Sustainable Bioenergy, Farms, and Forests - February 10, 2017 | Newsletter

The Next Step in the Bioeconomy – Looking Beyond Fuels

The Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), in the Office of Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy (EERE), released its updated strategic plan in January. Revised every five years, the strategic plan refreshes and updates BETO’s strategy out to 2040, to assure it is in-line with EERE’s overall vision to foster “a strong and prosperous America powered by clean, affordable, and secure energy.”

With ethanol production at record levels, and 88 million gallons of cellulosic fuels produced in 2015, BETO is turning its attention increasingly towards the whole barrel of oil, to capitalize on “the opportunity to replace the whole barrel of petroleum with a wide range of renewable fuels and products.” According to BETO, “Diversifying and providing biobased alternatives to products from the entire barrel of oil are critical – not only to increasing U.S. energy security, but also to developing a clean energy economy and creating domestic jobs.” According to the 2016 Billion Ton Study, the U.S. bioeconomy could create 1.1 million direct jobs and keep $250 billion in the U.S. economy.

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Headlines

1. U.S. Ethanol Producers Pump at Record Levels, Policy Clouds Loom

2. China’s Latest Farm Policy Shifts Focus From Output to Demand

3. Nebraska Farmers, Ranchers Wary of Trump Ending NAFTA, Which Has Quadrupled U.S. Ag Exports

4. Biofuels Groups Pleased Oral Arguments Set In Court Case against the EPA

5. Swinerton Breaks Ground on C2e Biogas Facility in North Carolina

Event:

Electric Transmission Infrastructure 101

The High-Voltage Grid: Its Operations, Challenges, and Benefits

Thursday, February 16
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Room 385 Russell Senate Office Building
Constitution Avenue and 1st Street, NE

Please RSVP to expedite check-in

WIRES, the House Grid Innovation Caucus, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invite you to an important briefing on the modernization of the nation’s critical network of high-voltage transmission. Designed and built well before the digital age to serve more localized customer loads, the “grid” is struggling to support active and increasingly competitive wholesale power markets that now operate regionally. It is often congested or inadequate to deliver domestic energy resources that are not close to customers. Its aging facilities have acknowledged weather and cyber vulnerabilities. Moreover, the planning and regulation of this fundamental infrastructure is complex, often uncoordinated, and slow to produce results. However, despite the combined effects of the recession and greater energy efficiency, the grid will be called upon to serve 30 percent more electrical demand over the next two decades.

To Contact the Editor: Jessie Stolark at [email protected]

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