Your Government at Work--New USDA Biofuels Report

The USDA issued a new Biofuels Strategic Report that really shows the distinction between the real world and the government. The underlying analysis is that to meet the 36 Billion gallon goal of RFS2 that the US would have to construct 527 biorefineries, sprinkled around the US, which would each have a production capacity of 40 million gallons per year and would cost $320 Million each to construct.

Later in the same report, the authors say that only biorefineries with annual production in excess of 100 million gallons per year could benefit from pipelines. All smaller plants would have to TRUCK their production around the US. Funny how the report didn't include the carbon footprint of 527 biorefineries trucking their output all over the US! I get that they want the economic impact to be spread all over the US, but that fundamentally doesn't make sense any more than building hundreds of mini-mills.

I have a fundamental ethical problem with taking food out of people's mouths to burn in cars. The idea that half the projected biofuels supply would still come from corn, and among the other half some would come from soybean oil, is repellent to me. Of course I realize that this report was written by the Agriculture Department and their patrons/advocates are obvious, but I think that the sources lack creative thinking. They projected only small amounts of biofuels coming from municipal waste streams and woody by-products. Plants to process those streams shouldn't cost much more (if at all more) than what the USDA is projecting at $8 per gallon construction cost for its biorefineries.

You can decide for yourself. Here is the report in its entirety