The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007: Preliminary Evaluation of Selected Provisions

The “Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007” was signed into law in December 2007. This report provides a snapshot of estimated impacts of selected provisions of EISA on biofuel and agricultural markets.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Conflicting Goals: Energy Security vs. GHG Reductions under the EISA Cellulosic Ethanol Mandate

Increasing energy security and lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been prominent goals in recent energy and environmental policies. While these goals are often complementary, there may also be cases where they conflict. A case in point is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). The goals of EISA are to increase the United States' energy independence and security as well as to increase the production of clean renewable fuels. Title II of EISA establishes mandates for increasing the use of low carbon fuels to replace gasoline. While the Title II mandates will meet the energy security goal of EISA, the mandate for the use of at least 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022 may conflict with efforts to reduce substantially the nation's GHG emissions over the next 20 years. The nation's production capacity for biomass is likely to be limited and the use of biomass to replace coal in generating electricity yields 2 to 3 times the GHG reduction associated with using cellulosic ethanol to displace gasoline. Thus, there is a trade-off between the energy security gains of the biofuels mandate under EISA and the more effective (in terms of GHG emission reductions) use of biomass in the electric utility sector. One means of evaluating this trade-off is to examine the factors that affect the costeffectiveness of diverting biomass from electricity production to cellulosic ethanol production. This paper identifies some of the key factors that affect the cost-effectiveness of the energy security and climate change goals of EISA. The cost-effectiveness of EISA will depend on (1) constraints on biomass production, that is, the extent to which the EISA mandate may crowd out the use of biomass to generate electricity; (2) the world oil price (and the cost of production of cellulosic ethanol); and (3) the social cost of carbon.energy security, cost-effective policy, cellulosic ethanol

Biofuels: Impact of Selected Farm Bill Provisions and other Biofuel Policy Options

Agricultural and Food Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

A simple construction of fermion measure term in U(1) chiral lattice gauge theories with exact gauge invariance

In the gauge invariant formulation of U(1) chiral lattice gauge theories based on the Ginsparg-Wilson relation, the gauge field dependence of the fermion measure is determined through the so-called measure term. We derive a closed formula of the measure term on the finite volume lattice. The Wilson line degrees of freedom (torons) of the link field are treated separately to take care of the global integrability. The local counter term is explicitly constructed with the local current associated with the cohomologically trivial part of the gauge anomaly in a finite volume. The resulted formula is very close to the known expression of the measure term in the infinite volume with a single parameter integration, and would be useful in practical implementations.Comment: 25 pages, uses JHEP3.cls, the version to appear in JHE

Land Use Implications of Expanding Biofuel Demand

The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will require 36 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced in 2022. The mandates require that 16 of the 36 billion gallons must be produced from cellulosic feedstocks. The potential land use implications resulting from these mandates were examined using two methods, the POLYSYS model and a general equilibrium model. Results of the POLYSYS analysis indicated that 72.1 million tons of corn stover, 23.5 million tons of wheat straw, and 24.7 million acres would be used to produce 109 million tons of switchgrass in 2025 to meet the mandate. Results of the CGE analysis indicated that 10.9 billion bushels of corn grain, 71 million tons of corn stover, and 56,200 tons of switchgrass is needed to meet the mandate.cellulosic ethanol, corn stover, grain ethanol, renewable fuel standard, switchgrass, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q15, Q42,

U.S. Department of Energy's Recovery Act Spending

Examines how the Department of Energy has spent the $36.7 billion in climate- and energy-related funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Provides data on funds appropriated, awarded, and spent and jobs created or saved

Catalytic Behaviour of Mesoporous Cobalt-Aluminum Oxides for CO Oxidation

Ordered mesoporous materials are promising catalyst supports due to their uniform pore size distribution, high specific surface area and pore volume, tunable pore sizes, and long-range ordering of the pore packing. The evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) process was applied to synthesize mesoporous mixed oxides, which consist of cobalt ions highly dispersed in an alumina matrix. The characterization of the mesoporous mixed cobalt-aluminum oxides with cobalt loadings in the range from 5 to 15 wt% and calcination temperatures of 673, 973, and 1073 K indicates that Co2+ is homogeneously distributed in the mesoporous alumina matrix. As a function of the Co loading, different phases are present comprising poorly crystalline alumina and mixed cobalt aluminum oxides of the spinel type. The mixed cobalt-aluminum oxides were applied as catalysts in CO oxidation and turned out to be highly active.Fil: Bordoloi, Ankur. Indian Institute of Petroleum; IndiaFil: Sanchez, Miguel Dario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Noei, Heshmat. Research Group X-Ray Physics and Nanoscience Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron; AlemaniaFil: Kaluza, Stefan. Fraunhofer Institute of Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology; AlemaniaFil: Großmann, Dennis. Ruhr Universität Bochum; AlemaniaFil: Wang, Yuemin. Ruhr Universität Bochum; AlemaniaFil: Grünert, Wolfgang. Ruhr Universität Bochum; AlemaniaFil: Muhler, Martin. Ruhr Universität Bochum; Alemani