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PLANNED EXPANSION: The footprint of The Andersons-Albion (Michigan) was designed to integrate the expanded capacity that came online this spring. PHOTO: THE ANDERSONS
The number to beat to be named an efficient ethanol producer is 20 percent. Under the
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2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, existing ethanol plants, plus those under construction and completed by the deadline, were grandfathered into the Renewable Fuel Standard. Any expansions or new construction were required by statute to meet a threshold of a 20 percent greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction compared to the baseline gasoline fuel. Ten years later, 75 plants have achieved efficient producer status, which includes the one greenfield plant built since the RFS rule went into effect—Dakota Spirit AgEnergy in North Dakota. Any proposed ethanol plant must show its GHG emissions profile meets the threshold before EPA will permit it to generate renewable identification numbers (RINs). There are three that have been approved, including two corn-ethanol plants, Elite Octane in Iowa and Ringneck Energy & Feed in South Dakota, and one using barley, Montana Advanced Biofuels. For the U.S. EPA, a corn ethanol plant’s greenhouse gas emissions profile boils down to four numbers representing the mass and energy balances of an ethanol plant—bushels of corn ground, gallons of ethanol produced, cubic feet of natural gas and kilowatt hours of electricity consumed. The inputs and outputs are plugged into an EPA formula to calculate the GHG reduction—a formula based on the modeling done in 2010 that found the typical U.S. corn ethanol dry mill, using natural gas