 Good afternoon, my name is Kalina Bakalov. I am Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth's legislative director. To give you a little bit of background on her, Congresswoman Duckworth is serving her first term in Congress, and she represents the eighth district of Illinois, which covers the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Thank you to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute for organizing this great event and to our panelists for coming to the Hill today to share your valuable perspective with us. As congressional staffers, we rely on industry experts like you for on-the-ground updates and insight to help us better advise members of Congress in Washington. So we really appreciate you being here today, and we're looking forward to hearing about the exciting and just progress that the industry is making. Congresswoman Duckworth, unfortunately, is not able to be here today, but she's very proud to take part in hosting a discussion on this topic. And I want to take just a minute to tell you why it's important to her. She has been a member of the Illinois National Guard for 23 years, and in 2004, she served as assistant operations officer for a helicopter task force when her unit was deployed to Iraq. There, she experienced firsthand how risky and expensive it is to maintain diesel fuel supply lines in a combat zone. In her words, she saw fellow guardsmen and soldiers risk life and limb for this precious battlefield resource. So for her, renewable homegrown fuel is not only a matter of critical importance to our environment and to our economy, but it's also a very real matter of national security. This issue is also very important to her constituents in Illinois. Our state is proud to be at the forefront of biofuel development and innovation. The biofuel industry supports thousands of well-paying green jobs in Illinois and across the country. And her constituents understand that energy innovation means cleaner air, healthier communities, and stronger economic growth for our region. That's why in Congress, she has been a big supporter of efforts both within the US military and the civilian sector to develop better, cleaner, and more efficient sources of energy. For these reasons and more, we all have a stake in the technological advances that we will hear about today. As Congress debates the future of the renewable fuel standard and the role that it plays in ensuring our nation's energy independence, it is encouraging and indeed necessary to hear the great progress being made in second generation fuel production. So thank you all again for being here. It's great to see such a great turnout. And I'm really looking forward to the discussion. Great, thanks Kalina. And folks, there are, if you want, you could take chairs up on the dais. It's your big chance, so go for it, right? So for this briefing, this is the second so far in a series that EESI is holding with regard to biofuels. Couple weeks ago, we did a briefing looking at life cycle analysis with regard to biofuels and specifically with regard to new updated information with regard to corn ethanol. As Kalina said, this briefing is also really important because it's really looking at second generation biofuels. And what we are hoping to do during a whole series of briefings on biofuels is to look at the different technologies that are now coming online, the kinds of progress that has been made in terms of both technology development, the kinds of feedstocks that are being used, what really is happening both in this country and also in terms of looking at investments around the world. And to also look at what are the different pathways that are available under the renewable fuel standard. And we're hoping to look at some of those in future briefings as well because there are all sorts of exciting things that are underway. And I think that it's really important and exciting for us to know about those as we look at alternatives so that we are not just having to depend upon oil but that we can really move past oil really looking at other kinds of fuels that can make great sense for a host of reasons in terms of economic development, in terms of security as you heard Kalina talk about, as we look at the huge economic costs of reliance upon oil and as we look at the need to really reduce overall greenhouse emissions. As well as looking at what moving towards other fuels can mean for public health. And there's more and more information that is becoming available on that, making it very, very important that we bring this into our discussion with regard to, again, benefits advantages that biofuels have. So at this time, I want us to start hearing from our panel speakers. Each one has a slightly different take on things in terms of what they are doing, in terms of their technologies, in terms of a little bit of difference in terms of feedstock or approaches. But it is all important, important steps that are moving forward. So often we have heard on Capitol Hill and among the policy community overall, well, nothing is really happening. Everything is taking so long. Therefore, the policies with regard to renewable fuels really aren't working. And so it's really important to take this fuller look at what the situation really is so that we're really clear about the overall status and that we try to get really good, solid information out and who better to hear it from than people who are industry leaders and are making it happen. So to start off our panel discussion this afternoon, we will first hear from Rob Walther, who is the Director of Federal Affairs with Poet and of course, Poet DSM have gone into production at a facility in Emmitsburg, Iowa. And we should not forget that this was viewed as such an important thing that the King of the Netherlands made sure to be there for the ribbon cutting. So without further ado, Rob. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it's a very exciting time. So thank you for being here. Thank you for your interest and thank you for your support in getting us to this place. So you see from the title, cellulotic ethanol, a fantasy no more. This thing is real. For a long time, we were asking, could we do it? And I got a question from a reporter the other day that I thought was very telling, who's gonna win? Who's gonna build the most? The narrative has changed significantly in the past few months even about whether or not this thing is real. And so hopefully by the end of my presentation, you will know it is very, very real. As was mentioned, I'm here representing not only Poet but also Royal DSM, our joint venture partner. Just as a quick background, since not many people know Poet, we are a private company. We produce 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol in this country. We're the largest. We have 27 plants spread across seven different states. So we are experts at making biofuels. DSM is a science-based company from the Netherlands. They brought $150 million to this deal to invest in the United States. And they have a suite of products spread across many different sectors, including healthcare and nutrition. The best way to think about this joint venture is that Poet is the hardware company and DSM is the software company. And together we make something that works. So there are three key takeaways that I hope I will leave you with today. The first is that cellulosic biofuels have arrived at commercial scale. The second is that 2014 and 2015 are an inflection point for advanced biofuels. This is really the point at which we will say, when we look back, we transitioned from first generation corn ethanol to second generation cellulosic and advanced. And the third is why it's important. And it's important for consumer savings, natural security and GHG reductions amongst a host of other things. But with that, I think it's time to introduce you to our cellulosic plant, Project Liberty. We did it to make this fantasy a reality. To start, it took a capital investment of a quarter of a billion dollars in 20 year economic benefit for IE of 24.4 billion dollars. And with the potential for the benefits, we think Liberty is a pretty sound investment. It has taken several hundred workers and dozens of subcontractors to build a land with tons of concrete and steel. Biodesum on miles of time. Brilliant gamuts of cellulosic ethanol per year started with that number growing to 25 gallons over time. To do this, it will process about 1.5 million pounds of biofuels per day for its parts. So that's your point. That's your first cellulosic plant in the United States. This is what it looks like when you don't have a glossy voiceover and produce a piece. In the foreground, I'll see if I can use a laser pointer here. I don't think it'll work. In the foreground, you'll see the cellulosic plant. To the left of the screen is the stack yard where we keep all the cellulos and it flows through that plant in the foreground. In the background, you see the corn ethanol plant. So massive difference in scale here. That's one of the main reasons why this costs so much in addition to being a new technology. It is just a bigger plant. And it took some time to really figure out how to build it right. It's a bigger erector set, so to speak. Just a quick recap of what you heard in that piece. This is a plant that will produce 25 million gallons of 90% emissions-free fuel. Just consider that for a minute. 