Green group pushes back on biofuel ‘bogeyman’

An environmental group started a campaign Wednesday designed to promote next-generation biofuels.

Environmental Entrepreneurs, an affiliate of the Natural Resources Defense Council, launched FuelingGrowth.org and a social media effort that highlights 80 biofuel firms across 27 states.

The endeavor marks an escalation of the group’s defense of the renewable fuels, which are made from non-edible feedstock.

For now, the initiative is largely focused on California because fossil fuel interests are trying to tear down the state's low carbon fuel standard, said Bob Keefe, a spokesman with Environmental Entrepreneurs.

"As the fossil fuel industry and its supporters in Congress and elsewhere try to make biofuel the next clean energy bogeyman, we and other groups are pushing back," Keefe said.

Outside of California, oil-and-gas lobby shops have intensified attacks on the fuel technology at the national level.

The American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers are both pushing to end a biofuel-blending mandate that has sparked investment in biofuels.

The mandate calls for mixing 36 billion gallons of biofuel into traditional transportation fuel by 2022. Of that total, 21 billion gallons are to come from next generation fuels.

The oil-and-gas trade associations say the mandate must be repealed for various reasons. But a main concern is that the next generation fuels are not yet commercially available, which they say forces refiners to buy credits to meet blending targets.

Biofuel trade groups say those next generation fuels will start hitting commercial production levels this year.

The Fueling Growth campaign attempts to illuminate that development.

Environmental Entrepreneurs says the biofuel market could grow to $60 billion in the next decade. It also projected 26 biorefineries could come online by 2015, adding about 18,000 jobs.