With the buzz about EV’s such as the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt, news about biofuels seems muted. Biofuels, however, remain an important component in the strategy to wean car drivers from fossil fuels.
The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act promoted the production of biofuels by providing subsidies and consumption requirements. The goal of the legislation is to increase the usage of biofuels from 4.7 billion gallons in 2007 to 36 billion gallons by 2022. But, unlike EV’s, biofuels have not been living up to their hype.
The most widely used biofuel in the US is ethanol, which is blended with gasoline to make gasohol (a blend of 10% ethanol with 90% gasoline). And ethanol is most commonly derived from corn, much in the same way that moonshine is made. The disadvantage of manufacturing ethanol from corn is that it competes with food production. To address the problem, the Energy Independence and Security Act also required that ethanol be produced from non-food crops, such as switchgrass or wood.
While the starch in corn converts to ethanol quite easily, obtaining ethanol from cellulosic material such as switchgrass requires special enzymes and production techniques. For 2011, the original target for cellulosic ethanol was 250 million gallons. EPA recently revised the target to 6.6 million gallons. Why the steep reduction? Because that is all that can be produced. The development of cellulosic ethanol technology continues to lag.
On the other hand, the production of biofuels from corn is creating its own set of problems. A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that corn acreage in the Mississippi Delta has increased by 288% since 2006. Since corn needs more water and fertilizer than the cotton that was previously grown, both water quantity and water quality in the region has suffered. According to Jeannie Barlow, USGS Hydrologist and co-author of the study:
“We are seeing a loss of habitat complexity, and lowered water levels have decreased baseflow to streams… Some streams have remained dry for months in the summer and fall during periods of low rainfall.”
The advantage of biofuels is that they can immediately reduce the nation’s reliance on oil. The manufacture of cellulosic ethanol, however, remains woefully short in spite of subsidies and a guaranteed market mandated by federal targets, and the ramping up of corn-based ethanol is creating additional resource problems. Until the production of biofuels has a major advance, electric cars will remain the vanguard of alternative transportation.
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