90% emissions-free fuel. If you run 90% emissions-free fuel and you put that into E85 and you ran your car on E85, you have a sustainable transportation sector from a GHD standpoint. We use agricultural waste products that otherwise would be left to degrade on the field. So this is corn stover, stalks, husks, and cobs are all used to create ethanol. The same molecular compound as we get from corn ethanol. And we made this investment because we think there's a huge potential for return. So we need marked conditions to remain favorable. Nancy's gonna talk a little bit about the RFS and its importance to moving and scaling. But as long as they remain favorable, we're gonna keep building these plants. We think we can build them every four to six months, start stealing the ground for another plant. Just from quickly an understanding of why do we bolt this thing onto a corn plant, this is the model. So the cellulosic plant gets this cellulose, this corn stover, and out comes ethanol. But at the same time you produce this thing called lignin, which is basically biomass. And you run that through a solid fuel boiler that creates its own process heat. So it's a closed loop system that doesn't require fossil fuels. But we create so much process heat that we actually don't need it all for the cellulosic plant. We pipe that over to the corn ethanol plant. So we're displacing via this cellulosic plant, we're displacing fossil fuel used at the corn ethanol plant. Our corn ethanol was looked at and was found to be about 48% fewer emissions than gasoline. This makes it even better. In fact, it starts to take on a GHG profile similar to that of advanced biofuels, the corn ethanol. The reason we cite this at a corn plant also is logistical and infrastructure synergies. We don't have to build out the rail. We don't have to build out the roads. We don't have to build out the pipelines. All that stuff that would increase our capital expenditures at the outset. So that allows us to build this thing the first one out of the box. Also, we deal with the corn farmers already for the corn plant. So we don't have to hire a new sales team. We don't have to hire new folks to get the biomass to the plant. Now, eventually that capital cost will come down. We'll learn how to build these things for a cheaper cost. And then we can begin to cite them on their own and take on that capital cost that comes from infrastructure. But for now, to get this technology mature, we're building on the back of the corn plant. So you hear a lot that this took such a long time, five years away, five years away, five years away. Well, let's just take a step back. RFS was passed eight years ago. The regs were finalized in 2010. And Liberty, we just broke ground only 18 months ago. So our first attempt, it only took us 18 months to get a working plan in place. If anyone has ever built something from IKEA and I know I built plenty of things during college, you get better at it as you build a number of these different things. So we're gonna get faster. It's just a question of getting those economies of scale in place. In terms of this being a game changer, a lot of people like to talk about game changing technology. Well, this really is because it allows us to move beyond the corn belt. The feedstock doesn't have another user. You hear a lot about food versus fuel and while I would dispute whether or not there's not enough corn for both food and fuel, that's another conversation. But this feedstock doesn't have another user. It allows us to move beyond the corn belt. We can start using wood waste, rice hulls, sorghum. Those of you who might be from offices or from states that aren't in the corn belt, you may hear about those products and start thinking maybe my state, Pacific Northwest, Southwest, Southeast, Northeast, they all open up to us. So the game really changes. And then the feedstock flexibility just helps tremendously because then if you have some problem with the corn crop, you still will have cellulose coming from different feedstocks. So again, it's just important to differentiate. So this is a tip of the iceberg for a poet DSM. It's 3.5 billion gallons of 90% emissions free fuel. We've identified that we can begin to commercialize very soon as long as again, we have market certainty. So why should you care? Well, hopefully you do, but let me try and convince you anyway. First is consumer savings. Gas would be between 50 cents and a dollar 50 more per gallon if it wasn't for ethanol today. That price would go down even further or those savings would be felt even more if we got into an E15 market and hopefully we're moving in that direction. This is just a snapshot. So you know that it's actually in the real world too. Lansing, Michigan, $4.71 versus $3.51. I'd take the right hand side. And we know this makes sense because oil is hovers around $100 a barrel and ethanol is around $40 a barrel. So again, big delta. We also know that oil is very sensitive to geopolitical events. When ISIS invaded Iraq and took her cook and at the same time you had Putin's saber rattling in the Ukraine, oil climbed to $114 a barrel. So this is something that we would hope to alleviate that type of sensitivity and actually the E10 having 10% of the fuel come from ethanol has provided a hedge against those geopolitical events. I won't go too far into the side but read the names of those countries, Libya, Venezuela, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Russia. Not exactly the most friendly to our interests. And we know that ISIS is making an estimated two to $3 million a day on the oil market. If we could remove the U.S. demand, we would hopefully drive those prices down and of course put a stranglehold on their funding. Environmental sustainability, cellulosic ethanol must by definition under the RFS be 60% better than gasoline's 2005 greenhouse gas emission levels. Ours is 90% and you see a single plant will reduce over 210,000 CO2 per year. There's some question about removing biomass off the field. We only remove 25% and what we've seen actually is that not only helps farmers become more productive but it reduces their demand for fertilizer at the beginning part because you have the sun able to hit the ground and they're able to get better yields or better conditions earlier on. So again, this is beneficial also from a greenhouse gas perspective. So where will the industry expand? Like I said, Nancy's gonna hit on market issues around the RFS but if the RFS debate turns and you see some sort of tweaking of it or administrative malfeasance there with regards to the intent of the Congress, there are other countries out there that are clamoring for us to bring cellulosic to them. Brazil has a requirement of E30. Europe, like we talked about with Putin, is looking for options and cellulosic is very, very attractive to them. We've been getting approached by them quite often. And then China has not only energy problems but also public health problems. They don't really care as much about CO2 as they do about mercury, socks, nox, et cetera. So they are looking for options that will keep people healthy. So these are some of the photos that we're seeing right now. This is the industry that's being created around cellulosic and the question is, do we keep going forward in this country? If you have a strong RFS, we do. But this is happening, it's real. And thank you for being a part of it, those of you who are here and help craft the law. So thank you very much. Thanks Rob. And I think it's always really interesting in terms of thinking about what the whole realm of possibilities really is as we look at the range of appropriate feed stocks around every part of the country and that every part of the country can play an important role in this fast evolving industry. So we're now going to hear from Chris Stanley who for 20 years has been with Abangoa and he is currently Executive Vice President for Global Affairs with Abangoa Bioenergy. And Abangoa Bioenergy is one of the largest international producers of ethanol operating 14 production facilities in the US and Europe and in Brazil with a commercial scale biomass to ethanol facility in final developmental stages expecting to go into production this year. Chris. Thank you very much and thanks again to all of you for coming. I think you're gonna hear a lot of the same messages today from all of us at the presentation table. I want to expound on a few things that Rob said and then tell you a little bit about our plant. First of all, why do we need renewable fuels right now? The United States is producing more petroleum than it ever has. It's projected to produce even more. Do we still care about energy security? Do we still care about the price