Sustainable aviation fuel to add demand for corn, soybeans

CHICAGO — Adding sustainable aviation fuel to the list of products made from corn and soybeans may help increase profits for U.S. farmers.

“Sustainable aviation fuel is produced from renewable feedstocks like corn and soybeans,” said Noelle Neef, assistant director of energy for Illinois Farm Bureau. “But there are other things that can be used like used cooking oil, animal tallow, sugar cane and woody biomass.”

Since sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is a drop-in fuel, Neef said, it is chemically the same as traditional jet fuel.

“Currently, it is blended with traditional jet fuel up to 50% because of the structure of the airplane engines,” she explained during a presentation at a Chicago Farmers meeting.

HEFA, or hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids, is the most common type of SAF, Neef said.

“The first alcohol to jet SAF plant opened in the U.S. was in Georgia,” she said. “They are using Brazilian sugar cane ethanol to create SAF.”

Marquis Energy, located in Hennepin in north-central Illinois, has plans to create a sustainable aviation fuel plant, Neef said.

Illinois is positioned really well to produce ethanol to jet SAF, said Brad Stolter, director of public policy for the Illinois Corn Growers Association, who also spoke during the meeting.

“We have 13 ethanol plants that make 1.8 billion gallons of ethanol,” he said. “And we’re very close to O’Hare, so we see that as a market advantage.”

The Department of Energy has set a goal to achieve 3 billion gallons of SAF production by 2030, Neef said.

“And the goal is 35 billion gallons by 2050, which is all the jet fuel currently consumed in the U.S.,” she said.

“Currently, we have a 14.5 billion gallon marketplace for ethanol,” Stolter said. “But we could almost double that if we were to get into these aviation fuels.”

“Now we’re at about 25 million gallons of SAF, so it’s going to take a lot to get to 1 billion gallons,” said David Kubik, biofuels and trade policy manager for the Illinois Soybean Association, during the meeting.

“With our current law for the blenders credit, companies get dollars per gallon of biodiesel that is blended into diesel,” Kubik said. “This is one of the things the 45Z law has changed — instead of dollar-based, the credits are on carbon intensity scores.”

“In agriculture, we’re talking a lot about how to do regenerative agricultural practices to reduce the carbon off our farms, like tillage practices, nitrogen management and cover crops,” Stotler said. “When farmers do those practices, there’s a lot of environmental benefits and it lowers the overall emissions from the farm.”

“To lower the overall carbon intensity of fuels, it starts at the field level and translates down to the end product,” Neef said.

“There’s a lot of education that needs to happen to educate farmers about the best practices to implement on their farms,” she said. “And education down the supply chain about what these practices mean for the industry.”

Since every farming operation is different, it is important for farmers to be able to implement whatever practice they choose to lower carbon emissions, Neef said.

“The University of Illinois is doing a lot of research about how practices impact different parts of the state,” she said.

Although this is going to require a lot of work, Neef said, it is also exciting.

“This is an opportunity to make farmers more profitable,” she said. “It’s opening up new markets for farmers.”

“United Airlines is the first one to purchase SAF at O’Hare Airport,” Neef said. “They have committed to 8 million gallons with the potential to 12 million gallons and they also bought some SAF to be used at LAX in California.”

It takes 1.6 gallons of ethanol to make one gallon of sustainable aviation fuel, Stotler said.

“The ethanol plant will be a feedstock for the new fuel,” he said. “SAF won’t be made at the same plant, but it could be co-located to take the ethanol feedstock and do the additional process to make jet fuel.”

In addition to airlines, Kubik said, ag groups are also going to be working with other industries.

“We are big proponents of having oceangoing vessels use biofuels,” he said. “We talk about rail being a good potential to lower carbon in trucking, and rivers are even lower, so if we could move as much on the rivers as possible, the better it will be.”