EPA proposes major updates to RFS, plans to boost ethanol

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the Renewable Enhancement and Growth Support Rule proposing to update both its renewable fuels and other fuels regulations.

The EPA is proposing to make several changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) programme regulations that would align them with recent developments in the marketplace to increase production of cellulosic and other advanced biofuels.

The agency also proposes to update fuel regulations by defining fuel blends containing 16 to 83% ethanol as ethanol flex fuel (EFF) and to no longer treat fuel blends containing 16 to 50% ethanol as petrol.

This would allow fuel blends such as E30 and E25 to be sold through blender pumps to flex fuel vehicles.

The proposal would also limit the amount of sulphur in EFF blendstocks, such as natural petrol used to make ethanol blends, to 10 parts per million (PPM).

Furthermore, there are several companies in the US that have developed renewable fuel production technologies that produce a “biointermediate” at one facility that is then processed into renewable fuel at another facility.

In the new rule, a biointermediate is defined as any renewable fuel feedstock derived from renewable biomass that does not meet the definition of renewable fuel, is produced at a facility that is registered with the EPA but is different from the facility used to produce renewable fuel, is made from the feedstock and will be used to produce renewable fuel in accordance with the approved pathway, and is processed in such a way that it is substantially altered from the listed feedstock.

The EPA wants to allow fuels produced through such methods to qualify under existing approved renewable fuel production pathways.

In response to the proposed rule, Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy, said the trade organisation is concerned about the proposal’s impact on retailers successfully selling E15.

If this proposed rule is finalised, Growth Energy says, the regulation would leave E15 as the only ethanol-blended fuel that does not have Reid vapour pressure (RVP) relief.

RVP is the measure of a fuel’s volatility and EPA regulates vapour pressure/RVP to prevent increased ozone or smog from vehicle emissions.

“It is imperative that E15 be given the same volatility treatment as regular E10 petrol. The current RVP waiver for E10 was granted in 1990, and it is time we update our fuel regulations to match the market realities of the 21st century,” Skor said.

Once the proposal is published in the Federal Register, there will be a 60-day comment period, and the EPA will also hold public hearings on the policy.