The Environmental Protection Agency is renewing efforts to give ethanol a bigger market. South Dakota officials see this as an opportunity for producers.
The EPA is requiring over 19 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be blended with gasoline by 2017. 15 billion of those gallons are corn based ethanol. The new resolution is actually the same as the EPA’s 2007 goal.
The South Dakota Corn Growers Association officials commend the EPA’s action. Officials say ethanol is the state’s biggest market for corn. Lisa Richardson is the Executive Director of the organization South Dakota Corn. She says ethanol is a hot commodity right now.
“I’m excited, more excited than I’ve ever been with the future of renewable industry. Ethanol is a high octane, low carbon fuel and we know like the California market is a huge market. The California Air Resource Board has set standards. We know, we believe we can meet those standards in a corn starch industry. So yeah, we are excited, we believe there’s huge opportunity not only in the US, but also markets outside of the US for ethanol production,” says Richardson.
Richardson says increases ethanol production helps South Dakota corn producers. She says it helps the environment, gives more work to South Dakotans and decreases dependency on oil.