Let’s Prioritize American Renewable Fuels over Foreign Oil and Minerals
by Geoff Cooper (Renewable Fuels Association/The Hill) … But what’s not easy to see is why the White House recently chose to respond to higher pump prices by pushing OPEC+ countries to increase oil production. It was a baffling move that raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. After all, calling on countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia to boost their output of dirty, high-carbon crude oil obviously runs counter to the president’s stated goals regarding climate change, clean energy, domestic job creation and energy security.
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The rapid fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban regime threatens to hand one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium — the most crucial mineral for batteries — over to Russia and China, which already dominates the world market for rare earth metals. Indeed, the Pentagon once warned that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.”
Before the Biden administration looks to OPEC+ countries or mineral-rich nations like Afghanistan, China and Bolivia for help, it has an opportunity to turn to America’s heartland for a homegrown solution. Renewable fuels like ethanol have a 40-year proven track record of success in helping to lower prices at the pump while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions, supporting good-paying clean energy jobs and curtailing crude oil imports.
Four decades’ worth of investment and innovation by ethanol producers has resulted in real breakthroughs in lower-carbon transportation fuels. Today’s corn-based ethanol reduces carbon emissions by 52 percent when compared directly to gasoline, according to a recent study from the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Another study by scientists from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Tufts University similarly shows corn ethanol achieves an average carbon reduction of 46 percent compared to gasoline, with some ethanol in the market today achieving a 61 percent carbon reduction.
In response to policies like the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and Oregon Clean Fuels Program, along with the Biden administration’s recommitment to the Paris Agreement, the pace of low-carbon innovation and investment is accelerating. We firmly believe ethanol will achieve a net-zero carbon footprint in the years ahead, as the supply chain adopts carbon capture and sequestration technologies, uses more renewable electricity and biogas to power biorefineries, and expands carbon-efficient feedstock production.
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Congress and the administration should support the development of a national clean fuel standard, as well as provisions to expand ethanol infrastructure and production of flex-fuel vehicles that can operate on fuels containing up to 85 percent ethanol.
Before we turn to the Persian Gulf for answers to our nation’s energy and climate challenges, let’s give the American heartland a shot. READ MORE
The Role of Minerals in US Transportation Electrification Goals (Atlantic Council)
