The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing that transportation-fuel makers be required to boost 2011 biofuels usage by 7.7 percent over this year.
That’s almost 14 billion gallons of next year’s transportation fuel, close to 8 percent of the estimated 175.5 billion gallons of transportation fuel forecast to be used next year.
The move is part of 2007 policy, the Renewable Fuel Standard, known as RFS2, to incrementally increase biofuels use to 36 billion gallons by 2022.
The vast majority will be corn-derived ethanol, but EPA wants refiners to blend 5 million to 17 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol into gasoline. The range is so broad because developers are struggling to make cellulosic ethanol commercially viable.
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