Tag: rfs

Despite federal law requiring refiners to blend increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline, domestic ethanol production has actually declined over the last year. The U.S. ethanol industry produced 6.40 billion gallons of ethanol through the first half of 2013, down from 6.89 billion gallons over the same period last year, according to the Energy Information […]

This is Part 3 of a three part series comparing biofuel mandates in the United States and the European Union. Part 2, which focused on increasingly unattainable mandates in the U.S. and EU, was published yesterday.  Biofuel mandates in the U.S. and EU impose enormous burdens on energy producers and consumers for negligible if not […]

This is Part 2 of a three part series comparing biofuel mandates in the United States and European Union. Part 1, which focused on rising food prices, appeared yesterday. Part 3 will be published tomorrow. Despite what the ethanol industry would have you believe, biofuel mandates place unrealistic and ever-rising burdens on energy producers. In […]

This is Part 1 of a three part series comparing biofuel mandates in the United States and the European Union. Part 2 will be published tomorrow.  Biofuel mandates are harmful for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is that they raise food prices. In the U.S., for instance, the Renewable Fuel […]

On these pages we have already described the absurdity of the EPA’s cellulosic ethanol mandate, which is literally impossible for refiners to satisfy. EPA’s 2013 mandate was based on their projections of the cellulosic ethanol output coming from two particular plants, one of them being a KiOR plant based in Columbus, Mississippi. Yet unfortunately for refiners—who […]

Fuels America trotted out a series of stale, debunked talking points in a recent advertising campaign extolling the virtues of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). This is one of the latest attempts by the ethanol lobby to conceal the truth about ethanol as Congress considers changing or repealing the federal ethanol mandate, which requires refiners […]

Growth Energy recently unveiled a national ad campaign to tell “the truth about ethanol” and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)—the federal mandate that requires oil refiners to blend ethanol into gasoline. But the ethanol lobby has a curious definition of “truth,” as many of their claims are incomplete, misleading, or outright false. NASCAR doesn’t use […]

What do ethanol mandates, corn prices, and renewable identification numbers have in common? The answer is the Renewable Fuel Standard that was first passed in 2005 and then increased in 2007 when the Energy Security and Independence Act was enacted, requiring specified annual amounts of corn-based and cellulosic ethanol to be produced and blended into […]

A company that received lavish subsidies to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Michigan recently lost a major private-sector investor. Mascoma Corp.[i] must now look elsewhere for funding its ethanol facility in Kinross, Michigan, after news that Valero Energy Corp. is withdrawing its $50 million dollar investment. Mascoma, a New Hampshire-based renewable fuels company, received […]

Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen penned an op-ed in USA TODAY last week in which he offered several misleading claims about ethanol and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Dinneen’s piece preceded a USA TODAY editorial calling on Congress to repeal the RFS. Some of Dinneen’s most misleading statements are addressed below. CLAIM: “Since it […]