Why should you care about what's behind all the hype over "renewable identification numbers" (RINs)?  If you buy gasoline for your vehicle, you probably know ethanol displaces dirty and expensive petroleum and serves as an octane booster for the gasoline.  While it's not immediately visible, here in the Midwest, the biofuel ethanol has helped to suppress the price of gasoline by approximately $1.69 per gallon.  So where do the RINs come into the picture and why do they matter?

Under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal law, an oil refiner is obligated to demonstrate to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency each year that the oil refiner has used a certain volume of biofuel like ethanol.  A renewable fuel identification number is associated with each gallon of biofuel that is produced and the number goes to an oil refiner when the oil refiner buys the biofuel.  With ownership of the biofuel the oil refiner may do three things with the RINs:  KEEP  to demonstrate compliance, BANK for the following year or SELL on the market.

During the summer and fall of 2012, the Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture convened a Biofuels Advisory Task Force.  The Task Force developed a document that calls for the incremental increase in the use of ethanol and other biofuels such as biobutanol to ultimately displace 30% of petroleum by 2025. Given the current level of biofuel use at approximately 11% (the use of E10 in regular gasoline plus fuel dispensed through flex fuel pumps), the modest goals set forth by the Biofuels Task Force results in a 19% increase in biofuel use over 12 years. 

• April 8-10, 2013 - International Biomass Conference & Expo, Minneapolis, MN 
• April 16, 2013 - University of Minnesota Ag Awareness Day, Minneapolis, MN  
• June 10-13, 2013 - Fuel Ethanol Workshop, St. Louis, MO 
• February 17-19, 2014 - National Ethanol Conference, Orlando, FL