[originally published in RealClear Energy]
The primary Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, kicking off one of many largest environmental grassroots campaigns in U.S. historical past. Within the following months and years, the Environmental Safety Company (EPA) was established and landmark laws just like the Clear Air Act and Clear Water Act have been handed. Now, as Earth Day squarely hits center age, it’s time to recommit to the scale and scope of its preliminary ambitions.
As local weather change turns into a extra dire menace, we will draw inspiration from the environmental activists of the Seventies, who embraced a complete method. Simply as they have been in a position to cut up their efforts between clear air, water, and quite a few different priorities, we have to put money into all out there applied sciences to decarbonize our planet. For our policymakers, the U.S. must broaden its local weather change technique past electrification to incorporate different confirmed applied sciences like superior biofuels.
Whereas in 1970 superior biofuels appeared a distant prospect, at present they’re actively mitigating emissions on land, air, and sea. These fuels are revolutionizing decarbonization efforts, significantly in sectors that can’t be simply electrified – like marine delivery and aviation which mixed account for over 5% of worldwide greenhouse fuel emissions. As a drop-in gas, superior biofuels work in current combustion engines and might provide an instantaneous answer to decreasing emissions.
With correct governmental assist, the superior biofuels business can increase. In March, the Division of Vitality (DOE) launched the 2023 Billion-Ton Report (BT23), which laid out a possible path the place U.S. manufacturing of biomass might sustainably triple to multiple billion tons a 12 months. One key discovering was that we have already got 350 million tons of biomass we could possibly be utilizing to double our bioeconomy.
Latest developments illustrate tangible progress in the direction of this objective. In January, LanzaJet opened the world’s first ethanol to sustainable aviation gas (SAF) manufacturing facility, slated to provide 10 million gallons of SAF and renewable diesel yearly.
Superior biofuels’ historical past is one among surpassing expectations and groundbreaking innovation. Because the 2009 institution of a complicated biofuel goal within the Renewable Gasoline Normal (RFS), superior biofuels have grown from 0.6 billion gallons to a projected 7.8 billion gallons in 2025.
Producers are additionally relentless of their pursuit of innovation. Whereas superior biofuels are legally mandated to cut back emissions by a minimum of 50%, many obtain 80% reductions or extra by means of good initiatives that lower emissions throughout the provision chain. Many feedstock producers, as an illustration, are implementing local weather good agricultural practices – reminiscent of multi-cropping and over cropping, water and nutrient administration, adjusting crop selections, and low or no-tilling – to scale back emissions from the outset of the manufacturing course of.
Regardless of this progress and imaginative and prescient, superior biofuels are sometimes underestimated. Whereas the Biden administration has prioritized electrification efforts — evidenced by current tail pipe restrictions — coverage surrounding superior biofuels is inconsistent. When the EPA launched the newest RFS ruling in 2023, it undervalued superior biofuels’ manufacturing capability regardless of the constant progress it has proven in this system’s historical past and estimates of present manufacturing capability.
We owe it to our planet to make use of each methodology at our disposal to scale back emissions and combat local weather change. Electrification efforts and low carbon liquid transportation fuels like superior biofuels should not mutually unique and might work side-by-side. They each serve distinctive functions, and to really make an impression on decarbonization we should use each.
Earth Day is greater than only a token vacation. It reminds us of the ability that collective motion can have. An all-of-the-above method to local weather change is the one method to make true progress. This Earth Day let’s make superior biofuels play an vital function in that.
Michael McAdams is the president of the Superior Biofuels Affiliation.
