Day 5: Why Aren’t We There Yet?

by Joanne Ivancic* (Advanced Biofuels USA) Didn’t U.S. President George W. Bush say that we should get off our addiction to oil? Haven’t all the presidents since Richard Nixon promised that we would transition away from fossil fuels? You can hear many of them make this point in this clip from an old Jon Stewart “Daily Show”.

For one thing, the price of oil. When oil was $140/barrel in 2008, and with “Peak Oil” and climate change mitigation becoming household topics of conversation, the major oil companies believed that they might have to evolve into renewables. It appeared that they could not compete with renewable options which could come on line at competitive prices, so they looked closely at renewables and invested significantly in research. Until the middle of 2014 prices hovered around $90-$105/barrel. Then the price plummeted to the $30s and $40s, recently hovering in the $60s. In addition to slowing shale oil drilling and fracking, these prices slowed investment in renewable fuel development.

So, years ago we should have transitioned from using fossil carbon for transportation and other uses; however, it is hard to compete with petroleum, with the price of oil these days dipping even into negative territory, and having been in the $30/barrel range for a while. Now that prices are climbing, hovering around $60-$70 lately, even renewables made with new technologies might become competitive.

Another reason is policy. Old Guard industries like oil and gas have not only established ties with policy makers and a vast community of business leaders; they also have funds to secure their policy positions. For example, in the US regular gasoline has 10% ethanol because it is a less expensive way to provide octane and replace the oxygenate MTBE which was banned in many states due to it being an animal carcinogen.

And the gasoline refiners certainly don’t want to give up any of their market if they don’t have to. That “have to” comes from either policy or customer demand. In the meantime, most of us have no choice but to use at least 90% petroleum gasoline.

On the policy front, new industries have fewer funds to spend developing and advocating for policies to support their businesses and products. They are spending their money, time and energy on creating new technologies, new businesses; doing things that have never been done before. So, they must divvy up these limited resources among research, development and deployment with little left for community education, lobbying and schmoozing.

Thus, the importance of customer demand. With increased understanding about the harm coming from climate change and the benefits that renewable fuels can bring to mitigating that harm, to reducing life cycle carbon emissions; people, customers, are starting to advocate for policies that will benefit from increased renewable fuel development and use.

There are a myriad of additional reasons. For example, converting the solar energy and carbon stored in plants to building blocks of fuels, chemicals, plastics and other things we now make with petroleum and natural gas has proven much more difficult than anyone thought. Research being done on many waste-to-fuels projects takes time. Assuring that fixing one problem doesn’t cause other problems takes time, too. And there are many other reasons, too.

The mission of Advanced Biofuels USA complements these efforts to find sustainable, renewable ways to transition from a fossil carbon-based economy to one based on recycling carbon already in the air and on the Earth. We help people understand what sustainable, renewable fuels are, how they are made and the benefits they bring not only to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also to improving air quality, among other positive characteristics discussed in other Earth Day posts.

-Fill up your vehicle with the highest percent of renewable fuel possible. If you have only one choice, ask the gas station manager when they will have more renewable fuel choices available for you.

- Contact your elected officials at any and all levels of government to urge them to support policies to enhance the understanding, research, development, deployment and use of sustainable, renewable fuels.