EPA: Ethanol production expected to grow in 2012

Des Moines Register
11:05 PM, Dec. 31, 2011
Written by DAN PILLER

But cellulosic ethanol output is likely to fall short of a 2007 law's goals.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday said ethanol production in 2012 should reach 15.2 billion gallons, an increase of about 1.25 billion gallons from this year.

The agency’s 2012 targets for renewable biofuels, however, shows non-corn ethanol made from crop residue, grasses or wood chips falling short of the goals set in the 2007 federal law mandating biofuel use.

In a statement, the EPA projects that cellulosic ethanol will hit 8.65 million gallons, or 0.06 percent of the 15.2 billion gallon total. That is considerably short of the 500-million-gallon target for 2012 set by Congress in 2007 when it wrote the law mandating that 36 billion gallons of non-petroleum biofuels be used in the nation's transportation fuel mix by 2022.

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