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A new EPA proposal is reigniting a
debate about what counts as ‘renewable’
The agency wants more ethanol,
biogas, and wood pellet power in the nation's fuel mix.
But is that actually a good thing?
Grist
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has
proposed new standards for how much of the nation’s fuel supply should
come from renewable sources.
The proposal, released last month, calls for an increase in the
mandatory requirements set forth by the federal Renewable Fuel
Standard, or RFS. The program, created in 2005, dictates how much
renewable fuels — products like corn-based ethanol, manure-based
biogas, and wood pellets — are used to reduce the use of
petroleum-based transportation fuel, heating oil, or jet fuel and cut
greenhouse gas emissions.
The new requirements have sparked a heated debate between industry
leaders, who say the recent proposal will help stabilize the market in
the coming years, and green groups, which argue that the favored fuels
come at steep environmental costs.
Below is a Grist guide to this growing debate, breaking down exactly
what these fuels are, how they’re created, and how they would change
under the EPA’s new proposal:
The fuels
Renewable fuel is an umbrella term for the bio-based fuels mandated by
the EPA to be mixed into the nation’s fuel supply. The category
includes fuel produced from planted crops, planted trees, animal waste
and byproducts, and wood debris from non-ecological sensitive areas
and not from federal forestland. Under the RFS, renewable fuels are
supposed to replace fossil fuels and are used for transportation and
heating across the country, and are supposed to emit 20 percent fewer
greenhouse gasses than the energy they replace.
Under the new EPA proposal, renewable fuels would increase by roughly
9 percent by the end of 2025 — an increase of nearly 2 billion
gallons. The new EPA proposal will set a target of almost 21 billion
gallons of renewable fuels in 2023, which includes over 15 billion
gallons of corn ethanol. By 2025, the EPA hopes to have over 22
billion gallons of different renewable fuel sources powering the
nation.
The United States is the largest
producer of corn, which can be seen being harvested and stored in
grain silos. With 40 percent of the corn produced used for ethanol,
environmental groups argue that increased corn production leads to
more fertilizer use and pollution. YinYang/Getty Images
Advanced biofuel, a type of renewable
fuel, includes fuel created from crop waste, animal waste, food waste,
and yard waste. This also includes biogas, a natural gas produced from
the methane created by animal and human waste. Advanced biofuel can
also include fuels created from sugars and starches, apart from
ethanol.
In its newest proposal, the EPA suggests a roughly 14 percent increase
in the use of these fuels from 2023 to 2024 and a 12 percent increase
the year after that. The EPA wants roughly 6 billion gallons of
advanced biofuel in the marketplace by this year.
Nestled inside of the advanced biofuel category is biomass-based
diesel, a fuel source created from vegetable oils and animal fats.
This fuel can also be created from oils, waste, and sludge created in
municipal wastewater treatment plants. Under the new EPA proposal, the
agency is suggesting a 2 percent year-over-year increase in these
fuels by the end of 2025, which equals a final amount of nearly three
billion gallons.
Cellulosic biofuel, another type of renewable fuel, is a liquid
fuel created by “crops, trees, forest residues, and agricultural
residues not specifically grown for food, including from barley grain,
grapeseed, rice bran, rice hulls, rice straw, soybean matter,” as well
as sugarcane byproducts, according to the 2005 law.
“In the interim period, there’s going to be a need for lower
carbon, renewable liquid fuels”
Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuel Association
The EPA’s recent proposal aims for nearly double the amount of the use
of these fuels by 2024. Then a 50 percent increase the year after,
equivalent to 2 billion gallons.
The new RFS proposal also hopes to create a more standardized pathway
for renewable fuels to be used in powering electric vehicles, with
more and more drivers turning to EVs in recent years.
“We are pretty pleased with what the EPA proposed for 2023 through
2025,” Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuel
Association, an industry group whose members primarily include ethanol
producers, but also represent biogas and biomass producers, told
Grist.
Cooper said that the EPA and the Biden administration recognize that
alternative fuels are a growing and needed sector while the country
tries to move away from fossil fuels. Setting standards for the next
three years will help the biofuels industry grow, said Cooper, who
predicted more ethanol, biomass, or biogas producers will emerge in
the coming years.
“I think the administration recognizes that you’re not going to
electrify everything overnight,” Cooper said, “and in the interim
period, there’s going to be a need for lower-carbon, renewable liquid
fuels.”
The controversy
While renewable fuel standards have gained a stamp of approval from
industry producers and the federal government, environmental groups
see increased investment in ethanol, biomass, and biogas as doubling
down on dirty fuel.
“It’s not encouraging because it continues on the false premise that
biofuels, in general, are a helpful pathway to meeting our climate
goals,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the nonprofit
environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.
Biomass wood pellets are a fuel source
made from wood debris and lumber, and are a booming industry in the
American South.
The new Renewable Fuel Standard proposal calls for an increase in this
fuel source, despite opposition from environmental groups.
Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
Hartl argues that investing in
increased corn production to fuel ethanol will continue harmful
agricultural practices that erode soil and dump massive amounts of
pesticides on corn crops, which causes increased water pollution and
toxic dead zones across the country and the Gulf of Mexico. The United
States is the world’s largest producer of corn, with 40 percent of the
corn produced used for ethanol.
A study released earlier this year from the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences found that when demand for corn goes up,
caused by an increase in blending requirements from the RFS, prices
increase as well, which causes farmers to add more fertilizer
products, created by fossil fuels, to crops. The EPA’s own internal
research has also shown greenhouse gas emissions over the next three
years will grow with the increase in blending requirements from the
federal mandate.
22.68 billion:
The number of renewable fuel gallons the EPA
hopes to have by 2025
The Center for Biological Diversity has been critical of the EPA’s
past support of renewable fuel without a calculation of the total
environmental impacts of how the fuel is produced and is currently in
legal battles with the federal agency. They’re not alone in their
critiques.
Tarah Heinzen, legal director for Food & Water Watch, a
nonprofit environmental watchdog group, said in a statement that an
increase in both industrial corn production and biogas, a fuel created
from animal and food waste, are not part of a clean energy future.
“Relying on dirty fuels like factory farm gas and ethanol to clean up
our transportation sector will only dig a deeper hole,” Heinzen said.
“The EPA should recognize this by reducing, not increasing, the volume
requirements for these dirty sources of energy in the Renewable Fuel
Standard.”
Alternative fuels, like biogas and biomass (a fuel created from trees
and wood pulp), have gained steam thanks to the ethanol boom of the
renewable fuel category. The biogas industry is set to boom
thanks to tax incentives created by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Biomass is a growing industry in the South, with wood pellet
mills popping up in recent years. Scientists from across the globe
have decried the industry’s suggestion that burning trees for
electricity is carbon neutral, with 650 scientists signing a recent
letter to denounce the industry’s claims.
The world’s largest producer of wood pellet biomass energy has come
under fire from a whistleblower who said the company uses whole
trees to create electricity, despite the company’s claims of
sustainably harvesting only tree limbs to produce energy. Wood pellet
facilities have faced opposition from local governments and federal
legislators, with community members in Springfield, Massachusetts
successfully blocking a permit for a new biomass facility in
November.
Despite concerns from environmental groups, the forecasted demands of
the EPA show that the nation is pushing for more of these fuels in the
coming years. This past spring, a bipartisan group of Midwestern
governors asked the EPA for a permanent waiver to sell higher
blends of ethanol year-round, despite summer-time smog created
by the higher blend of renewable fuel.
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