EPA’s recent finalized renewable fuel volumes for this year through 2025 still leave unanswered questions about the future of biofuels. Biofuels face multiple uncertainties, including a gradual move away from liquid fuels.
But there’s also the more immediate challenge that EPA may still allow electric vehicles to qualify for renewable fuel credits or RINs, after first dropping the plan. Troy Bredenkamp with the Renewable Fuels Association; “We’re told that they may come back and address it as soon as the end of the year, but it’s again, going to be a challenge since what they have proposed was completely different than the way that the RVO and the RFS program has worked today through the liquid fuel side.”
Another uncertainty—political and statutory changes according to Bredenkamp; “Now that the schedule within the original Renewable Fuel Standard that was in statute, has expired, we are up to the EPA and whatever administration is in office at the time, to determine the path forward for the RFS.”
Today, EPA’s called for 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol use. Tomorrow, it may not. But there are alternative uses. Bredenkamp; “Sustainable aviation fuel and corn’s participation is available through this program, if our carbon intensity is low enough to qualify.”
The White House has set a goal of producing three billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel by 2030 worth an estimated 15 billion to 20 billion dollars.
