Cellulosic ethanol lowers greenhouse gases that cause global warming; is cost-competitive to produce and distribute compared to other fuel alternatives; and doesn't impact our global food supply.

With crude oil prices now topping $130 per barrel, the US administration officially recognizing global climate change, and surges in global food prices making international headlines, market demand for clean, environmentally sustainable alternative fuels is growing rapidly.

The High Price of Fuel - Demand is Outstripping Supply

The US currently produces roughly 7 billion barrels of ethanol per year, and it's expected to produce at least 15 billion barrels per year by 2012 to meet Federal and State mandates for renewable fuels. But ethanol production in the US today accounts for just 3 percent of its total transportation needs.

Replacing fossil fuels at the pump would require producing more than 140 billion barrels of ethanol per year – demand that simply can't be met by making ethanol from corn. Only by making cellulosic ethanol and other high-performance biofuels from a variety of low-cost, abundantly available sources can the US begin to meaningfully address its transportation fuel needs.

Better Than Corn - Fuel Made From Agricultural and Industrial Waste

Identified by the US Department of Energy and National Commission on Energy Policy as the most viable alternative to petroleum-based transportation fuels today, cellulosic ethanol:

• Lowers greenhouse gas emissions by 85% compared to gasoline. By contrast, corn ethanol, which uses fossil fuels to power the refining process, reduces emissions by only 18 to 29 percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Dramatically increases the potential profitable biofuels production.

Of the 4.5 tons of grain yielded by one acre of corn, three tons is starch that can be converted to 400 gallons of ethanol; by using cornstalks and leaves in addition to the corn grain, that same acre would yield 700 gallons of ethanol, according to the Department of Energy.

• Provides a cost-competitive alternative to gasoline and diesel.

With growing support from the federal government in the form of tax credits, subsidies, and grants, cellulosic ethanol has the potential to be even less expensive to produce than corn ethanol. In fact, the US DOE has set a goal to bring down the cost to produce cellulosic ethanol to $1.07 a gallon by 2012.

• Can be produced without impacting food prices or supplies.

Increased demand for ethanol has led to increased demand for corn - and higher corn prices. US demand alone has driven US corn prices from less than $2 per bushel in 2005 to more than $6 per bushel in 2008. The increase has not only led to slimmer profit margins for ethanol producers, but higher prices for food staples such as wheat and soybeans, as less of those crops are grown in favor of corn.

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The new RFS caps corn-based ethanol production at 15 billion gallons per year by 2015, and requires the production of at least 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels such as cellulosic and non-corn-based ethanol by 2022.