Final Chapter for Cellulosic Ethanol?
by Rod Swoboda (Wallaces Farmer) … Poet’s cellulosic ethanol plant at Emmetsburg was named Project Liberty. Following Poet’s lead, two other companies built cellulosic ethanol plants — one in Kansas and one at Nevada in central Iowa. The owners of those two plants ended up selling their facilities by the end of 2017.
What happened to the future of cellulosic ethanol — an environmentally friendly fuel? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granting waivers to oil refiners since 2016 had a lot to do with it. Those waivers reduced demand for ethanol and biodiesel, cutting prices. The federal Renewable Fuel Standard is a law that requires a certain amount of ethanol and biodiesel to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply annually. Granting waivers to oil companies so they don’t have to blend as much biofuel in the gasoline and diesel fuel they produce has undermined the market.
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“Our government leaders didn’t provide a welcoming environment for an experimental product —cellulosic ethanol,” says Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Biofuels Business Council, looking back at what’s happened to demand for ethanol. “The U.S. EPA granted 26 RFS fuel waivers in the last two years of Barrack Obama’s presidency, and 66 during President Donald Trump’s first two years.”
In addition to the waivers putting a damper on demand for ethanol and biodiesel, the COVID-19 pandemic has also hurt the biofuel market. The lockdowns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year resulted in declining demand for motor fuel, Coleman says. READ MORE