Advanced BioFuels USA

(25 x ’25)  Reports out of Washington this week that the Obama administration’s lengthy delay in releasing a final 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) biofuel blending rule due to a White House desire to re-evaluate the blending requirements in context with its proposals to address climate change is welcome news for clean energy advocates.
The 25x’25 Alliance has long called on EPA and other administration officials to step back and reassess the interrelationships and economic ramifications – both pro and con ‑ of a wide range of policy tools that are under consideration and can play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, all while offering U.S. agriculture and forestry the opportunities to provide solutions that address challenges associated with changing climatic conditions.
We’re not just talking about the RFS. Also in the hopper are a biogenic carbon accounting framework being developed by EPA for calculating emissions from the burning of biomass to produce heat and power; the “111(d)” carbon rule aimed at reducing power plant emissions; government incentives for continued production of flex-fuel vehicles; fuel-quality and human health standards, and others.
The common denominator among these policy tools is their potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It’s important for the White House to take the time to properly assess all of these proposals with an eye toward how they can collectively be used to deliver near-term, high-quality and lower cost solutions from the U.S. agriculture and forestry sectors.
There is a growing body of evidence that renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and even biofuels and biopower, can play a much larger and key role in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change.
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… But it (the National Climate Assessment) also made clear that U.S. agriculture and forestry can offer solutions to climate change.
So it is puzzling why the White House, for example, would even consider an RFS proposal that would severely reduce the volume of emission-reducing biofuels to be blended this year in the nation’s transportation fuel supply. It’s a move that simply runs counter to the aims laid out in the National Climate Assessment.
Is it because, as biofuel advocates suggest, the RFS proposed rollbacks that would significantly cut the renewable fuel content in gasoline and diesel fuel this year are the result of heavy pressure from an oil industry desperate to hold on to market share?
Ironically the proposal would make the nation more dependent on oil at a time when even a major oil company, BP, says in its annual report that at the current rate of extraction, existing global oil reserves will run out by 2070.  READ MORE