EPA To Increase Corn Oil Extraction

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Global Bioenergy Industry News

Thursday, July 21, 2011

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EPA To Increase Corn Oil Extraction

US - GreenShift Corporation yesterday announced that its patented corn oil extraction technologies were featured extensively in the proposed amendment for the Renewable Fuel Standard published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month.

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, EPA is responsible for implementing regulations to ensure that transportation fuel sold in the United States contains a specified minimum amount of renewable fuels per year reaching 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Edward Carroll, President of GreenShift Corporation said: "We are pleased with the EPA's recent statements noting the importance of corn oil and we are confident that corn oil is leading the renewable fuel industry as an expanding source of biomass-based diesel. The initial 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard had not contemplated any corn oil extraction from ethanol production facilities as a biodiesel feedstock and yet, today our patented extraction technology has become a dominant source of feedstock for biomass based diesel fuels. "

In its proposal the EPA outlined the corn oil recovery as follows:

"The largest sources of feedstock for biodiesel in 2012 are expected to be soy oil, canola oil, rendered fats, and potentially some corn oil extracted during production of fuel ethanol, as this technology continues to proliferate."
"The 300 million gallons of biodiesel produced from corn oil extracted from distillers grains produced at ethanol facilities is based on projections of the percentage of the ethanol industry using corn oil extraction technology and the amount of oil extracted per bushel of corn in 2013. The RFS2 final rule [previously] projected that by 2013, 34 per cent of all dry mill ethanol facilities would extract corn oil from the by-products of ethanol production."
"A recent survey of the ethanol industry found that by 2008 over 30 per cent of all dry mill ethanol plants were already extracting corn oil from their co-products. EPA expects that the percentage of dry mill ethanol facilities using some form of corn oil extraction technology will increase to 60 per cent by 2013."
"The corn oil extraction technology currently being used at most dry mill ethanol facilities is capable of extracting approximately one third of the oil contained in the corn kernel from the whole stillage and/or its derivatives (a significantly reduced rate than the two thirds of oil extracted assumed to be technically feasible by 2022 in the RFS2 final rule). If 60 per cent of all dry mill corn ethanol facilities were extracting one third of the oil in the corn kernel in 2013 the amount of corn oil available for biodiesel production would be approximately 270 million gallons."
"As corn oil extraction technology develops and higher oil extraction rates are achieved, corn ethanol producers are likely to adopt this new technology. EPA expects that by 2013 these technology improvements will increase corn oil production levels to the 300 million gallons projected in the RFS2 rule."
"The high adoption rate of corn oil extraction and the promise of ever increasing oil extraction yields indicate that the 300 million gallons of corn oil extraction projected in the RFS2 rule in 2013 remains a reasonable projection."

Mr Carroll continued: "We see the rapid widespread adoption of our technology to be further vindication of GreenShift's efforts to date to add value to the production of corn ethanol and further decrease greenhouse gas emissions. What we have done with corn oil is an example of what is yet to come for this new industry and it should be used to encourage innovation."

TheBioenergySite News Desk