Bryan: DOE shifting focus from gasoline replacement to entire barrel of oil

April 20, 2011 |

In Washington, Paul Bryan, program manager of the DOE’s Office of Biomass, said at the Advanced Biofuesl Leadership Conference that the DOE is shifting gears from focusing solely on replacing the gasoline fraction of refined crude oil, but likened the process to “whitewater rafting in a battleship. You have all the rolling of whitewater and the maneuverability of a battleship,” noting that most of the projects moving forward from previous DOE grants were focused on replacing gasoline with ethanol.

Bryan argued that replacing only the gasoline fraction, bypassing diesel, jet fuel, and chemicals among other products from crude, was fine as long as replacement was only “at the additive level”, but would create significant problems in refiner economics as the shift towards biofuels intensified under RFS2 and future policy mechanisms.

At the same time, Bryan clarified that the “four advanced biorefineries by mid-decade” cited in President Obama’s recent energy policy speech at Georgetown did not represent a new DOE initiative, but the DOE’s confidence that at least four would be completed. Bryan did say that the DOE would continue to review its support of advanced integrated biorefineries to ensure that the US met the President’s goals.

Category: Fuels

Thank you for visting the Digest.