Jul 14 2010
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has listed out proposals for the 2011 percentage standards meant for four fuel categories, as per its Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) program.
The volume target of annual renewable fuels is projected to be a whopping 36 billion gallons by the year 2022, as per the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). A percentage-based standard has been calculated by the EPA for achieving these volumes. Based on this standard, each of the non-oxygenate blender, importer and refiner of gasoline finalizes the minimum quantity of renewable energy that it has to ensure is utilized in its transportation fuel.
The volumes and standards as part of the 2011 proposals have been spelt out as 0.80 billion gallons and 0.68% for biomass-based diesel, 1.35 billion gallons and 0.77% for advanced biofuels, 5 to 17.1 million gallons and 0.004 to 0.015% for cellulosic biofuels, along with 13.95 billion gallons and 7.95% for total renewable fuels. Overall, the EPA continues to remain positive about the cellulosic biofuel’s commercial availability.
The EPA is currently drawing out changes to the regulations of the RFS2 so that it becomes applicable for producers of renewable fuel who make use of palm oil, pulpwood, grain sorghum and canola oil as feedstock. The other proposed change is to treat foreign feedstocks as domestic feedstocks in order to qualify them as renewable fuel as per the RFS2 program.
Source: target="_blank"http://www.epa.gov/