Aug 4, 2017   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Edeniq Urges EPA To Accurately Project Final 2018 Cellulosic RVOs

This week, Edeniq, Inc.’s (“Edeniq”) President and CEO, Brian Thome, told a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) panel that the Agency must finalize its proposed 2018 cellulosic renewable volume obligations (“RVOs”) in a thoughtful way that most accurately projects cellulosic production for next year. Doing so will help promote the further investment and growth of the cellulosic biofuel industry and its ability to provide the gallons necessary to meet the requirements. Cellulosic biofuels contribute to the achievement of the underlying RFS policy goals to promote rural economic development, cleaner air and increase U.S. energy independence and security.

Testifying at the EPA’s public hearing on its proposed 2018 RVOs in Washington, D.C., Mr. Thome urged the EPA panel to ensure that the 2018 cellulosic RVOs are projected based on a methodology that considers increasing cellulosic ethanol production from plants that are using proven, commercial technologies distinct from other cellulosic technologies that may face greater financing and/or technology risks.

At the hearing, he stated that “Edeniq itself is currently helping to bring RFS qualifying cellulosic gallons online, with four customer plants already approved by the EPA and producing cellulosic ethanol today that will total millions of gallons already this year. Our technology alone has the potential to provide tens of millions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2018.” And, “importantly, technologies such as Edeniq’s work in today’s infrastructure, putting to work the billions of dollars worth of existing steel and concrete that is already in the ground and primed for production.”

Mr. Thome also stressed that the EPA needs to work to reduce unnecessary regulatory hurdles and recognize the lack of a real market constraint on ethanol at 9.7 percent. He stated the need for the EPA to continually improve the efficiency of its pathway approval process under the RFS to keep up with the innovation happening across the biofuels industry and allow for additional qualifying gallons to come online in the shortest time possible. Specifically, he urged the EPA to update its efficient producer rules to allow for grandfathered corn ethanol plants to utilize that pathway when co-producing conventional ethanol made from corn starch and cellulosic ethanol made from corn kernel fiber.

“It was interesting to hear the range of views on the EPA’s efforts to set the RVOs, which is a challenging job,” commented Mr. Thome after the public hearing. “The reality is that a number of companies – mostly from among our own customers – have registered with the EPA to produce cellulosic ethanol and are already selling those gallons in the market today. Improving yields, producing a high-value and low-cost octane and oxygenate for the gasoline market, providing real jobs in the rural U.S., and even using less corn to make more biofuels – those are tangible and significant results of the efforts this industry has undertaken in the last ten, twenty, even thirty-plus years now. I am incredibly excited to be leading the Edeniq team as we continue to grow the volumes of qualifying cellulosic ethanol gallons, and I know our customers can and will be able to continue to step-up to meet ever-increasing demand.”

Edeniq intends to submit written comments on the EPA’s proposed 2018 cellulosic RVOs, which are due to the EPA by August 31, 2017.

About Edeniq, Inc.

Edeniq has developed leading processes for producing and measuring low-cost cellulosic ethanol. Edeniq’s operationally efficient solutions require zero capital investment and can be easily integrated into existing biorefineries. Edeniq currently sells or licenses its technologies to ethanol plants in the United States. Edeniq was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Visalia, California with a field office in Omaha, Nebraska. More information can be found at www.edeniq.com.