What Is the Ethanol Sweet Spot? Up The “E”
According to data from AAA (American Automobile Association), the national average for a gallon of gas currently stands at $4.21 per gallon, down three cents from a week earlier, but up from $2.87 one year ago.
The Biden administration is actively looking into tapping 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), equating to 1 million barrels released each day for six months.
Industry stakeholders pled their cases related to renewable fuel in response to the administration’s oil reserve intentions.
“It is baffling to us that President Biden continues to overlook ethanol, which is the most readily available, lowest-cost, and lowest-carbon option for extending our nation’s fuel supply,” said Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.
If the administration’s plan goes through, the emergency oil stockpile release would be the largest since the SPR’s inception in 1975.
Up the “E”
National Corn Growers sent an open letter to the Biden administration, sharing analysis which shows replacing only one third of the E10 sales with E15 sales will replace all the gasoline that was procured through Russian crude oil imports.
AgriTalk Host Chip Flory says some people would argue E25 or E30 is the sweet spot. He says Brazil’s fleet of cars is older than the U.S. fleet, yet Brazilians run 100% ethanol in some cases. While they often have two gas tanks to support the change to ethanol, Flory says the technology is the same.
Jim Wiesemeyer, ProFarmer policy analyst mirrored Flory’s comment, saying we may see those higher blends across the U.S. quicker than we think.
“States like Iowa are really looking at the state level on the E15 because they’re tired of waiting at the federal level,” says Wiesemeyer. “A number of states have asked the EPA how they should write their regulations to implement these higher levels of blending.”
According to Jim Wiesemeyer, President Biden is considering invoking the Defense Production Act as soon as this week to boost domestic production of minerals used in batteries needed for electric vehicles and other clean-energy technology.
Set A Standard
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 outlines a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) of 36 billion gallons for 2022.
EPA has yet to lock-in the 2021/22 Renewable Volume Obligations (RVO’s) in corn-based ethanol and other biofuels. By the court systems, EPA is required to make a final decision and could face court time if the RVO’s are not addressed.
In his interviews on The Hill last week, Wiesemeyer was told many constituents don’t see Congress acting on the future of RFS after 2022 due to lack of consensus. He says talks of a “reset” will likely come out after the EPA releases the 2022 RVO’s.
Flory believes the message to the administration needs to focus on the environmental benefits of biofuels because it has the “greatest odds” of resulting in an RFS reset that the industry will find satisfactory.
Wiesemeyer anticipates the EPA will finalize 2021/22 blending requirements by June 2022.
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