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2. Ethanol Production Drops to Lowest in Almost Five Months Ethanol output plunged to the lowest level in almost five months in the week that ended on Feb. 12 while stockpiles grew, according to the Energy Information Administration. Production of the biofuel dropped to an average of 911,000 barrels a day, the EIA said in a report. That’s down from 937,000 barrels, on average, the previous week and the lowest level since the week that ended on Sept. 25. In the Midwest, by far the biggest producing region, output dropped to an average of 868,000 barrels a day. That’s down from 895,000 the previous week and also the lowest output since late September, the government said.
2) emissions and the large-scale removal of CO
2 from the atmosphere will be necessary to stabilize the climate by 2050 and have a chance of keeping temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
1 The amount of CO
2 removal (CDR) or negative emissions required depends on the extent and speed to which emissions are reduced and how far temperature “overshoots” the 1.5-degree target. Critically, the longer it takes to reduce emissions, the greater the need for CDR. The IPCC estimates that a future with low energy demand and a rapid transition to zero-carbon fuels could require removing an average of 1.25 billion tons of CO
by Jan Lewandrowski (US Department of Agriculture) Over the past two decades, the demand for renewable fuels including corn-based ethanol has helped drive a strong domestic market for corn, and supported rural America by generating jobs (PDF, 1.5 MB). New research is confirming that corn ethanol also has more greenhouse gas benefits than previously thought.
A study we just published in the journal
Biofuels found that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from corn ethanol are about 39 percent lower than gasoline on energy equivalent basis. The study, titled “
The greenhouse gas benefits of corn ethanol assessing recent evidence,” also found that when ethanol is produced at natural gas-powered refineries, the GHG emissions are even lower around 43 percent below gasoline. This study confirms work that we released in 2018 (PDF, 3 MB) and adds to the mounting evidence of ethanol’s GHG benefits, which have been often overlooked.
By Gary Truitt
In our world of extremes, the concept of balance has been lost. Today, something is either right or wrong, offensive or acceptable. There are only two opposite solutions to a problem or position on an issue. Perhaps this is a result of our digital age where everything is made up of 0s and 1s, not 0.5. This is the case for an important agricultural issue currently in the headlines.
Of late, the ethanol industry has been obsessed with the issue of small refiner waivers. This is not a new program but has been part of the Renewable Fuels Standard since the beginning. At first, the EPA only granted these waivers to refineries facing bankruptcy. In 2017, a court ruled that the agency was too strict and should grant the waivers to those facing “significant economic hardship” from complying with the terms of the RFS. The EPA then started granting more waivers, and that caught the attention of the renewable fuels sector.