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The future of ethanol and SAF

By Staff | Apr 26, 2024

To the editor:

Sustainable aviation fuel or SAF is quoted as potentially being a 35 billion gallon-a-year domestic market by 2050. This I believe is incorrect because SAF presently is a blend of conventional fossil fuel and synthetic components made from renewable feed stocks, which ethanol could be a part of. The maximum blend for SAF is 50%, more commonly used at 20 to 30 percent blend.

That being said, SAF may only be an 8-to-10-billion-gallon market by 2050. Cellulosic ethanol made from corn stock bales a few years back was supposed to be the next great thing for farmers. Whatever happened to that and biodiesel? Also, SAF costs two to three times what regular jet fuel costs. The only reason SAF is being used is because the federal government subsidizes it at $1.25 to $1.75 per gallon. A big misconception about SAF is that it reduces tailpipe CO2 emissions. The CO2 tailpipe exhaust emissions between SAF and fossil jet fuel are the same.

I am all for ethanol as a renewable fuel. With the industry going to a 15% blend this would be a 50% increase in their potential market. This is a big thing! The SAF market was only 15.8 million gallons last year. They are hoping to get to 3 billion gallons by 2030. That’s six years away if they can make it happen at all.

If corn-based ethanol is good enough to use in my truck and car, why can’t we start making SAF right now? By adjusting the carbon intensity score on corn, Summit Ag was successful in getting a carbon intensity score of 20 for their second corn crop production out of Brazil. They can make SAF right now out of Brazil without having to use carbon capture pipelines. That’s what we need to do is rewrite outdated CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) and GREET (Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies) guidelines like Brazil did, making corn-based ethanol more friendly to SAF now and forget about carbon pipelines. Please watch YouTube video (Carbon Pipelines, CCS and Water).

Paul Hamilton

Bancroft