Dlouhy, J., & Chipman, K. (2022, December 01). Biden proposes overhaul of US biofuel law to boost EV makers like Tesla. Retrieved January 25, 2023, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-01/biden-proposes-overhaul-of-us-biofuel-law-to-boost-ev-makers-like-tesla
On December 1, 2022, The Biden Administration announced its plan to increase the use of renewable natural gas to power electric vehicles. While the 2005 Renewable Fuel Standard pushed for ethanol and biodiesel based alternatives for vehicles, the new proposal is focused on decarbonizing transportation in general. To achieve this, the EPA plans to increase the amount of biofuel in gasoline and diesel by as much as 22.68 billion gallons by 2025. In addition, officials aim to protect current oil refineries. EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm emphasize “strengthening the economics of our critical energy infrastructure” and “support[ing] the union workers who operate these facilities” while taking on alternative fuel sources.
This article demonstrates a balance between maintaining a strong economy and taking care of our planet, by supporting the current systems while looking for replacements. The new proposal is more generalized than the previous one, which I think will likely lead to less results overall, due to a less specific goal. In addition, since producing biofuel also releases greenhouse gasses, uses chemical fertilizers, and leads to an increase in global food prices, it’s not necessarily going to benefit us much to use a higher concentration of it in gasoline and diesel. A better solution would also focus on decreasing overall gasoline and diesel usage.
Ece- This of course fits right in with your ethanol fuel project. Very interesting. What is the “renewable natural gas” to power the EVs? I think of biodiesel and biofuel as more for a combustion engine. Most ethanol biofuel in the USA is from corn and an env. mistake (IMO) that is political and based on corn subsidies. So my question for you is what is the link between biofuel and EVs?
Thanks for doing all the good footwork to produce abstracts on your topic. Hope it kept you interested.
Thanks for reading! So the renewable natural gas doesn’t directly power the EVs. I believe that the way it works is that they’ll use natural gas to create the electricity for the EV instead of fossil fuels. Sorry for not making it more clear. Also, I realize now I forgot to mention, that the reason this is linked to biofuels is that it’s replacing biofuels, as they found a cleaner way to power cars (natural gas).