CHANGING LANES

Market opportunities for ethanol are emerging beyond light-duty vehicles.

- Cassidy Walter

For decades the American ethanol industry has supported farmers, created jobs in rural communities, and displaced toxic chemicals in light-duty fuel tanks across the country. Today, the changing landscape of transportation has the industry looking for new opportunities in addition to the light-duty market to expand that legacy.

"If we're going to grow markets and grow demand for our products and agriculture in general, we're going to need to develop new markets beyond the light-duty trans portation sector," says Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA).

Shaw says the ever-increasing efficiency of vehicles, the growing demand for electric vehicles, and a cultural trend away from driving in general, is leading to a long-term decline in fuel consumption. To highlight new opportunities for ethanol, IRFA featured three emerging markets earlier this year at the annual Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit in Des Moines, Iowa.

"If we do this right, this is going to be a tremendous opportunity for farmers, and we're going to see increased demand for their products," he says.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Air travel is widely considered part of the "hard-to-electrify space" where biofuels are critical to lowering the carbon footprint of the industry.

Ethanol is one of several renewable products vying for market share in the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) market. SAF producer Gevo says ethanol has the advantage of being the lowest-cost feedstock to produce SAF.

"However, ethanol itself from a typical ethanol plant can't get a low enough carbon intensity reduction," says Patrick Gruber, CEO of Gevo. "The vast majority of the carbon footprint of ethanol is due to the energy of production. So this is very much about infrastructure as well. That's what makes this difficult."