Study assesses ways to decarbonize ethanol industry

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New study highlights how ethanol’s environmental impact can be reduced to accelerate decarbonisation efforts in the transport sector.

Energy Futures Initiative Foundation President and CEO Ernest Moniz, a former U.S. Secretary of Energy, believes low-carbon liquid fuels are essential to a low-carbon economy.

“Ethanol meets all of these requirements very, very well — it provides secure domestic supplies, it serves the rural economy and it serves the necessary transformation of liquid fuels towards a low-emission economy,” he explains.

In a phone interview on Friday, Moniz told reporters that currently, ethanol’s carbon intensity is about 40 percent lower than that of undiluted gasoline.

Moniz said the use of carbon capture in ethanol fermentation, low-carbon energy in biorefineries, and cover crops stand out as important and low-cost avenues for development.

“This could lead to about a 90 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions within a decade, with a more negative outcome by mid-century,” he says.

The report found that all nine pathways taken together, which also include advances in renewable natural gas and hydrogen production, could reduce the carbon intensity of renewable vehicle fuels to near net zero by 2035, and to zero or net negative emissions by 2050.

According to the researchers, additional policy measures are needed to accelerate the decarbonization of the ethanol industry, including extending the tax credit for the production of 45Z clean fuels.