of oil? And the answer overwhelmingly is yes. First of all, you have to understand that today ethanol comprises 10% of the US transportation fuel supply. In addition to that 10%, the United States still imports 40% of its annual transportation needs and pays $1 billion every day for that privilege. So yes, there's plenty of room for more local production, more United States production of petroleum and yet there are reasons to consider the advantages of the alternatives of renewable fuels. Not only do we have the 40% that we still could replace, but in addition to that oil is and will become even more a global commodity. The prices are going to be based not upon what is needed or used in the United States but upon what's needed or used in the world as that demand grows more and more thirsty as third world countries develop and energy becomes more and more of a need. So the bottom line is yes, we have a need from an energy security standpoint, we need from a need from a pricing standpoint, a couple of things that Rob already mentioned and this slide just simply says that yes in the US we're 10% of the supply and as the RFS is implemented, we have the potential of going up to roughly 25% of the transportation fuel supply in the United States. In addition, ethanol is more green. Not only cellulosic ethanol, which as Rob said is roughly 90% better than baseline gasoline in greenhouse gas emissions, but also first generation ethanol, which is at least 20% according to the EPA better. So we have a product that's better for the environment. And on the energy security side, this is just another graph that shows in red the United States, green, Brazil, blue, Europe and the potential increases based upon policies and legislation that's in place today. I'm not going to go into the details of that. Also on the price side, if you look purely at price alone, just on average from 2007 through 2013, ethanol is 27 cents per gallon cheaper than gasoline. In addition to that, the one thing that you have to go beyond just the pure price of ethanol versus gasoline to get the true benefit because what it does is ethanol, which is 116 octane, is able to replace the more expensive octane components of gasoline as it is blended. So in addition to the fact that you're having cheaper ethanol, you also have a petroleum industry that is capable now of producing a lower price blend stock. So they compound that savings for the consumer or for the petroleum company, depending. So yes, we do need alternative fuels. We need renewable fuels. And cellulosic ethanol is a tremendous product that we believe has great opportunity and great promise in the United States. Avangoa, as was said, is an international proponent of sustainable technologies in both energy and environmental aspects. We produce drinking water from sea water. We desalinate water. We work with water purification systems and transportation systems for cities around the country. We're the world's largest constructor of power transmission lines on multiple continents. And we have huge solar investments, wind investments, and then of course, biofuels investments. So we, in the biofuel side, are talking about diversifying our product mix. We have, as was mentioned, 14 first generation plants on three continents. In addition to that, we have three facilities that produce second generation biofuel on a lab or not a lab, but a demonstration and a pilot scale basis. And then we have, we're about to complete our project in Hugaton, Kansas. As a matter of fact, we expect production to start virtually any day and our grand opening is October 17th. So anybody who wants to come to sunny Hugaton, Kansas on October 17th is quite welcome to join us for that. And I'll talk about that facility in a moment. But what I wanna talk about just before we get there is the fact that Avangoa is a technology provider. We focus on R&D. We've spent over $500 million in 2013 on R&D. We have over 700 researchers that focus on research and development of these technologies. We are, we see the potential way beyond just the agricultural residue cellulosic ethanol. So we have a situation where some people might say that ethanol is not the perfect fuel. I don't know that there is a perfect fuel, but we're improving it as we go along. We are making it much more greenhouse gas friendly. And at Avangoa, we are working to diversify into different, both into different feedstocks and into different products. So we have a facility that we've been operating in central Spain now for almost two years, that, well, 18 months anyway, that will produce the same cellulosic ethanol from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. Take trash, take out, pull out the metal, the plastic, and the recyclables. Take the organic fraction, which is the majority of the waste anyway, and extract the cellulosic sugars from that and convert that into ethanol. So we're diversifying the feedstock side. We're also diversifying the product side, working into butanols and other type of petroleum-like products, jet fuels, and that sort of thing, working to develop those from on the output side in addition to the ethanol itself. In addition to that, and one thing that that will do is allow us to move beyond just the center of the United States and to move into a situation where we can go to the coast. We can anywhere where there's a large urban area, we can take the trash from the local landfill, convert that into a fuel, and have it available without having to transport it long distances, either from the standpoint of the feedstock or the final product. So a lot of potential benefits for there. Abingoa also continues its investments into hydrogen and other products. But bottom line, Hugaton, which is, as I say, starting up any day, 25 million gallons is the capacity of the facility. It is, in addition to the ethanol, we will produce 21 megawatts of renewable power. What we do is we extract the cellulosic sugars from the agricultural residues. This is based upon agricultural residues, both corn stover, some milo stubble, and wheat straw primarily, but also some switchgrass. We actually have a 900 acre tract there, and on about 400 acres we're growing some switchgrass ourselves. There's also another switchgrass farm in the vicinity, and then we have some other naturally occurring prayer grasses. But once we get those feedstocks inside the facility, we extract the cellulosic sugars and what's left is primarily a lignin. That lignin is used to power the boilers, and from those boilers we will become virtually self-sustaining. We will produce all of the steam that we need for the facility, all of the electricity that we need for the facility, and still have an additional five megawatts of electricity, more or less, available for exporting to the grid. We completed the boiler and the electric cogeneration facility and first sole power to the grid back in December, getting ready to start up the ethanol side today. So startup is imminent. We again will need between 300 and 350,000 tons per year of biomass in order to do that. Our objective is to produce this product for roughly $2.30 per gallon, and we believe we're on track to do that. There's a tremendous economic benefit to the area, which I want to highlight, and that is the fact that we have 76 local employees, roughly a $5 million employment. In addition to farmers within a 50 mile radius of the facility, we will pay them, we have contracted to pay them about 17 million gallons annually in feedstock payments so that that will be a significant additional resource for the area that just simply didn't exist before. During construction, which was about a little over two year period, we had anywhere from 300 to 1500 full time employees on site. It was a huge event and a huge revenue generator for the area. The facility itself, this is a relatively recent picture about six to eight weeks ago. You can see the biomass bales in the foreground for areas of input, which is where the right in front of those biomass bales in the upper right hand corner or background is the boiler itself. That's about a 10 story tall structure. And then biomass bales in the back, that's one of our bales storage areas. We have multiple satellite storage areas and then we do a lot of on-farm storage also. Newer than that, this was actually just within the last few days. It is a picture of the facility ready to run. Once again, the size is just hard to describe. This is a picture of the bale unloading area. We are using square bales for our facility and we have created this facility so that only one person can go to the, with the trailers that we have built and modified. One person can drive to the field, load an entire stack of feedstock onto his truck, drive to the facility. We can unload four trucks at a time and this, again, just the driver can back up to the facility and it's all an automated process. So he can unload this feedstock into the facility and go from there. This was a picture of the boiler back in startup in December when we started that up. Again, roughly a 10 story