The Road to Recovery: Starts at Home

by Doug Durante (Clean Fuels Development Coalition/Biofuels Digest) ... The changing political landscape of the elections and the bi-partisan concern over carbon emissions and potential climate change is an opportunity for biofuels to be a major contributor. Two opportunities are likely to surface early in the new Congress and the Biden Administration. The first is anything to do with Covid-19. The fact that the virus is transmitted through the air ties it to particulate emissions, which we know we can reduce through ethanol blends. Second is what will certainly be a re-boot of the fuel economy rule. Our message and value proposition is simple: if the objective of the fuel economy rule is to increase efficiency while reducing carbon, higher ethanol blends can do the job. The key to unlocking that deliverance is to raise the minimum octane standard in gasoline. Automakers will adjust engines to take advantage of high octane, resulting in lower carbon emissions and increased efficiency. Because that octane cannot come from the toxic aromatic compounds in gasoline, it opens the door for doubling current ethanol blend volumes. Blends up to 30% could increase auto mileage by up to 7%.

The health benefits of reducing the toxic compounds currently used for octane are significant and as noted, the airborne transmission of all viruses would be reduced.

President Biden has made his desire to ramp up Electric Vehicles quite clear. With nearly 270 million gasoline powered vehicles on the road today, and less than 2 million EVs, this will be a long and complicated endeavor. While that is being pursued, we have an opportunity to extend and decarbonize the hundreds upon hundreds of billions of gallons of gasoline that will remain in the market over the next decade or more.

So with all respect to our friends at CoBank who have financed many of our ethanol plants, lets focus on reinforcing to policy makers at all levels our value proposition that will allow us to build on the RFS and tap into the largest gasoline market in the world. The ethanol industry needs to let the new Administration know of our low carbon value—for both climate and health– when used in higher blends and urge EPA and the Department of Transportation to remove barriers to higher octane. They asked for comment on octane when fashioning the current rule. When they revise that rule lets make sure they get the message.