Row Crop Ethanol Needed to Meet Biden's "Grand Challenge"

Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for the Renewable Fuels Association, Troy Bradenkamp, on the hot button issue of sustainable aviation fuel and ethanol.

“There's a huge opportunity here for row crop-based biofuels like corn ethanol, the Biden administration has put out what they call the Grand Challenge, which is they want 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel by 2030. Parts of the inflation Reduction Act, which was passed a couple of years ago, include incentives to create a sustainable aviation fuel market and really just to be quite honest, they don't get to their 3 billion gallons without row crop-based biofuel. So we see a huge opportunity.”

Bredenkamp says it's critical that row crop ethanol be evaluated fairly for performance as a soft source. The Department of Energy has a great model advocating for this fair treatment for this fair treatment.

“It takes into account almost everything that you can think of from an ethanol perspective, it takes into account all of the inputs that go into the production of the corn. So the fertilizers, the water usage, all those inputs, even the fuel used to run the tractors you know, all of that is accounted.”

And, he says the model accounts for the processing and production of ethanol.