tall area. I kept asking for pictures of people because we had 1500 people on site and no one ever gave me pictures of people. But they said, well, if you look, you can see like eight or 10 guys on the catwalk in the middle. I said, okay, that gives me some idea of perspective. That helps a little bit. The obligatory night picture taken by one of our employees with a drone. Have a pretty cool deal, I like that. One thing I wanna talk about, and then I'll sit down, just kind of the improvements that have been made just in the last four years. As Rob said, we've been working on this technology for some period of time. We're very happy to have it finally come to fruition and we do see great opportunity. But the, I wanna talk about the benefits to the improvements that we've made. First of all, enzymes. We've developed our own proprietary enzyme that we utilize in connection with this facility. And in general, industry-wide, cost of enzymes have gone down dramatically. For us, the cost of enzymes have gone down from $1.85 a gallon to roughly 50 cents a gallon. We think they have a lot of improvements till the go. Yield costs have gone down 20%. It's in that same four-year period and yields themselves have improved from 55 to 75 gallons per ton. That's huge. That is what has allowed us to make this product, frankly, at a operating cost that is cheaper than gasoline is sold for on a per gallon basis today. This is a picture of our facility that in Central Spain and Salamaca, Spain, that takes 25,000 tons of municipal solid waste and produces up to 1.5 million liters of ethanol from that. So, I will say that we have decided that we have operations in Brazil. We are very interested in licensing, marketing, building these facilities all around the world. Our next facility we have started development on in San Luis, Brazil. And we are very excited to continue with development there and assuming, and we have every belief that the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Congress will continue to support the RFS and continue to do what's going on or to continue to do what is necessary to keep the policy in place. So, with that, we look forward to future investments around the world. Thanks. And now we're going to hear from another piece of the industry. All of these folks and companies all see a lot of potential, both here in the US and around the world in terms of addressing these important issues, in terms of technology development and looking at markets. And next up then we will hear from Nancy Clark who is the External Relations Manager for Industrial Biosciences with DuPont. And at DuPont, Nancy is responsible for their industrial biosciences strategic agenda for biofuels, biomaterials, and bioactives. And she is working there in terms of business development and regulatory policy. She previously had also worked on air and climate programs as their director for the American Forest and Paper Association and had been the director of energy at the American Chemistry Council. And I think one of the things that you will hear from her but that we've also heard from our two previous speakers too is that with regard to all of this, we're looking at these facilities in terms of there always being co-products. So in each case, there are different models for biorefineries, but I also find it so fascinating in terms of what the different co-products really are because it really changes a lot of things when you're looking at revenue streams coming from a whole variety of different opportunities. Nancy. Good afternoon. I'm Nancy Clark with DuPont Industrial Biosciences. I want to start by congratulating my colleagues. It's been a little while since we've gotten some updates in this regard on the cellulosic ethanol plants. And I want to congratulate their progress. I find it exciting in all detail that you had to share today. So thank you very much. So DuPont is also under construction on a cellulosic ethanol plant. Ours is scheduled to be completed for construction and commissioning later this year. And we've been essentially practicing this technology for more than 10 years. In cooperation with the Department of Energy, we opened a research and development facility in Van Oort, Tennessee back in 2009. We've been producing cellulosic ethanol at that facility since that time on the order of 250,000 gallons per year. We've donated all of those gallons to the University of Tennessee for use in their advanced fuel fleet there. So we're confident in our technology's ability. The plant that we're under construction on in Iowa is essentially just a larger scale version of that R&D facility. We book ground in Nevada, Iowa, in late 2012. It's a plot that's just about 20 miles north or so of Des Moines. Like our fellow colleagues in the industry, we're seeing some great developments in the rural economy in terms of employing construction workers full-time positions, engaging with about 500 farms in the radius of the plant, and being able to supply an additional income stream for those farmers for the stover that we're able to take from their farms for use at the facility. So again, we're harvesting stover from about 815,000 acres in a 30-mile radius around the plant. The stover is taken off the fields using a very data-driven science approach so that we're not taking any more stover than is necessary in order to preserve the soil and water health in the area and to be able to take the stover back to the plant for feedstock use for the facility. So DuPont's approach is somewhat different in terms of our business objective for what we'd like to do with the plant and the technology. We basically want to package the technology and the know-how in a couple of different ways. The feedstock development, so through our DuPont pioneer seed business, we have significant relationships with farmers. We have the ability to partner with other US companies for the equipment that you'll see here in a photograph that I'll show of the facility. We want to be able to package the technology know-how. We also have the ability to license the enzymes for the development of the cellulosic ethanol. And so we want to be able to put that together in a package to license it to others to be able to build similar plants to the one that we're currently under construction on. In the meantime, we've been partnering with quite a number of parties, the United States Department of Energy, through a memorandum of understanding to develop a sustainable feedstock program. Iowa State University has a wonderful research department, and we've been able to partner with them, taking advantage of the relationships with farmers in the region because of pioneers' existence in Iowa for some time. And again, using that scientific approach and pioneer know-how for agronomy to use a very science and data-driven approach to be able to maintain the sustainability of harvesting this stover. This is a photograph that was taken at the site about a month ago. Construction is going extremely well. We're very pleased with the progress, and we're on track to complete that late in 2014. The other item I wanted to touch on was essentially the challenges to having the three companies in this room that have talked about the cellulosic ethanol plants that are under construction and coming online to be able to basically replicate this here in the United States. It's certainly in all of our interest to be able to multiply the number of plants here in the U.S. And what we're seeing is a real challenge to that. DuPont's intention and drive over the past few years has been to have conversations here in the U.S. for licensing the plant and the technology. And basically what we're seeing as a result of some challenges to the RFS policy is that those conversations are happening outside the U.S. So both challenges on the regulatory side. So as you all may know, the EPA is proposing to reduce for the first time the total renewable volumes for renewable fuel. And so investment here in the United States is essentially drying up. And so those conversations are happening in places like South America, in Asia, in the EU. And so we're seeing much more traction around developing additional plants in those places. I don't think, however, that that story has completed itself yet, and we still have a chance to make sure that the additional plants are built here. And that can happen with support of the policy both through Congress and having EPA change course in terms of the rulemaking for the renewable fuel standard for this year, but also for additional years. That's it, so thank you very much. Thanks, Nancy. And our final speaker this afternoon is Amy Davis who is with Government Relations for Nova Slimes North America. And of course, Nova Slimes is an international bio-innovation company, an enzyme producer that is deeply involved in the development of biotech materials or products for application in detergents, biofuels, food, feed, and sustainable agriculture. And Amy also brings experience from having worked with bio, the biotechnology industry organization where she