With the cost of crude oil soaring to record highs, it isn’t too surprising that much of the nation has found a recent resurgence in the premise and promise of biofuel. While it is difficult to argue against the development of any renewable fuel source, things get a little sticky once the government begins mandating such technology.
Enter the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which aims to improve vehicle fuel economy and help reduce the Unite States’ dependency on oil. A tall order? Perhaps but Uncle Sam is smart enough to realize these changes won’t happen overnight and hence set goals and parameters for biofuel output for each year through 2022.
The bill, which actually aims to target energy efficiency on a broad scale, hopes to reduce America’s dependency on oil by:
Increasing the supply of alternative fuel sources through a mandatory Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) . The RFS will require fuel producers to pump out at least 36 billion gallons of biofuel in 2022. Although the President proposed a more ambitious alternative fuels standard in his State of the Union Address, the RFS represents a nearly five-fold increase over current levels.
Reducing the domestic demand for oil by setting a national fuel economy standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020; an increase in fuel economy standards by 40 percent. Naturally such measures would theoretically reduce our consumption by billions of gallons.
Last January, the President called for the first statutory increase in fuel economy standards for automobiles since they were enacted in 1975.
While all of these numbers look fine and good on paper (or in pixils as the case may be), let’s take a moment to try and put these ambitions into perspective. Here in the U.S. motor vehicles consumed roughly 139 billion gallons of gasoline in 2007. This year’s RFS target is 9 billion gallons of corn ethanol output. By 2015 corn ethanol output must reach 15 billion gallons (with 3 billion gallons of cellulosic (non-corn biofuel)) and by 2022 these figures jump up to 20 billion gallons of ethanol and 16 billion gallons of cellulosic.
Cellulosic fuels are currently being touted as the next big thing on account of the fact that unlike ethanol, they do not drive up the cost of but another comodity (corn). These include biodiesels, butanol and various biomass alcohols.
The future of crude oil trading still plays an important role in our nation’s economy but the RFS is certainly a step in the right direction. To learn more on the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 head over to:
