Ethanol Producer Magazine

October 27, 2017

By Renewable Fuels Association

Drivers of flex fuel vehicles (FFVs), which can handle higher ethanol blends up to 85 percent, now have even more places to fuel up. According to E85prices.com, operated by the Renewable Fuels Association, there are now more than 4,000 stations throughout the U.S. offering E85.

There are more than 22 million FFVs on U.S. roads and now consumers have greater access to higher ethanol blends. Minnesota offers the most E85 stations, but states outside the Corn Belt have shown the greatest uptick in recent years. States like California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have demonstrated tremendous growth in offering higher ethanol blends.

Greater consumer access to E85 is due to a combination of factors, including RFA’s overall market development efforts, the past Blend Your Own Ethanol Campaign, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Biofuels Infrastructure Partnership Program, and the ethanol industry-funded Prime the Pump initiative.

“Reaching this milestone is a tremendous achievement,” said RFA Vice President of Industry Relations Robert White. “Consumers with FFVs ought to have access to E85, whether they’re in Iowa, California or Florida. This expansion allows consumers with FFVs in many areas the opportunity to fuel with E85 for the first time. We applaud retailers for increasing efforts to bring further consumer choice to the market and we look forward to more stations opening up in the future.”

“Today’s news should also further show EPA that there is ample ethanol blending capability to accommodate higher Renewable Fuel Standard Renewable Volume Obligation requirements than what the agency has proposed,” White added. “If just half of the FFVs on the road today used E85, there would be more than 6 billion gallons of E85 demand, and you cannot ignore the growing demand from E15 and other blends. EPA must acknowledge this reality in its final 2018 RFS rule.”

E85prices.com is crowdsourced and offers updated prices and locations for E85, E15 and other ethanol blends from thousands of stations across the country.

Read the original article: RFA Data: More Than 4,000 US Stations Offering E85

Ethanol Producer Magazine

October 17, 2017

By Jim Grey

The current policy landscape in Canada is exciting to say the least. The federal government is crafting a Clean Fuel Standard to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, with the transportation sector being one of three key targets.

Meanwhile, Quebec and Ontario are looking to implement new policies supporting the use of ethanol.
Within this context of a concerted build-out of policy supporting renewable fuels, Renewable Industries Canada (RICanada) welcomed a new Conference Board of Canada report, Renewable Fuel Standards Within a Low-Carbon Fuel Strategy, released in September. According to the report, maintaining blend mandates is critical to the success of Canada’s climate change agenda as it relates to the reduction of transportation emissions in the near and longer term.

The transportation sector is a top source of GHG emissions in Canada and is projected to grow with population and GDP growth. Maintaining volumetric requirements for renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel will be an integral part of Canada’s transition to a low carbon future.

The report says a “clean fuel standard that fails to maintain, or expand, current blend mandates for renewable fuels is not recommended.” Moreover, the report concludes that clean fuels targets envisioned as part of a broader CFS are almost certainly unattainable without mid- to high-level blending of renewables into the fuel stream.

Mark Jaccard, Professor of Sustainable Energy Economics at Simon Fraser University, says, "Governments have yet to achieve the levels of carbon pricing needed to transition the transportation sector away from fossil fuels. Until such time, renewable fuel standards should not be weakened and may need to see their stringency increased, especially if flexible policies like the low carbon fuel standard are not quickly implemented and tightened."

The report also reinforces that the environmental benefits of blending renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, are clear and well-documented. For instance, ethanol’s national 5 percent mandated content in gasoline helps reduce GHG emissions by 4.2 megatonnes annually, equivalent to 1 million cars being removed from Canada’s roads each year.

Beyond retaining the environmental benefits of the fuels, as the Conference Board notes, blend mandates also provide retail market access to low-carbon fuels for consumers, and a stable investment environment for the renewable fuels industry. 

At the end of the day, ethanol is the only low-carbon, renewable fuel alternative for gasoline available at commercial scale, meaning that retaining—and, ideally, increasing—blend mandates will help ensure the availability of low-carbon octane to the Canadian fuels market and realization of these benefits.
Canada is urgently developing policy that will allow it to meet its commitments in the Paris Accord. As a part of this process, it is impossible to ignore both the historic contribution of renewable fuel standards that set a volume-based benchmark, and the forward-looking analysis brought forward by groups such as the Conference Board of Canada that call for their use well into the future.

Read the original story: Study: Biofuels Key in Reducing GHG Emissions

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Climate Action

October 16, 2017

Last Friday, Australian based Qantas Airways announced that its Los Angeles based aircraft will be powered by biofuel from 2020 onwards.