worked on a variety of issues related to advancing biofuels, bio-based products, and the bioeconomy overall. Amy? Thank you, Carol, and thanks to EESI for putting on this event to all of you for attending and giving us your wonderful attention. I wanted to come at this from the angle that Nova Slimes does, which is the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plants are coming online in the US as you all just heard, which is fantastic news. But the investment in this industry in this country has actually been happening in a significant way for at least a dozen years, if not more. And that's the way Nova Slimes thinks about this technology. So I'll start just briefly, who is Nova Slimes? As Carol said, we're the world leader in what we like to call bio-innovation. We strive to change the world together with our customers and create the necessary balance between better business, a cleaner environment, and better lives. We were founded in 1925 for a $2 billion global biotech company with 33% of our sales in the US. As Carol mentioned, our main business area is enzymes. In nature, enzymes kickstart biological processes, they're proteins, they're found in all living things. But in industry, enzymes replace chemicals and accelerate production processes as well as save water, energy, and raw materials, all while increasing performance. Our other core business areas are agricultural biologicals, industrial microorganisms, and biopharma technology and ingredients. We are 6,200 people worldwide, over 1,200 of those in North America. As you can see, the US portion of my map is getting quite crowded, which is great. We have nine site locations here in the US. We have over 700 products in more than 30 industries. We don't make end products, including ethanol, but we are technology providers to many products that you encounter in your everyday life. 13 to 14% of our revenue is invested back in R&D, we're an R&D intensive company, and we currently hold more than 7,000 granted or pending patents. We conduct life cycle assessments from a sustainability company on all of our products. In 2013, our products helped reduce global CO2 emissions by approximately 52 million tons, which is the equivalent of taking about 20 million cars off the road. I'd like to approach the conversation today via a little trip through history, if you'll indulge me. I'm sure you all remember, in October of 1973, OPEC implemented what it called oil diplomacy. It prohibited any nation that had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War from buying oil, including the United States. It started with a 5% cut per month, and by December, it declared that the true enemies of the Arab cause, including the US, would be subject to an indefinite total embargo. At that time, the United States imported 27% of its petroleum needs. As a result of the embargo, the value of the New York Stock Exchange dropped by $97 billion. The price per barrel of oil was 130% higher in December of 1973 than it had been in October, and 387% higher than it had been just the year before. Within six months, the average price of retail gasoline in the United States more than doubled. I have to confess I've been inspired today. I just spent the last week visiting my colleagues in Brazil, so you'll have to indulge me a bit that I brought that into the conversation. The US and Brazil, during the oil embargo of 1973, took two different paths. Brazil instituted what is still called the National Alcohol Program, which included transition to flex fuel pumps by the oil industry, flex fuel car production by the auto industry, and obviously biofuel production by the biofuel community. In the US, we focused on gasoline rationing. Everyone remembers seeing the photos of gas lines, right? And reducing the speed limit to increase efficiencies. And we made a pledge to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. Today, even with all the oil and gas developments in the US, we import 33% of our petroleum. Now 34% of that isn't from Canada, but 55% of it continues to be from OPEC. So where is the US and Brazil today? I just saw it last week with my own eyes. Brazil, as Rob mentioned, has just raised their regular unleaded blend to include 27.5% ethanol nationally, and 85% of the cars on the road there are flex fuel. They can run on 100% ethanol. Pumps are blender pumps, cars on the road are flex fuel, and consumers have a choice based on price. In the US, we have the RFS that is under attack, and the oil industry here is claiming a 10% cap based on technology they call the blend wall. In more recent history, the next energy crisis we all remember was September 11th, 2001. On the slide in front of you, you'll see just a few statements that President George W. Bush, there's some excerpts from some statements that he made in the years following September 11th. And I think we've all heard them before and continue to hear them today. Prices people are paying at the gas pumps reflect the addiction to oil. It's a matter of national security. It's a matter of economic security, and it's like a hidden tax on the working people. It reflects a global economy. So that leads us to the enactment of what we're here to talk about today, the 2005 and 2007 renewable fuel standard, and the industry it created. So let's remember, why did we pass the RFS back in those two years? What were we as a country striving for? And I think you'll recognize again all of these here. Reduced dependence on foreign oil, reduced the price of domestic transportation fuels, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, increased U.S. farm income, and reduced subsidies, valuable co-products as we've talked about today, and the one Nova Zimes got really excited about, innovation. Since 2005 and even before, Nova Zimes worked diligently and side by side the U.S. government to accelerate commercial development of the technology to turn renewable cellulosic biomass into sugars that could then be turned into different products like fuel that could replace petroleum consumption. What that means is that non-food feedstocks like ag residues and municipal solid waste that you've heard about earlier today can be turned into transportation fuel. So the point I think on this slide is that the U.S. government has made a significant investment in this technology along with companies like all the ones you see up here today, and it hasn't just happened over the last couple of years. The good news is we did it, as was mentioned. Cellulosic enzyme costs have been reduced to a level where there are no longer a barrier to commercialization as we saw with the plant openings happening to the folks to my right. So why did Nova Zimes, a global biotech company, place literally a global big bet on cellulosic biofuels? All of the above energy policy is great, and we support many alternatives to increase the diversification of our energy supply. But biofuels are the only large-scale sustainable substitute for fossil fuels that's available for use today. If we want an immediate impact to the national economic and energy security in the U.S., liquid biofuels must be a larger part of our transportation fuel supply. A lot of innovation still happens in the corn ethanol space. You heard some of it earlier today. Nova Zimes has launched some recent products into the corn ethanol space to increase efficiency and reduce energy use, reduce corn consumption for that industry. But the big bet that we took was on cellulosic biofuels. So like everyone else, this is our new manufacturing plant. Ours began in 2012. So, you know, back when the RFS was passed, we knew that we needed to increase manufacturing capacity globally. Clearly, the RFS had a huge impact on where we were gonna site that facility. We wanted to be here in the United States ready for our cellulosic partners when they got to this point, which is starting up their cellulosic facilities. And so we began operations in 2009, opened the plant in 2012. It's operating today with 100 full-time careers leading technology to the conventional and advanced biofuels industry. That plant right there is expandable eight-fold for the full capacity of the RFS. So this is actually an out-of-date slide. Clearly, I think it actually has 2012 on it. So I was gonna update the slide, but then I thought what might be a better visual is to keep it and overlay our cellulosic investments and partnerships that have taken place globally since instability in the RFS first started, first here in Congress, and then over at the EPA and the Obama administration 18 months, two years ago. First, in the United States, Project Liberty is online, fantastic, very exciting. Obama administration proposes a reduction in the RFS. Not so great. As I said, NoBesigns introduces technology for the coronathalym industry. Globally, this is what's happened. I'm not gonna read them all out to you, but you will see quite a bit of activity around Brazil, including GranBio that just announced production starting up at their 2G facility, Ray's On. They raised the ethanol blend, as I mentioned