Future of Ethanol Mandates

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Recommended: Alternative sources to fossil fuel to avoid energy crices

In the United States we have been looking into alternative energies to reduce our dependence on oil and help reduce our carbon footprint. One method the EPA has come out in support of is ethanol production. Ethanol is considered a green fuel because it recycles the burned carbon each time new crops are grown. In theory ethanol is a good stepping stone between using gasoline and zero emission power sources. However biofuels are still young technology that has many problems before it can be useful. The EPA is in full support of biofuels and has mandated that by 2020, 36 billion gallons of biofuels are to be produced in America. Currently almost all of America biofuels comes in the form of corn based ethanol which is extremely inefficient and can cause sustainability problems. Due to this reason only 15 billion gallons of the mandated biofuels can be form corn based ethanol. The rest of the biofuel must come from non-corn based alternatives such as cellulosic ethanol which the EPA projects to create all most all of the 21 billion remaining gallons of ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol uses the cellulose that is in all plants matter to create ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol is far more efficient than corn ethanol because you can use the whole plant and it sets no limitation on what type of plant matter can be used. Even though the EPA projects that these number will be achievable, due to current setbacks and efficiencies cellulosic ethanol will not be able to meet this output within the time constraints and a goal of 2034 years would be more realistic in the long run.
Cellulosic ethanol will not be able to meet its mandated output because in the past four years since demonstration and pilot sites started popping up it has only just started t...

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...ble considering the recent trends in productions. Reaching the goal for 21 billion gallons of ethanol was not possible. However, even if 21 billion gallons of ethanol was produced by 2020 it would not be useful because cars are not at the point where a majority of them can run on higher ethanol fuels which would create an unnecessary surplus. Instead waiting a 5 years to create higher demand while giving the starting plants time to settle down and work out the basic problems will allow for the goal to be met in the future. Then by my calculations in 15 years it would be reasonable to meet the goal of 21 billion gallons of ethanol from non-corn based crops. Even after waiting 20 years this mandate is still important because alternative energy would still not have taken over the transportation yet and fuel will still be needed for all of the gasoline powered cars.

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