The announcement came in the wake of a commercial agreement with US-based bio-energy company SG Preston, which was called a “landmark” agreement.

Over the next decade, Qantas Airways will be purchasing eight million gallons, i.e. 30 million liters, of renewable jet fuel each year, which will consist of 50 percent out of non-food plant oils blended with 50 percent traditional jet fuel.

Compared to standard jet fuel, the biofuel emits half the amount of carbon emissions per gallon over its life cycle.

Gareth Evans, CEO of Qantas International and Freight stated that the commercial biofuel agreement is the first of its kind in the Australian aviation history.

He said: “The partnership with SG Preston is part of our commitment to lowering carbon emissions across our operations and sees us becoming the first Australian airline to use renewable jet fuel on an ongoing basis”.

He added: “Through our biofuel program we are also exploring renewable jet fuel opportunities in Australia and continue to work with suppliers to develop locally produced biofuels for aviation use”.

Randy Delbert LeTang, SG Preston’s CEO commented: “Qantas is showing great leadership in its commitment to biofuels”.

“We look forward to providing a high-performance renewable fuel for one of the most important routes on their international network”.

Michael Gill, Director of Environment for IATA applauded the new partnership, as he underlined that “deals such as these are critical to the development of an aviation biofuel sector globally and the achievement of the aviation industry’s climate goals”.

In 2012, Qantas and Jetstar operated Australia’s first commercial flight powered by sustainable aviation fuel as a trial flight.

The flight was Sydney-Adelaide return and was powered by biofuel derived from used cooking oil, split 50:50 with conventional jet fuel.

International Civil Aviation Organization reached a carbon-offset agreement in 2016 which called for a worldwide reduction in commercial aviation emissions to 50 percent of 2005 levels by 2050. 

Read the original story: Qantas Airways to Operate Biofuel Flight from LA to Melbourne by 2020

As National Pork Month comes to an end, we’d like to highlight the increasing popularity of DDGS as a feed ingredient in the domestic pork industry.

US Ethanol and DDGS exports are set to increase as more countries institute policies to promote the use of ethanol in transportation fuel, a new report from the USDA said.

Advocate Tribune

October 19, 2017

By Gary Wertish

By now, it’s obvious that the farm economic crisis is largely caused by an oversupply of corn and soybeans with not enough demand. Meanwhile, climate change looms large over the United States, one of the symptoms being destructive hurricanes that damage oil refineries in Texas.

We can look to previous farm depressions for advice. In the past, renewable fuels have been key in raising producers out of tough times. This is why it makes no sense that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced lower proposed renewable fuel volume obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Corn growers sell millions of bushels of corn to ethanol plants every year. Soybean growers need more opportunities to market their products, like biodiesel. The U.S. needs to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.

President Donald Trump has said on multiple occasions that he wants to grow the ethanol industry. That’s a good promise to keep. But his energy secretary, Rick Perry, asked the EPA to waive half the conventional renewable fuel quota as Texas governor in 2008, according to a Bloomberg News story. His EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, is the leader of the agency that seems to be working against the interests of U.S. farmers and the environment.

EPA has released a Notice of Data Availability, inviting public comments on “potential options for reductions in the 2018 biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel and total renewable fuel volumes, and/or the 2019 biomass-based diesel volume under the (RFS) program.” The notice includes suggestions of reducing biomass-based diesel by 315 million gallons. This would drop the total Renewable Volume Obligation (which includes conventional ethanol) to 18.77 billion gallons from 19.24 billion gallons.

The good news is that there’s nothing mentioned about changing the Trump administration’s call for 15 billion gallons of availability for conventional biofuel, which is typically corn ethanol. However, the fact that EPA is considering rolling back renewable fuels of any kind is still a concern. The RFS law is intended to expand markets for biofuels produced in the U.S. Plus, biofuels provide jobs for rural America and lower the cost of fuel for consumers.

Another piece of good news for Minnesota is the B20 mandate. Starting in spring 2018, diesel fuel sold here will be required to contain at least 20 percent biodiesel. That’s an increase from the current B10. The entire nation should be going this direction.

We need ethanol and other biofuels because they are grown in the United States, provide a boost to farmers and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Some of the biggest oil refineries in America were just hit hard by Hurricane Harvey and were shut down for weeks, driving gas prices up everywhere. Turning to more renewable fuels can ease that pain in the future.

Minnesota Farmers Union urges the EPA to increase biofuel volume requirements – not decrease them.

Read the orignal story: Op-Ed: High Renewable Fuel Standard Crucial to Help Farmers and Climate