When you pull in to fill up at most gas stations you might not put a lot of thought into what's going into your tank.
Some pumps are clearly labeled with E90 or E85. These labels represent how much ethanol is in the gasoline. But the regular fuel that gas stations sell also contains ethanol, about 10 percent.
"We need higher blends in gasoline much higher than 10 percent," says Dave Hudak, a representative of the Indiana Ethanol Producers Association. "We need 15 percent, 30 percent, midlevel blends. We need to allow the consumer to choose."
Hudak also manages the Poet ethanol plant about an hour northeast of Indianapolis where corn is processed into liquid ethanol.
How Ethanol Is Produced
View the slideshow below to see how ethanol is produced from corn.
He and many in the ethanol industry are concerned about a new EPA proposal that's part of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
The law created in 2005 sets yearly volumes for how much ethanol and other advanced fuels are mixed into gasoline.
Now, the EPA is revising the standards down from what was previously required.
The EPA is requiring 16.3 billion gallons of renewable fuel be added to gasoline this year, compared to the old mandate of 20.5 billion.
Next year, the mandate is 17.4 billions gallons, 4.85 billion gallons less than the previous mandate.
"We're just disappointed that the EPA didn't follow the standard. They chose to arbitrarily pick another number," Hudak says.
The EPA maintains it wasn't an arbitrary decision.
"We're in a situation where the only way to get more ethanol to the consumer is to add it to the existing gasoline supply.
The agency says the old targets were too aggressive. People are driving less and therefore using less gasoline, and many engines aren't able to run on a blend that contains more than 10 percent ethanol.
"The renewable fuel standard, when it was designed, it said hey this is what we have to get to," Hudak says. "Our job was to produce the amount ethanol and continue to produce at the volumes required, so we did. The oil companies' job was to find the way to deliver it to the consumer and they drug their feet on it. Now we're in a situation where the only way to get more ethanol to the consumer is to add it to the existing gasoline supply and of course they're reluctant to do that."
Hudak says Indiana ethanol producers can produce about one billion gallons of ethanol each year, so the EPA's new standards will impact the agricultural industry and farmers like Chris Mann whose livelihood depends on corn.
"We produce about 4,000 acres of corn around Cloverdale, Indiana and about 50 percent of that corn goes to our local ethanol plant for ethanol production," Mann says as he stands in one of his fields.
Farmers like Mann saw the price of corn double when the EPA initially established the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2005.
It's relatively stable now in the $4 range.
"[Ethanol] has been a tremendous, profitable situation for Indiana farmers.
"It's been a tremendous, profitable situation for Indiana farmers to have ethanol as another usage of corn," Mann says. "We grow way more corn in this state than what we need for food or feed. Adding ethanol is use for that."
But the ethanol industry has it's opponents, and the debate has made strange bedfellows of oil companies-which compete with biofuels--and certain environmentalists.
Both advocate for lowering the ethanol mandate.
"We're using about 40 percent of our corn production to produce ethanol so that takes a big environmental tool because its very land intensive," says Emily Cassidy, a research analyst for Environmental Working Group.
"We're using a lot of our land acreage here in the united states to produce corn and in recent years we've also plowed up millions of acres of grasslands and wetlands to meet increasing demands for corn," she says. "It increases carbon emissions because when you plow up soil and grasslands you're increasing carbon emissions. Another one is water quality. Corn is one of the most resource intensive crops that we grow. It requires more nitrogen fertilizer than almost any other crop. That fertilizer runs off into water making water more expensive to treat."
Peter Schubert, who directs the Richard Lugar Center for Renewable Energy headquartered at IUPUI, says while the EPA's proposed requirements are disappointing, they are practical.
He argues the real future of biofuels lies in cellulosic-based ethanol--often called second-generation biofuel--that's created from crop waste products like cornhusks and is more environmentally friendly.
"Corn based ethanol is often called a bridge fuel – it will fill the gap until the technology is ready to do the cellulosic based ethanol and that makes a lot of sense," he says. "But once you've established that as an industry now that industry will want to protect itself and perpetuate as well and its good for corn farmers.
He says it keeps corn prices up, which is good for local farmers, but, he suggests, that needs to be balanced with research for second generation biofuels.
By lowering the standard, Schubert says there's less pressure on the industry to come up with ideas for more efficient alternative fuels and make them more economical.
