The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued its final volume requirements for renewable fuels in 2016 that call for a more than 10% increase in total renewable fuels from 2015 — with most of the increases in ethanol-based renewable fuels.
The blenders requirement for biomass-based diesel increased to1.9 billion gallons next year from 1.73 billion last year.
Overall, EPA increased its volume requirement for biofuels to 18.11 billion gallons in 2016 from 16.93 billion in 2015.
The agency’s requirements also called for an increase in cellulosic biofuels to 230 million gallons from 123 million in 2015, and set the advanced biofuels requirement at 3.61 billion gallons in 2016 from 2.88 billion in 2015.
The RFS, established by Congress in 2006, requires EPA to set annual volume requirement increases for different categories of biofuels.
“Despite significant increases in renewable fuel use in the United States, real-world constraints, such as the slower-than-expected development of the cellulosic biofuel industry and constraints in the marketplace needed to supply certain biofuels to consumers, have made the timeline laid out by Congress impossible to achieve,” EPA said.
“These challenges remain, even as we recognize the success of the RFS program over the past decade in boosting renewable fuel use, and the recent signs of progress towards development of increasing volumes of advanced, low greenhouse gas-emitting fuels, including cellulosic biofuels,” EPA said.