before, and probably an area that we're looking at as far as increasing our capacity as well. The EUs had some stuff come online. China and India, obviously, also in the race. So we all know why we needed the RFS in 2005. Why do we still need it today? Obviously, there's still unrest in the world, and our reliance on global oil is still a problem. We still rely heavily on unfriendly parts of the world, and we can't predict who will be unfriendly in the future. The US consumer deserves a choice at the pump for cheaper cleaner domestic fuels. Cellulosic biofuels need a market, and the investors need to see that there's a market. I think Rob took on that earlier. The technology that we developed here in the US or the cellulosic industry will be commercialized. As I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of investment has already taken place in this industry, and it'll commercialize. We do look at this as a global market. And the United States should be able to take advantage of the technology that they developed here. I would also mention that even if your state does not ever get a manufacturing facility, or ever sells an ounce of biomass to this industry, every state in every district has a stake in this game. If you are paying less at the pump as a consumer, that means that that money that you don't spend on gasoline, you can spend in your local community at other businesses. And that's a benefit for everyone. In closing, almost 81% of the world's proven oil reserves are located in OPEC countries. But this is the world according to agriculture. I'm very proud of this. I took this picture of myself last week on the street. I think people thought I was a little bit nuts. Consumers will demand choice at the pump, and they'll hold their public officials accountable. Brazil held national elections yesterday, and the US will hold ours in a few weeks. Congress and the administration do have a choice, and I would just ask what path the US will take this time. And that's it. Thank you. Thanks so much, Amy, for providing that kind of a context in terms of putting all of this in perspective with regard to the issues that we're dealing with here in the US on a policy side, looking at all of the technology investments and now production that is moving forward. We thought that it was terribly important to make sure that we all were aware of what really is happening in this very dynamic and innovative industry and, as you heard, very international industry. So let's open it up for your questions and comments. And if you could identify yourself, please, when you ask your comment. And then I'll ask whomever you're addressing your question to to come over here. So it won't be so difficult to respond. Any questions, comments? Okay, over here first. For Evan Jones, Chloe, you guys both talked about, in reference, cost per volume. So cost per gallon, cost per barrel. And I was wondering if you could comment on what the actual numbers are for cost per energy. We have different energy contents for Evan on the sketch. Yeah, without, I mean, we don't have a specific cost per, I don't have a specific cost per energy to you content that the one thing that I will say is that I know that one of the things that the automobile manufacturers are saying right now, if you look at the posts on the Society of Automotive Engineers, the SAE website, both engineers from Ford, just about the only feasible way that they can see us, that they can see the automobile industry complying with both the emissions requirements, which are getting tighter and tighter, and the cafe miles per gallon requirements, which are getting larger and larger at the same time, is to utilize a high octane fuel in smaller, high compression turbocharged engines. And in order to get that high octane fuel, they also note that the only feasible way to do that today is with like a 25 or 35% ethanol blend. And what they, according to their websites, that basically eliminates any kind of mileage loss based upon a BTU basis. So I think the way that we're heading to answer your question in a roundabout way is to say that there can be no mileage loss, depending on what the vehicles are tuned and the way that the fuels are formed today. Okay. Hi folks, I'm John Crawford, the executive director of the National National Research Center, and Amy in particular, I appreciate your comments taking a direct shot at the EPA. I think that's warranted. I think there's a code ruling, Ross November was completely absurd. So my question, I've got a 30 second comment from each person that they don't mind. If the White House doesn't get this right on this fire ruling by the EPA, what are your thoughts or what are your company's intentions on continued investment in R&D and innovation effects? So I wanted to be very positive during this presentation. And of course you are taking to a pretty big place. The RFSS design created 15 million gallons. It can be satisfied by corn ethanol. The rest of it can be satisfied by advanced ethanol study losses, right? We have in this country built out 15 billion gallons of capacity of corn ethanol capacity. So a company like poet that did very well off the corn ethanol is not building another corn ethanol plant because of that RFS cap. And so all pretexts I think are what needs to happen. Instead, we had three paths to continue to grow the market that we can access. We could either consolidate by other corn ethanol plants and continue to grow our share of corn ethanol. We could go overseas and begin to take advantage of the markets that exist in other countries like Brazil. Or we could begin to delve into this mysterious place of advanced biofuels. And we chose to go into advanced biofuels because we're an American based company. All of our jobs are here. We wanted to be at the forefront of this 16 billion gallon market. Unfortunately, what EPA is planning, I know I'm going with 30 seconds, but it's just work really good. I don't know how to talk about that. Unfortunately, what EPA is planning is they are rolling back on the volumes and therefore displacing the existing corn ethanol volume that exists. So of course a company like mine in the place where we have to ask ourselves, well, if they did this with corn ethanol, could they do it to advance? If we put it in this investment, will they roll back on us? And actually, more importantly, the investor asked that. Remember, we need to sign off-take agreements to get these gallons out the door. We can't sign those off-take agreements because the customer are oil companies and they choose to say no to us. So the R-O-S was an off-take agreement replacement. It's a market correction place. Some people say mandate comes with real quality and a market correction place. And if you take away that certainty, if you take away market certainty, you take away revenue certainty. If you take away revenue certainty, then you take away the return on investment certainty. And the investors will jack off your cost of capital. So all of a sudden that 6% return I had to provide also because we're considered more risky becomes 10% or 10%, 20% or 20%. And so it just becomes, you know what? We're done, we're going overseas, we're just working to start buying the foreign at all points. I hope that answers your question. But it's really important to remember, this thing opens up market access to us. And what is otherwise going to close fuel market? And you asked for comments from everyone. From that, it goes to perspective. I would say that there's no doubt in our minds that the proposal that the EPA made back in November of last year has impacted investment and the investment market and the investment's interest in second generation as follows, no doubt about it. Policy certainty is one of the most important things in driving that investor confidence and investment certainty. But from our standpoint, we've chosen to do a second project in Brazil. We would, again, we still have confidence that the EPA is very supportive of biofuels in general and particularly the second generation at all. We also have high hopes that they will do the right thing in their next rule. If they do not, for some reason, if the policy uncertainty is still there, then frankly we'll just have to see what the market impact is and decide where to invest. There are other options and we're very interested in investing more money in the United States. But there are other options that are in places to invest also. So I think, as I mentioned, the Department really had intentions to license the technology fair in the US and made great strides to be able to do that. At the time of the EPA issued the proposed rule is when we really saw the investors pull back from this conversation. And so I think what will happen if EPA stays the course with these reduced volumes is we'll continue to see a lack of investor interest here in the US and continued conversations and project development in other countries. I would agree with what everyone said here and we're all probably completely aligned on what the impact has been. But I will