In this edition of “The Ethanol Report,” we hear from Geoff Cooper, Vice President of Research and Analysis for the Renewable Fuels Association, about what is right and what is wrong with the rule for the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard released early last month by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The good news is that the RFS2 improves upon the rule EPA proposed last year, and that it is much better than what California is using to determine lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. The bad news is the continued reliance on the non-scientific indirect land use change. EPA’s new calculations determined that corn ethanol was better than they first thought when it comes to indirect land use change, so they cut that penalty in half, while they totally eliminated it for sugarcane ethanol – a move that has RFA mystified.
This podcast was recorded at the recent National Ethanol Conference, where RFS2 was the main topic of discussion. We reference a presentation done at the conference by EPA’s Sarah Dunham, which you can find in a previous post here on Domestic Fuel.
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