Biofuels - The good, the bad and the unlikely

The US consumed approximately 7.5 billion barrels of oil in 2007. Approximately 2.5 billion barrels were produced in the US and another 5 billion barrels of oil were imported. See reference 1. The ability of the US to import oil will decrease sharply and the cost per barrel will increase significantly in the next few years after oil has peaked and world oil production starts declining. A major goal of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 is to reduce US dependence on imported oil.

In 2007 ninety-six percent of US transportation fuels were derived from oil and sixty-nine percent of US oil was used to make transportation fuels. See reference 1. US gasoline consumption increased steadily at a rate of about 2 billion gallons per year during the period from 1986 through 2006, reaching almost 143 billion gallons in 2007. This is the equivalent of about 3.12 billion barrels of oil. US distillate fuel oil (diesel) consumption was about 65 billion gallons in 2007. This is the equivalent of 1.6 about billion barrels of oil.

Two popular biofuels are ethanol and biodiesel. In 2007 the US produced approximately 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol and 500 million gallons of biodiesel. Increased production of these fuels to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022 is a key aspect of the US Biofuels program defined in the 2007 Energy Act.

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