add that the original intent of the RFS was fire fuel producers, if you're able to make this fuel and it doesn't cost too much, it'll be a market for you as Rob said. This proposed rule has flipped that completely on its head. What we see is because the numbers, the volumes for corn ethanol have been rolled back below production capacity, that stranded investment. They can do it to one, they can do it to the other, as Rob said. And I think I just wanna make the point that while the volumes are very important, what those final volumes is, it's really the methodology that they're using to get there in our estimation. The reading says that instead of if you make it, they will have to buy it. It flips it on its head and says, if the oil companies don't want to blend it, then it will not be required that they purchase your fuel. So putting our market access in the hands of the obligated parties is obviously not a super stable place to be. And what happens to our investment is way above my pay grade, but I can tell you that I showed you that map of what we've done just with the instability we've seen over the 18, 24 month period. Great, thank you. Okay, over here first. Today announced that it was partnering with Procter & Gamble to bring cellulose ethanol into tide laundry detergent. I'm wondering if any of the rest of you at Instupon, also if you see any other opportunities beyond the transportation fuels market for cellulose ethanol. Everybody wants a piece of this, I'm curious. Yes, but it doesn't necessarily just have to be cellulosic and this goes back to the other question is why would we build the cellulosic ethanol is the same molecule as corn ethanol? Why would we build a $207 million plant that costs, I think it is 190 million more than the same size corn ethanol plant down in Brazil if we wanted to service a different market? So one thing we're looking at are cook stoves that would have a membrane that we could bring it to island nations. We're actually working on a project with Haiti right now. That would be an incredible use and provide a means of avoiding black carbon from pet coke. But again, there's no reason to do it from the cellulosic ethanol molecule versus the corn ethanol molecule and there's no reason it has to be a US-created molecule versus a Brazilian-created molecule. Hopefully that answers the question. So thank you for mentioning the project. I think that there is a real drive on the consumer side to be able to incorporate more bio-based products into our everyday consumer options. And so this is just yet another example of some of the bio-based products that can be incorporated in a sustainable way into the products that we buy at the grocery store. But I think that both the corn ethanol and the cellulosic ethanol industry have a number of co-products that are gonna be coming off of these facilities that can be used to displace other fossil-based alternatives that can really improve our greenhouse gas emissions in terms of the electricity that we're using in this country but also to replace some alternatives in the products that we use everyday. Great, okay, there's a question. Okay, back there and then you'll be second. Okay, go ahead. Sure, I have a question for everybody and that's sort of an individual question, is that okay? Well, we'll see, okay, no. The question is, what is a acceptable number of the cellulosic ethanol and RFS in requirement for this year and next year? You know, kind of ballpark on the spot, but, and then the individual questions. Rob, you just mentioned the co-stores. That's wonderful. I mean, I pay $15 a gallon for ethanol in Home Depot for my co-stores and my boat. You guys can kind of beat that, you know, and people have to buy, you know, green alcohol. Let me just sort of knock off the questions all at once if that's really good. Sure, go ahead, go ahead. They're short questions. Okay. Poet, I'm sorry, when's the next one and where, plant? I was very disappointed. I saw all your slides and they look really, really close and I know you guys do a lot of solar. I didn't see any solar PV in any of your plants but maybe that's the reason. Maybe I'm going to jump to you. I know you don't remember the gas lines and that's a compliment, but, and this is sort of a question for everybody too. If you look at a blend pump, you know, E15, E20, E30, you never see octane numbers. And octane is the whole missing, you know, argument in all of this and I'm glad I was mentioned a little bit but I'm sort of leaving you that question but anybody can answer it. How was it? Okay. And you can talk from there as far as I'm concerned. Oh, okay, all right, let me just kind of show you my star. Go ahead. So the first question to me was about co-stars and how they're demand. Give me your name and I will definitely try and get some memories out to you. The important question was what should the RFS be? Or is that a less gap now? Or is it here next year? Well, this is, I think there is a balancing act that EPA is trying to undertake. I think the levels need to be set relative to the amount that is being produced. They have that ability under the RFS statute to provide a waiver down to the amount of ethanol that's being produced. Again, this goes back to the market issue. If you build it, there will be a market for you. So we have all submitted volumes that we think we can hit this year and EPA is supposed to set the volume, the cellulosic volumes at that level. And it allows us to go back into the investment pool and tell them, look, this investment in the technology has a home, we're getting revenue from this product, invest in the next one. Where is the next plant gonna be? Where is the next cellulosic plant gonna be? I think we will know once we have a final rule because that will probably dictate where we go. A bad rule, and hopefully it's understood what a bad rule looks like with this methodology that gives great uncertainty to the investment community, sends us to a country that has other incentives. Remember, we don't receive taxpayer dollars. We have the RFS, we have market certainty. If we get rid of that market certainty, we have nothing here really to compel us or to move us into the marketplace. So then we look at Brazil with their East 20, 70, 30 mandate. We look at Thailand where they have a tax holiday that they're offering. China, which would just bend over backwards with a host of incentives, suite of incentives. So we will see where the next plant is. If you like the role, will you make an announcement shortly thereafter about the lesson? I'm going to feel comfortable saying one way or the other. I'd echo from every other standpoint, I would echo Rob's comments on EPA. EPA is the one who's in the best position to determine these numbers because we have all that confidential communications with EPA about what we expect to produce this year next. And in addition to EPA is the only one that knows, for sure, of what is going on in the pathways that they recently issued a biogas pathway that is potentially good at significant gallons of cellulose again, both this year and in the future. So you're really going to be able to understand that though, Avondoa, of course, is one of the world's leading providers of CSP thermal solar. And yes, no, we don't have thermal solar at Judy's in Kansas, but we have thermal solar in many other places, two of the largest projects in Arizona and California. We also have PV projects. We also have renewable power from wind, other other things, but that. This one is a renewable power from biomass. And that's what Q2 is. So I think just to add to what my colleagues indicated about the cellulosic volumes, I think the other side of the story needs to be that as we accommodate the cellulosic ethanol that's coming online, we don't need to thereby subtract from the first generation corn ethanol industry. It doesn't help us at all to raise the cellulosic volumes but then to cut the first generation corn ethanol volumes. And so that's the other side of the story there. As to the question around the photovoltaics at DuPont's cellulosic ethanol facility, thank you for recognizing that technology. That's certainly something that's important to our business. But I think as you've heard today from all of us, bringing the cellulosic ethanol technology and these plants online has really been a priority. And so we really wanted to focus there. And so certainly we could have incorporated other technologies and other opportunities into those plants. It certainly would have sidelined us or delayed the process. We wanted to make sure that we could bring this fuel online as quickly as possible. And then quickly on the octane, I didn't hear a specific question there but I agree it's a big part of the story. So certainly should continue to be. And on the volumes, I would agree with everyone here and like I said before, it's the methodology. And if the methodology is right, the numbers will take care of itself. But generally speaking, if it's made, it needs to be up to the statute requirements. We need to see that it's going