The biofuel mandate in the recently enacted (misnamed) Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires 36 billion gallons of the nation’s motor fuel supply to come from biofuels by 2022, with corn ethanol maxing out at 15 bn gallons a year in 2015 and the rest coming from “advanced biofuels” (a.k.a. anything except corn kernels).

The tendency of all entitlements is to grow. Will corn farmers and corn ethanol producers remain content with 15 bn gallons if, as 2015 approaches, they find they can produce many billion gallons more? The corn-ethanol lobby is not exactly noted for its self-restraint. I’ll be shocked if the lobby doesn’t lobby to raise the ceiling. 

USDA FORUM: Corn Ethanol Can Eventually Go Over 15B Gallons
February 22, 2008
By Bill Tomson
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

  ARLINGTON, Va. (Dow Jones)–Rising corn yields and improved ethanol
technology will, in the long-run,  push U.S. production capacity for the fuel
up above a commonly perceived ceiling of 15 billion gallons per year, National
Corn Growers Association Chief Executive Rick Tolman said Friday.

  Tolman, in an interview with Dow Jones Newsires, said the commonly cited
ceiling doesn’t really exist. By the year 2020, farmers could be getting corn
yields of as much as 300 bushels per acre — about double what they are now –
and refiners could be getting as much as 1,000 gallons of ethanol from an acre
of corn — about double what is being taken now.

  With all that corn, Tolman said, refiners could push production to more than
20 billion gallons a year without depriving the livestock feed and food
industries of the corn they need.

  U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Thomas Dorr, speaking to Dow
Jones in a seperate interview at USDA’s annual Agricultural Outlook Forum,
agreed that the production of corn-based ethanol could eventually rise above 15
billion gallons per year.

  A new renewable fuels standard approved by Congress and signed by President
George W. Bush in December calls for 36 gallons of renewable fuel production in
the U.S. by 2022. Of that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel, 20 billion
needs to be cellulosic ethanol, 15 billion needs to be corn-based ethanol and 1
billion is mandated for biodiesel. The corn-based ethanol deadline is 2015.

  Meeting that deadline for corn-based ethanol, Tolman said, will be easy. He
was uncertain about the ability of the U.S. to produce cellulosic ethanol.

  But USDA’s Dorr said he was confident that rapidly improving technologies
will assure that cellulosic ethanol production will be up to meet the
challenge.

  Most of the renewable, agriculture-based fuel called for in the new
government mandate will have to come from cellulosic material and the process
to produce it is not yet commercially viable. Research is making impressive
strides, though, according to Dorr and other USDA officials.