Ethanol Industry Rep Appointed to California Panel
At least one ethanol industry representative has been appointed to an expert work group attempting to assess the true carbon footprint of all fuel sources under the California’s proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
POET Senior Vice President of Science and Technology Mark Stowers has been appointed to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is one of 30 experts from around the world appointed to the group. The group has been charged with assisting the Board in “refining and improving the land use and indirect effect analysis of transportation fuels,” according to a CARB resolution. The group will come up with recommendations to present to CARB by Jan. 1, 2011. The group’s first meeting will be Feb. 26 in Sacramento.
“The Low Carbon Fuel Standard is an important piece of energy policy, too important to rely on theories or unproven models,” Stowers said. “As the lone representative for ethanol producers in the workgroup, I want to make sure than all carbon accounting is based on the wealth of facts and accumulated data regarding agriculture, energy and deforestation. I also want to ensure that all fuels, including oil and electricity, are held to the same accounting standards as biofuels so that the rule truly can lower carbon emissions.”
The group also includes Jesper Hedal Kløverpris of Novozymes, which produces enzymes to further the development of advanced biofuels, as well as a number of university and energy researchers – but Stowers is the only ethanol industry representative on the panel. Stowers has led efforts at POET to create new, efficient processes for producing grain-based ethanol that save energy, limit water use and improve ethanol yields. He also leads POET’s cellulosic ethanol effort, known as Project LIBERTY, which produces ethanol from corn cobs.
2 Comments »
Tim Dillard
Guess Mr. Stowers is going to be very independent, uh?
Aureon Kwolek
Anyone disproving C-ARB science will first have to disprove corrupt EPA science. EPA’s RFS-2 they say is workable, but it’s also a stumbling block in the California dispute. Because C-ARB is also using: (1) EPA’s false analysis of the unproven indirect land use change theory, (2) EPA’s fraudulent peer review of the theory, (3) EPA’s omission of a massive amount of diesel, jet and bunker fuel consumed, and the pollution emitted to protect the US foreign oil supply chain, (4) EPA’s failure to regulate petroleum based fuels for benzene, known carcinogens, toxins, fuel additives, and sulfurous Black Carbon Soot – which are more potent than CO2, and (5) for failing to credit biofuels, such as ethanol, the oxygenator that mitigates unburned petroleum based fuel residues. Ethanol and biodiesel are, by far, the cleaner burning fuels.
EPA also fails the final CO2 tailpipe analysis. Today, ethanol is mostly from recycled CO2, that corn and sorghum absorbed when they were grown. This is in contrast to the CO2 released by burning gasoline, which comes from newly mined carbon that’s building-up in the atmosphere. The EPA makes no distinction in its final tailpipe analysis – another deceptive omission.
C-ARBs rules are being challenged in court, especially the unproven indirect land use change theory. This is being used as a wedge, to block the sale of Corn Belt ethanol in the state. C-ARB’s strategy may be to point to the EPA, and then claim that their science is based on unchallenged EPA science. That will be their legal justification for applying it. As long as EPA’s use of indirect land use change theory goes unchallenged, that weakens the case in California for out of state biofuels.
The EPA should be investigated and forced to drop the controversial indirect land use change theory entirely from their rules – unless it can be scientifically proven using facts on the groundinstead of false assumptions. Excluding the bogus theory from biofuel rulemaking, would give ethanol the carbon footprint that it deserves, a 61% advantage over gasoline. Then the California market would not be lost, because, in turn, C-ARB could no longer rely on the false EPA analysis for land use change.
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