At year’s end it’s customary to put together “best of” lists – sometimes because there’s not much else to talk about. Not so with energy. In fact, there’s so much good news on the energy front we didn’t even have to go beyond the past 30 days to assemble a good list of information-delivering charts and graphs (and the blog posts that featured them). So here it is: “Best Energy Charts – (December) 2012.”

1. Lease Auction: There’s More Where That Came From

Following the federal government’s November lease sale in the western Gulf of Mexico that generated more than $133 million, we pointed out that the revenue stream for government could be so much larger if there was access to the more than 80 percent of our available offshore acreage that’s closed to energy development.
  
2. Lea... more »

With the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hearing oral arguments today in a lawsuit over the cellulosic biofuels mandate contained in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), here are some points to bear in mind.

First, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 expanded the RFS, significantly increasing required volumes of biofuels (including cellulosic) over earlier levels set out in 2005.

Under the law EPA is to establish an annual mandate for cellulosic production based on U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. Yet, for 2011, EIA recommended 3.94 million gallons and EPA, ostensibly to drive production, set the mandate at 6.6 million gallons. For 2012, EIA recommended 6.9 million gallons, and EPA set the mandate at 8.65 million gallons.

Meanwhile, there has... more »

An article in The Hill lays out EPA's explanation for denying API’s request to exempt refiners from the cellulosic biofuel blending mandate under the Renewable Fuels Standard. EPA said it:

"reasonably considered the production capacity likely to be developed throughout the year, while API would have EPA rely narrowly and solely on proven past cellulosic biofuel production...”

Silly us, with our narrow focus on reality. More from The Hill:

"In its court filing, EPA said its estimates were based on a 'reasonably attainable' amount of cellulosic biofuels for 2012."

Let's have a look at what the EPA considers reasonable:

The first column (blue) is the annual cellulosic mandate from Congress. But since you can’t just mandate fuel into existence the EPA, in its regulatory... more »