Renewable Fuels Could Account for 25 Percent of U.S. Energy in 2025

Washington DC November 13, 2006; The AIADA newsletter reported that a new Rand Corp. study showing the falling costs of ethanol, wind power and other forms of renewable energy predicts such sources could furnish as much as 25 percent of the U.S.'s conventional energy by 2025 at little or no additional expense, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Currently, renewable fuels account for only 6 percent of the nation's energy, and about half of that comes from hydroelectric dams. The Rand study says that if 25 percent of U.S. energy came from renewable fuels it would it would reduce the U.S. reliance on oil by about 20 percent or the equivalent of the imports from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

The study also expected the growth of energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide would be cut by two-thirds over the next 19 years. It assumes renewable-energy costs will keep declining at the rate of recent years.

Since both the incoming Democratic leadership of Congress and the Bush Administration agree on the use of renewable fuels to replace oil and cut emissions of carbon dioxide this study and other similar ones are likely to accelerate efforts to increase production incentives next year, either through a new energy or a farm bill.

"We hope it will help policy planners rethink the context," said Reid Detchon, executive director of the Energy Future Coalition, a foundation-funded bipartisan group that sponsored the Rand study.