Special Report on Cellulosic Ethanol: US production will fall well short of mandated levels

In the US, the Energy Information Administration has projected that US ethanol production will reach 30 billion gallons by 2022, 17 percent short of the mandate in the Renewable Fuel Standard. Meanwhile, ThinkEquity has projected that cellulosic ethanol production will reach 28.5 Mgy in 2010, well short of the 100 Mgy require under the RFS.

The ThinkEquity study is based primarily around Range Fuels’ 10 Mgy demonstration-scale plant in Georgia, and a demo-scale BlueFire Ethanol plant in California that has run into financing difficulties for the proposed $130 million price tag.

The study did not apparently take into account potential production increases by KL and the Verenium launch. Numerous voices have been heard since the passage of the increased and extended RFS in the Energy Security and Independence Act that the US would struggle to reach production of 36 billion gallons by 2022. The EIA has offered, however, one of the first data-centric analyses of the problem.

The EPA Administrator was empowered by Congress under the EISA Act to alter the RFS under these circumstances.

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