By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Oct. 18 -- Biofuels are not the answer to US energy supply problems, said the president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association at a management forum in Houston.
Ethanol produced from corn is neither an economic nor energy-efficient alternative to gasoline, said Bob Slaughter, NPRA president. "If we were to seek to replace 10% of US gasoline needs with ethanol in 2020, we would have to plant all of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, using one sixth of the total land we currently use for crops just to grow corn for ethanol," he said.
NPRA, which represents virtually all US refiners and petrochemical manufacturers, is not opposed to the use of ethanol as an oxygenate additive to gasoline or to the 85:15 ethanol-gasoline "E85" blend, or to biodiesel and other alternative fuels, if competitively priced without government subsidies. "We believe that alternative fuels will be a growing component of the nation's future energy supplies as their economic viability improves. Policymakers, however, have a responsibility to get all the facts before mandating new fuels," Slaughter said.
He said, "The US oil and gas industry faces an unprecedented challenge in satisfying the projected growth in energy demand worldwide by 2030. To meet the challenge, the nation's energy policy must be grounded in reality, keep a long-term focus, and continue to search for solutions based upon sound science and careful analysis of economic and environmental factors."
US refiners have produced record volumes of petroleum products in recent years to help meet increased demand, while investing some $50 billion over the last 2 decades to make sweeping environmental improvements in their products and facilities. "US refiners have announced plans to add 1.4 million b/d of new refining capacity to existing US refineries, an 8% increase," Slaughter said.
For the next several decades, the US and the rest of the world will require more oil and gas to meet energy needs and support economic growth. And this has geopolitical and national political implications, said Slaughter.
"With the lack of an explicit, supply-based energy policy to address the US energy supply-demand imbalance, we are increasingly in the hands of international and global politics," he said. "In many ways, America's energy policy is still living in the past when oil and gas were cheap and readily available to meet constantly increasing global energy demand. Policymakers must accept the reality of the situation rather than take expensive and ill-considered steps in an attempt to avoid it."
Slaughter said, "America can take steps to increase its domestic production of energy, affecting both producers and refiners. Paying appropriate attention to the increasing need for energy will be key to obtaining policies that actually increase domestic production and refining. No nation—not even the US—can insulate itself from the global energy challenges."
