During his testimony in front of the House Ag Committee last week, Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Geoff Cooper said that both electric vehicles and the increased production and use of renewable fuels like ethanol will be necessary to achieve a national goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
It will take many years for electric vehicles to become implemented enough in the transportation sector for it to reach carbon neutrality. However, Cooper said that increased usage of ethanol can start reducing carbon emissions immediately while electric vehicles continue to be integrated.
?We agree that electric vehicles will be an important part of that strategy, but given the time needed to transition the light-duty vehicle fleet, continued reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation, the difficulty of electrifying medium and heavy-duty vehicles, and other barriers, electric vehicles alone will not get our transportation sector to net-zero emissions by 2050,? Cooper said. ?That?s where agriculture comes in. Through increased production and use of renewable fuels like ethanol, the agriculture sector offers an effective and immediate solution for decarbonizing all segments of the transportation sector.?
An increased role for low-carbon biofuels is especially important in the near term, given the relatively small number of electric vehicles and barriers to EV adoption. The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that roughly 80 percent of new light-duty vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2050 will be powered by an internal combustion engine.
?Even with increased electric vehicle sales in the years ahead, it would take decades to turn over the fleet,? Cooper said. ?And that means hundreds of billions of gallons of liquid fuels will continue to be burned for decades to come. So, given all these realities, other complementary solutions clearly will be needed to decarbonize transportation by mid-century.?
Cooper added that today?s corn ethanol already reduces greenhouse gas emissions by roughly half, on average, compared to gasoline, according to the Department of Energy?s Argonne National Laboratory.
?With increased adoption of low-carbon farming practices; carbon capture, sequestration, and storage; and other technologies, we are well on our way to producing zero-carbon corn ethanol,? Cooper said. ?In fact, the members of my organization are so confident about this that they adopted a resolution last July pledging to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint for corn ethanol by 2050 or sooner.?
Cooper said this requires, in addition to a level playing for lifecycle GHG analysis, ?certain policy and regulatory actions ? to fully leverage the potential of agriculture and biofuels to decarbonize transportation.? These include:
- The removal of EPA?s arcane fuel volatility barrier, which would facilitate the rapid expansion of E15 in the marketplace.
- Implementation of strong Renewable Fuel Standard volume requirements in 2023 and beyond to ensure low-carbon biofuels have access to a growing market.
- Incentives that encourage automakers to increase production and deployment of flex-fuel vehicles.
- Additional public and private investment in the infrastructure necessary to distribute higher ethanol blends like E15 and flex fuels like E85.
Cooper also told the House Ag Committee what the RFA would like to see in future decarbonization policies.
?We believe any future decarbonization policies should take a technology-neutral, performance-based approach that focuses strictly on greenhouse gas emissions reduction and increasing fuel efficiency without dictating the use of specific fuels and vehicles to achieve those reductions,? Cooper said. ?That?s why we support the concept of a national low-carbon fuel standard. We also support the Next Generation Fuels Act that was introduced by Congresswoman Bustos, which establishes carbon performance and minimum octane standards for liquid fuels, again, without dictating what fuels would be used.?
For more information, visit ethanolrfa.org.
