Energy Panel Goes to School on Biofuels

Energy Panel Goes to School on Biofuels



Feb 2007 - Current government 
incentives focus too much on corn-based ethanol and must be 
retargeted toward technologies that produce ethanol from 
biomass like switchgrass and agricultural waste, energy 
experts told a Senate panel Thursday. 
Without such a shift in support towards cellulosic ethanol, 
the country is unlikely to be able to boost its production of 
alternative fuels, witnesses said in testimony before the 
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 
Fuel containing ethanol is found increasingly at filling 
stations across the United States.  
Lawmakers also must give close consideration to the 
environmental impacts of emerging biofuels, experts said, and 
direct scarce federal resources toward technologies that 
reduce dependency on oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions. 
The day-long biofuels conference, which featured more than 30 
speakers, offered a sobering view of the feasibility of the 
Bush administration's desire to increase the annual domestic 
production of alternative fuels five-fold over the next 
decade. 
The 2005 Energy Policy Act calls for a production target of 
7.5 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2012. As he said 
in his State of the Union address last month, President George 
W. Bush wants to further increase that mandate to 35 billion 
gallons by 2017. 
The United States currently uses about 140 billion gallons of 
gasoline a year. 
America's amber fields of grain produce fuel as well as food. 
 
Virtually all of the nation's current biofuel production is 
corn-based ethanol, which has experienced a massive boom in 
recent years thanks to tax breaks and high oil prices. 
Corn-based ethanol production is expected to reach six billion 
gallons this year and more than 70 new ethanol refineries are 
under construction. 
About 45 percent of gasoline sold in the United States is 
currently blended with small amounts of ethanol from corn. 
But there are concerns about corn ethanol, primarily its 
affect on corn prices, the diversion of corn from food 
supplies to fuel, and the amount of energy it takes to create 
the fuel. 
And there simply is not enough corn to meet the President's 
goal. 
David Conover, counsel at the National Commission on Energy 
Policy, said the upper limit to conventional corn-based 
ethanol production is "at most 15 billion gallons annually and 
is far below what would be a significant contribution to 
displacing petroleum." 
Corn-based ethanol is "certainly better than gasoline," 
Conover said, but cellulosic ethanol, which can be produced 
from virtually any biomass avoids "the fuel versus food debate 
we are heating today." 
The head of the U.S. ethanol industry trade association 
bristled at some of the criticism of corn-based ethanol, 
citing in part its role in boosting the economies of some 
rural farm communities. 
Bob Dinneen is president of the Renewable Fuels Association 
 
"To try to demonize corn-derived ethanol is to miss the bigger 
picture," said Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels 
Association, a industry trade group. "We need to be doing 
everything possible to promote all biofuels." 
"Bioefuels in general are going to be better than gasoline," 
Dineen said. "We need to crack the code to produce cellulosic 
ethanol, but it is not going to happen tomorrow, is not going 
to happen next year … I don't ever think there is going to be 
a situation when cellulosic ethanol replaces corn-based 
ethanol." 
But a 2006 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon estimated 
that 35 billion to 55 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol 
could be produced domestically without taking land currently 
used for food crops out of production. 
The costs of producing cellulosic ethanol are still more than 
double corn-based ethanol, but that is in part due to the more 
than $1 billion in subsidies given by the federal and state 
governments to ethanol producers. 
Ethanol can be produced from the fibrous cellulose in corn 
stalks and husks or other agricultural or forestry residues. 
 
Cellulosic ethanol "can compete, but not on a level playing 
field with corn ethanol," Conover added. "It is not a matter 
of demonizing corn. It is a matter of where you need to spend 
the federal dollars." 
Congress should restructure incentives for corn-based ethanol 
on "a sliding scale" to reflect market conditions and increase 
federal loan guarantees to help the commercialization of 
cellulosic ethanol, said Reid Detchon, executive director of 
the Energy Future Coalition, a nonpartisan alliance of 
business, labor and environmental groups. 
Reid Detchon is executive director of the Energy Future 
Coalition  
Detchon criticized the concept of using coal to make 
alternative fuel, something that has attracted the attention 
of the Bush administration. 
"Liquid fuels from coal are a dead end street," he told the 
committee, after stressing that the alternative fuels 
strategies must focus on "minimizing the role of oil in our 
economy" and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 
"If we deal with them together, the transition to cleaner, 
more secure energy technologies will create a new wave of 
economic growth and job creation just as the computer and 
telecommunications revolutions did before," Detchon said. 
One interim step the government can take is to boost fuel 
economy standards, said Detchon, who also suggested greater 
encouragement for plug-in electric vehicles. 
"We are moving toward electricity being the fuel of choice for 
vehicles," Detchon said, "and using liquid fuels to recharge 
the battery as we go along. If you get clean electricity from 
the grid, supplemented with clean biofuels, then petroleum is 
out of the picture completely and your greenhouse gas profile 
is very good."

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