The USDA press release states that the report also "provides data on the significant impact the ethanol industry will have on job creation. It is estimated that as many as 40 direct jobs and additional indirect jobs are created with each 100-million-gallon ethanol facility built."
To meet this goal by 2022, 500 new biorefineries are necessary and would cost about $168 billion, according to the Des Moines Register. "A 2007 law required that refiners use 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, with all but 15 billion gallons coming from sources other than corn. Meeting that target will require building facilities that can convert a wide range of new biofuel feedstocks, including crop residue, forest thinnings, municipal waste, perennial grasses and other sources of cellulose. The industry is expected to easily reach 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol production by 2015."
Some, however, are critical of the ethanol expansion. As reported in the Des Moines Register, the director of Iowa State's Bioeconomy Institute, Robert Brown, said that it "would be cheaper to build facilities that could convert feedstocks directly into gasoline or diesel through thermochemical process." The New York Times reports that some are concerned about environmental issues such as carbon emissions, and water use and pollution.
The biofuels report's release comes as the ethanol industry awaits a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "on increasing ethanol blend allowances from 10 percent to 15 percent." According to the Delta Farm Press, [s]ome in the industry have urged EPA to provide some immediate market relief through the approval of 12 percent blends while it finalizes work on E15." The EPA was expected to make a decision in July on "whether to allow an increase in the blend rate of ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent from 10 percent for cars built after 2001" as reported by Reuters. The EPA has stated that it will not make a decision until late September on "whether to allow cars made after 2007 to burn the higher blend."
For the USDA press release, click here.
To read the USDA Biofuels Strategic Production Report, click here.
To read the Des Moines Register story, click here.
To read the New York Times story, click here.
To read the Delta Farm Press story, click here.
To read the Reuters story, click here.
Posted: 06/25/2010
