California Wants Biofuels Production to Be Within the State

[jpak]

http://www.newrules.org/de/archives/000115.html

With a stroke of the pen, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed an executive order (S-06-06) that establishes in-state production goals for ethanol - from 5 percent today to 75 percent by 2050. The order also requires in-state biomass electricity to meet 20 percent of the state's renewable energy requirements in the coming years.

California currently uses more than 900 million gallons of ethanol annually, but only 5 percent is produced in the state. According to the executive order, the new goals are to produce 20 percent of the state's biofuels within the state by 2010, increasing to 40 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2050.

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The new biomass electricity goals will require approximately 1,450 MW of new biomass capacity by 2020. The CEC assumes that 350 MW of landfill gas and biogas projects and 1,100 MW of solid biomass capacity will be installed by 2020 to meet this goal.

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[Squeech]

1. Do it yourself

That's the good side of this. Also the idea of taking the initiative away from Archer Daniels Midland and their whole strategy of optimizing their production practices to the available subsidy, rather than any actual energy efficiency criteria. (I think they're why you hear all those stories that ethanol costs more BTUs to derive than you get out of it-- in their case it's probably true.)

The problem is, what's the governator thinking California ethanol producers will use for feedstock? Can't be corn, they don't have the land for it and they certainly don't have the water for it.

If it were up to me, I'd suggest industrial hemp, which grows in really crappy soil on little water. The refiners will also have to figure out how to digest cellulose into simple sugars, which AFAIK has been done in the lab but hasn't yet been scaled up to work in industrial quantities.

But Arnold's corporate backers would probably rather chop down the redwoods.