Biocarburants in the United States

More recently, the the United States developed the production of ethanol, in particular starting from Maïs: it places the country in the second world place and rose to 6,21 million cubic meters in 2001 per 10,2 million cubic meters in 2003. The ethanol is added in the gasoline, generally in small proportion (until 5 %) and serves as anti-knock (to improve the index of Octane). The energy assessment and the écobilan are however unfavorable: while taking into account all the power consumption to produce the corn (manure, pesticides, fuels) then to transform it into ethanol (cooking and distillation) one arrives at an assessment close to zero. To that the very heavy water consumption is added for the culture of this cereal. The production of ethanol consumes already 11 % of corn produced in the United States to replace hardly more 1 % of the consumed gasoline. Let us note nevertheless that the proteins contained in the grains are recovered and given to the cattle, the corn consumed for ethanol is not lost with 100 % for the food. In addition, the corn oil can be recovered, and used into agro-alimentary, or to produce biodiesel.

The the United States used the Biocarburant S at the beginning of the 20th century, in particular for the Ford T. The biocarburants were forsaken until the arrival of both oil crises in 1973 and 1979.

Today, the the United States produce mainly Biodiesel (the large-scale consumer is the American army) and are also the largest producers of Bioéthanol to almost equality with the Brésil (16 billion liters compared with 15,5 billion liter in 2005). The biocarburants are especially used mixed with fossil fuels. They are also used as additives. Bioéthanol is especially produced starting from Maïs.

Thus the NREL ( National Renewable Energy Laboratory , Laboratory Main road on renewable energies) was founded in 1974 and started to work in 1977. This research center is attached to the department of energy étasunien. It regularly publishes documents of several ten pages on the biocarburants.

The Congress voted the Energy Policy Act (EPAct in summary) in 1994. This law in particular aims at supporting the biocarburants. In 2005, the Congress voted new a Energy Policy Act which confirmed the support of the authorities for renewable energies.

Moreover, in January 2006, the president George Bush declared in her speech of the state of the union which he wanted that the the United States occur at horizon 2025 from 75% Pétrole imported the Middle East.

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