to find a place in the market, otherwise it's difficult to build additional capacity. And I would also remind folks that we are so far delayed this year that we basically have 10 months of actual data for the year. So I would think it should be relatively straightforward. Thank you for that. Okay, here first and then we'll come back to you. Hi, I'm Brian Oates, the National Association of Weak Roads. My question is specifically for Havendoa as it relates to your new Kansas facility. Are you receiving any BioNAS Prop Assistance program funding from the USDA? Havendoa is not, we think some of our providers may have made a good event and we had, by the way, we're about 80% corn stover but the next largest source of our heat stock is with us from just for your information. Okay, next here. Mark Carr, the town's design group for poet, you talked about the back end cogeneration and all that. What is the final waste product? What is it? Is ash the final product and what are you doing with the ash? You're gonna generate a lot of ash. Yeah, it happened. You don't have the money. Yes, ash is one of the five products that we don't necessarily have a home for currently. In another lifetime, I've worked in the power sector so I'm well aware of the transition that's happening there right now from moving from coal to natural gas and as you see that reduction in coal, there will be a dearth of ash available to cement companies. So that is certainly an area that we're looking at. The conversations are ongoing but currently the co-product that generates the most revenue is the heat because these plants, while they are together, they are organized independently so the Liberty plant, the cellulosic plant sells heat to the corn plant. So the corn plant is actually a customer of Liberty and that revenue source is really important to making this first iteration of Liberty work. But there are other co-products coming. I mean, when we first started creating corn ethanol I think everyone agreed. We didn't know necessarily what the size of ethanol we created and now you're starting to see all these technologies, all these applications come out of it. One idea that's been floated around out there is taking that lignin and instead of turning into process heat you could actually turn into a carbon fiber technology that automobiles might be able to use. So again, this is innovation. This is where you start to see that job creation happen and this is the reason you wanna have those plants here. We've seeded the solar field in terms of panel generation to China. Nuclear is going overseas. Is this going to be another industry that leaves the borders of the US and goes overseas and you start to see that job creation, that shop floor innovation take place. Hopefully that adds to your point. Okay, any other, okay, over here. Hi, I'm Stephen Hawkins and I'm a triple AS science and technology policy fellow. I'm sort of hearing two stories here. You came up here and told us how commercially viable that panel is and how the cafe standards are gonna push for all this, but you also need these parking directions from your best standards. And that is kind of conflicting. Is this a permanent need for parking directions or is it something that you think needs to be there forever or so you'll have to go up and all to be commercially viable? No, this is not a permanent need. However, we are in the unique situation of having our customer be our competitor at the same time. When you have a situation where petroleum companies get to buy whatever they want and include that in their fuel, their history has shown us that they are going to use their own products. If we want to change that, if we want to use something besides petroleum there has to be some incentive, some policy that will allow that to happen. And while that policy doesn't need to go on forever, it needs to go on until this is established and we have a true competition instead of what we had today, which is absolutely not the open market. Anybody else want to comment on that? Okay. Go ahead. Yeah, Howard Burks with Everett. He had an exciting question for Amy. And that is, you just returned from Brazil. You said, tell us about the level of cooperation between the Brazilian biofuels industry and the Brazilian Harbor Field Manufacturers Association, because many of those members of the association are also US-owned companies, so. I will try. I don't promise much and I'm hoping to learn much more. But there is a long history of cooperation there. As I said in my presentation, they've obviously been embarking on this together with the guidance from the Brazilian government for more than 30, 40 years. So they have some head start on us. But for example, with the 27.5% increase to their blend, it's now in a review period that does go to the auto manufacturers because that 27, just to be clear, that 27.5% is for regular automobiles, not front fuel, regular. Which of course, again, we can't do more than 10. They're at 25 right now. They're going to 27.5%. So that has to go through a regulatory process that involves the auto manufacturers to give their sign off that that is an acceptable fuel for them and my understanding is that historically, that process is smooth. That's the best I can do right now. Anybody else? Okay. One question? Sure, okay. I'm not sure any of me knows the answer to this, but you talk a lot about Brazil. Do you know how much oil, Brazil's corn forks used to arrive at 33% in terms of traction? I don't know the answer to that for sure. I think, I do remember hearing that they, in recent years, they go back and forth between being energy independent. So they've done a significant amount of exploration domestically as well over the last, at least 10 years, that's increased there. Carol, you may know more than I do. I don't know the exact, number on that, I'm happy to get back to you and let you know because they did have some very large oil lines off the coast, particularly in the Rio area, but happy to follow up with you on that. But I think that what's really striking is in terms of thinking about, I think the whole role that, as Amy talked about, the course that has been followed in Brazil with a lot of the same players that we also have in the US. So it's just a very interesting kind of juxtaposition. And I guess in terms of thinking about what we've heard here today, and I must say this is true no matter who that I have spoken with over so many years in terms of thinking about renewable energy technologies, whether it is wind or solar or geothermal or hydro or whatever, that just as here, it is critical and I should say that with regard to what we've also heard from other governments as well as from industry, that policy is very, very important, that policy does matter because that is critical in terms of market certainty and that that makes all the difference in the world in terms of really driving innovation and the development of new products and markets. I think that it's also absolutely fascinating in terms of as we learn more and more about the huge array of products that can come out of bio refineries and that can be responsive to all sorts of needs and opportunities depending upon where you are and what those various market niches are in terms of thinking about biobased products as well as fuels and how that can all be very complimentary. And I think that we are also dealing with a very, very major challenge because as you also heard right now in terms of thinking about the whole role of policy and as a couple people mentioned too, that there are a variety of pathways available under the renewable fuel standard that have actually also been coming on strong end and have really increased over the last, certainly over this last year, including things like biodiesel, biogas, renewable gasoline in terms of looking at drop-in biofuels, that there are a whole array of things that are there that makes getting some degree of policy certainty that does allow for a whole market expansion terribly important and that there are a whole array of benefits and we would submit a variety of issues including public health as well as the need to address carbon and security that are really important for us to take a very clear-eyed look at so that we really are make sure that we're informed making smarter choices but understanding what really has happened in terms of sort of this whole investment that really has occurred and indeed are not phantom fuels but are here in commercial production and that this is actually a very, very exciting time. So I want to thank all of our speakers. I hope that you all got something out of this briefing. The presentations will be up on our website. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us. And as I said, we are really hoping to do additional briefings in a series to look at ever more kinds of biofuels that really are coming into the market and show great potential as we move forward, as we look for alternatives to the status quo. So thank you all very, very much for coming and thank you to our wonderful panel.