In a new study, researchers Wally Tyner, the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, and co-authors Frank Dooley, a Purdue professor of agricultural economics, and Daniela Viteri, a former Purdue graduate student, looked at data from the US Dept. of Energy and US Environmental Protection Agency and compared it to current federal mandates.
What they found is that the US has reached the “blending wall,” the saturation point for ethanol use. Their findings were published in the December issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
The federal Renewable Fuel Standard requires an increase of renewable fuel production to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022. About 13 billion gallons of renewable fuel was required for 2010, the same amount Tyner predicts is the threshold for US infrastructure and consumption ability.
In an interview with the publication Science Daily, Tyner said there simply aren't enough flex-fuel vehicles, which use an 85 percent ethanol blend, or E85 stations to distribute more bio-fuels.
According to EPA estimates, flex-fuel vehicles make up 7.3 million of the 240 million vehicles on the nation's roads. Of those, about 3 million of flex-fuel vehicle owners aren't even aware they can use E85 fuel.
There are only about 2,000 E85 fuel pumps in the United States, and it took more than 20 years to install them, according to Science Daily.
Tyner said advances in the production of thermo-chemical bio-fuels, which are created by using heat to chemically alter biomass and create fuels, would be necessary to meet the Renewable Fuel Standard.
He said those fuels would be similar enough to gasoline to allow unlimited blending and would increase the amount of bio-fuel that could be used.
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