The final carbon footprint model to decide eligibility for make-or-break tax credits for ethanol in Sustainable Aviation Fuel could be out in days.
The model known as GREET will determine what the future of the ethanol industry looks like. Will it be limited to a possibly declining motor fuel market or will it as much as triple with aviation use? Renewable Fuels Association head Geoff Cooper is anxiously awaiting an answer from EPA and the energy and agriculture departments.
Cooper says, “The last thing we’ve heard from USDA on that is now they’re saying, hopefully, we see this modified GREET model by the end of the month. So, we went from March first to maybe, the beginning of April, and now we’re hearing, it’s more likely the end of April.”
Cooper says timing is key for investment in a possible 36 billion-gallon aviation fuel market by 2050. He says, “That’s another issue where things are frozen up right now. And nobody is moving in the marketplace until there’s some clarity and certainty around how that’s all going to play out.”
As for early reports relayed by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the government may impose tough-to-screen growing conditions on feedstock corn and soybeans, Cooper says, “We don’t know…I don’t think we really have the details yet from USDA or from the administration on how they’re going to handle tracking of feedstocks and monitoring of farming practices and things like that. Those are some of the important details that we’re waiting on.”
Senator Grassley says if reports he got recently are correct, it’ll either be easy to violate the formula at the grain elevator or there won’t be enough feedstock for SAF, needed to combat greenhouse gas emissions.
Story courtesy of NAFB News Service and Berns Bureau Washington/by Matt Kaye
