News

It was a big year for ethanol exports

U.S. exports of ethanol hit record high levels in 2011.

Renewable Fuels Association president and CEO Bob Dinneen says that export growth is happening because the U.S. ethanol industry is now the lowest-cost renewable energy industry in the world.

“In fact, it’s the lowest-cost transportation fuel in the world because we are now less expensive than gasoline,” says Dinneen. “As a consequence of that, we have been meeting the demand created for renewable fuels in Europe, in southeast Asia, in Canada, in Mexico—and even in Brazil.”

While a lot of people think that Brazil—with all of its sugar resources—is the low-cost producer of ethanol, Dinneen says that’s not the case.

“That’s not the case today—and it hasn’t been the case for almost two years now,” he says. “The U.S. is capturing markets all across the globe—and I think that is going to be a reality for the future as well.

“Our production is just becoming more and more efficient—and I think we’re going to be the low-cost producer from now on.”

The U.S. exported an estimated one billion gallons of denatured and undenatured ethanol in 2011.

Undenatured ethanol is ethanol that was never blended with gasoline or eligible for the ethanol tax incentive.