Dear Representatives and Senators,
Seven years ago, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It was signed into law by Pres. George Bush in December 2007. At that time, both Congress and the President were concerned that the millions of cars on US roads using gasoline from petroleum presented a national hazard for continuance of supply and also involving US security.
At that time, the US was using 21,000 barrels per day and and was short 12,000 barrels per day. The shortage was imported, about half of it from OPEC, the international cartel.
We now use 19,000 barrels per day and import 5000 barrels per day. We also export about 3000 barrels per day. This leaves a slight deficit for complete supply from US sources, but that is expected to be eliminated in the next few years. Times have changed. We have cut back on automotive usage by improved mileage for vehicles, but the big changes have been in energy production. There have been two changes in drilling operations; fracking and horizontal drilling.
When the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was passed, it included among other things a Renewable Fuel Standard mandate. With subsequent changes, the mandate requires 15.2 billion gallons of renewable fuel be blended into transportation fuel in 2012, eventually ramping up to 36 billion gallons in 2022. Of that 36 billion number, the United States must produce 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol, 15 billion gallons of traditional corn-based ethanol, 4 billion gallons of advanced biofuels and 1 billion gallons of biodiesel fuel to be blended into gasoline and Diesel by 2022.
We could stop here with the obvious conclusion that the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was passed seven years ago, and the radical change in US petroleum productive capacity makes many portions, particularly the Renewable Fuel Standard Law, no longer applicable. However, we must go on, because it hasn't ended here. The elimination of two subsidies has made the disastrous financial aspect less critical, but we are still faced with the volume mandates of the Renewable Fuel Standard. To put that item in perspective, let's look at the technology.
The process for producing ethanol from cellulose [the 16 billion gallons of the Renewable Fuel Standard] is similar to that for production from cornstarch products, except for an additional complication. Cellulose includes: corn stover, which is leaves and stalks; switch grass; wood; and many other natural plants.. Unfortunately, while cornstarch is easily used by yeast as a raw material in the fermentation to ethanol, yeast cannot act directly on cellulosic materials. The cellulosic materials must first be converted to an available starch or sugars, which add an additional expensive step. While the technology to convert cellulose to available sugars is known, it is not found to be economically feasible on a commercial scale. For this reason there has been no significant quantities of commercially available ethanol produced from cellulose.
Later this year DuPont is scheduled to finish a $200 million-plus facility in Nevada, Iowa, that will produce 30 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol using corn stover. In addition,POET-DSM, a joint operation between leading U.S. ethanol maker POET LLC and Dutch food and chemicals group DSM, will complete a $250 million facility in Emmetsburg, in the north-central part of the No. 1 corn-growing state, to produce 7 million gallons of ethanol this year using cobs and other corn "stover". The Poet-DSM is said to be privately financed, but it In September 2011, the same month the Solyndra scandal broke, the government awarded $237 million in loan guarantees to help finance construction of two cellulosic ethanol plants in Kansas and Iowa. Note that the planned production quantity will be only 2.3% of the mandated amount.
In view of the above, I call on Congress and the President to modify the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The ethanol and other fuel mandates of the Renewable Fuel Standard should be eliminated, because they are unrealistic in quantity and have no basis of need based upon the present and projected lower cost and higher production rate of petroleum in the US.
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