On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it was investing $26 million across 23 states to expand the availability of higher blend, renewable biofuels. With the new grants, the USDA expects biofuel sales to increase by 822 million gallons annually.
“Investments like these increase opportunities for American consumers to make climate-smart decisions and move the country closer to President Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Justin Maxson. “By expanding the availability of higher-blend biofuels, we’re giving consumers more environmentally-friendly fuel choices when they fill up at the pump and stimulating an important market for U.S. farmers and ranchers.”
The awards are part of the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program. The funding will significantly increase the use of biofuels and further the climate-related goals of the Biden administration in lowering fossil fuel consumption.
In Georgia, the grant tallies nearly $1 million. H&H Operations, a fuel servicing company based out of Peachtree City, received the funding to perform the installation of 26 dispensers at fueling stations, replace 56 dispensers and replace 13 underground storage tanks. The stations are located in Fayetteville, Smyrna, Riverdale, Jonesboro and Peachtree City. The USDA estimates the Georgia projects alone will increase the amount of ethanol sold by 5.4 million gallons per year.
Since the start of the program a year ago, the USDA expects projects to increase biofuel sales by 1.2 billion gallons annually. More than 90 percent of the 263 million vehicles registered in the United States are able to use ethanol fuel blends. Some 22 million vehicles are capable of using majority ethanol fuels – compared to the normal E15 which is only 15 percent ethanol.
Expanding ethanol production – and the further diversion of corn to make the ethanol – is not a controversy-free program. Nearly half of the U.S. corn crop is now diverted into the production of ethanol fuel. The majority of the rest of it is used as animal feed and high fructose corn syrup. The moral question of diverting what can be used as food for fuel while there are many people that may have trouble finding food is one concern. Another question is the system that has developed that produces so much of one crop – and the resulting “too big to fail” problem we are familiar with in other areas but that can now be applied to corn or ethanol prices.
Scientific American wondered whether it was time to rethink the corn system.
“As a large monoculture, it is a vulnerable house of cards, precariously perched on publicly funded subsidies. And the resulting benefits to our food system are sparse, with the majority of the harvested calories lost to ethanol or animal feedlot production. In short, our investment of natural and financial resources is not paying the best dividends to our national diet, our rural communities, our federal budget or our environment. It’s time to reimagine a system that will.”
