US EPA proposes keeping ethanol, lowering cellulosic volumes in 2018

Photo by Steve Jurvetson (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday unveiled its proposal for renewable fuel quotas for 2018 that call for a total of 19.24 billion gallons (72.83 billion litres) of biofuel to be supplied to the market.

The figure includes 4.24 billion gallons of advanced biofuel, which is slightly down from the 2017 requirement of 4.28 billion gallons.

The proposal maintains the volume requirement for conventional renewable fuels such as corn ethanol at the 15-billion-gallon level set by Congress, in line with the 2017 standard.

"We are proposing new volumes consistent with market realities focused on actual production and consumer demand while being cognizant of the challenges that exist in bringing advanced biofuels into the marketplace," said EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.

The agency proposed to keep the biomass-based diesel standard for 2019 at the 2018 level of 2.1 billion gallons.

The table below contains details about the renewable fuel volume requirements for 2017 (final) and 2018-2019 (proposed, except for the 2018 biomass-based diesel standard which is also final).

	2017	2018	2019
Cellulosic biofuel (million gallons)	311	238	n/a
Biomass-based diesel (billion gallons)	2.0	2.1	2.1
Advanced biofuel (billion gallons)	4.28	4.24	n/a
Renewable fuel (billion gallons)	19.28	19.24	n/a

EPA also said it is starting technical analysis that will inform a future rule to reset the statutory volumes for cellulosic, advanced and total biofuels.

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