1.This Act may be cited as the
21st Century Energy Independence Act
of 2011
.
2.Congress finds the following:
(1)The Energy Information Administration
estimates that the United States imports nearly 60 percent of the oil it
consumes.
(2)The world’s
greatest petroleum reserves reside in regions of high geopolitical risk, 57
percent of which are in the Persian Gulf.
(3)Replacing oil
imports with domestic alternatives such as traditional and cellulosic ethanol
can not only help reduce the $180,000,000,000 that oil contributes to our
annual trade deficit, it can end our addiction to foreign oil.
(4)According to the
Department of Agriculture, biomass can displace 30 percent of our Nation’s
petroleum consumption.
(5)Along with
traditional production of ethanol from corn, cellulosic ethanol can be produced
domestically from a variety of feedstocks, including switchgrass, corn stalks,
and municipal solid wastes, which are available throughout our Nation.
(6)Cellulosic ethanol
also relies on its own byproducts to fuel the refining process, yielding a
positive energy balance.
(7)Even though the
potential production of traditional corn-based ethanol is about 10,000,000,000
gallons per year, the potential production of cellulosic ethanol is estimated
to be 60,000,000,000 gallons per year.
(8)In addition to
ensuring access to more abundant sources of energy, replacing petroleum use
with ethanol will help reduce United States carbon emissions, which are
otherwise expected to increase by 80 percent by 2025.
(9)Cellulosic ethanol
can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 87 percent.
(10)Facilitating the
transition from foreign oil to ethanol will protect our environment from
dangerous carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
(11)Cellulosic
ethanol technology requires initial governmental investment and policy support
to achieve the necessary scale to become self-sufficient and gain
market-penetrating capacity.
3.In carrying out this Act, the Secretary of
Energy (in this Act referred to as the Secretary
) shall seek to
ensure the availability of 200 percent of the volume of renewable fuels
required to be available in the United States by 2013 under the Energy Policy
Act of 2005, and to ensure the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the
production and use of renewable fuels by 25 percent.
4.The Secretary shall
establish a program for making loan guarantees for up to 80 percent of the cost
of a project, consistent with section 3, for—
(1)up to 5 projects
for the harvesting, storing, and delivery of agriculture residues for use in
cellulosic or traditional ethanol production plants;
(2)cellulosic ethanol
production technologies that will reduce the initial capital cost to $2.50 per
annual gallon, and reduce operation and maintenance costs to 125 percent of
those at traditional corn ethanol plants;
(3)advanced biomass
gasifiers that can provide at least 90 percent of the thermal input
requirements for traditional ethanol plants to produce syngas; and
(4)appropriately
scaled catalytic conversion process (such as Fischer-Tropsch) projects to
convert syngas to liquid fuels with the potential for economic conversion at
facilities producing 100,000,000 annual gallons, with projects colocated at
ethanol facilities already using advanced gasifiers given priority.
5.The Secretary shall make a loan guarantee
under section 4(1)—
(1)for a traditional
ethanol plant only if the agriculture residue products are used as feedstock to
replace thermal input requirements otherwise provided by fossil fuels such as
natural gas or coal; and
(2)for an existing
ethanol plant only if the applicant demonstrates the potential to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions related to ethanol production by at least 75 percent.
6.The Secretary may additionally provide
grants for projects described in section 4(2) for up to 50 percent of the
capital costs of the initial commercialization projects.
7.Authorization of
appropriationsThere are
authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary for carrying out this Act,
$250,000,000.