ABLC 2026 Review: Dumpster Fire

March 24, 2026

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By Joanne Ivancic* (Advanced Biofuels USA) As ABLC organizer, Jim Lane, knows, you get as many valuable insights in the hallways as you do in the sessions. One such hallway statement keeps coming back to me. “It seems all they are talking about is tax credits. Every presenter mentions tax credits.” He was right.

This was from a conversation with a couple of volunteers, one a university student; the other a fellow who seemed, from his nametag, to have some relationship to a company. “It’s so capitalistic,” he continued, half in jest. “I’m a more socialist guy.”

Social Benefits via Tax Credit Policy

Social benefit. Yes. That is what this is about. Many speakers emphasized that, too.

So, we talked about the role of policy, how important it is, especially when a new industry that has social and environmental benefits needs to take market share away from existing legacy companies in order to succeed. The incumbents aren’t going to hand over business without a fight.

And, although other countries might have mandates, the US is trying a market-based approach. Tax credits. Thus, even proven technologies (not to mention startups) have to figure out how to involve someone who is actually making money and needs tax credits. With almost no government funds available, they need investors to be a part of their innovative project, part of their effort to bring those social and environmental benefits to sustainable life.

Thus, indeed, if a few years ago you couldn’t get out of ABLC without saying SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuels) at least 10 times; this year the word was “tax credit”.

R&D to Give Life to Social Benefit

These volunteers were also concerned that there weren’t more presentations about research and new technologies. They were hoping for something more like a BIO conference with presentations about the latest research.

They should have been here 10-15 years ago when presentations about creative research were about all you would see. Wonderful, innovative ideas, imaginative research projects. Exciting ways to make the world a better place through biology, chemistry, engineering.

The good thing is that now those technologies have been proven to succeed -- or to have served as learning experiences --- and character building experiences. And they are ready to move from toddler to adolescent to adult. To make their valuable mark on the world

Those that still survive are trying to figure out how to get funding when government funding has been slashed and burned; how to achieve the social and environmental values when policy is “uncertain,” to put it politely.

Jim Lane, publisher of The Daily Digest and ABLC organizer, introduces the Sustainable Futures Summit panel: (from left) Eric McAfee, CEO, Aemetis; Rebecca Boudreaux, CEO, Oberon Fuels; Gerhard Muggen, Managing Director, BTG Biofuels; Rashi Akki, CEO, A-Grid Energy; David Sudolsky, CEO Anellotech.

In 2026, Uncertain Policy Equals Financing Dumpster Fire

In Jim Lane’s Biofuels Digest summary of the conference, he noted, “As Rebecca Boudreaux of Oberon Fuels would later translate it for the room, the job description has changed: Make money in the middle of a dumpster fire. No one laughs. Because everyone already knows.”

For so many entrepreneurs at this conference, the objective to make money isn’t just to get rich quick. Those folks left the building long ago. The objective is to make enough money to bring a world-changing technology to sustainable life, to assure that everyone along the value chain is able to make a decent living. And, after that, to get rich if you should live so long.

The most depressing session was just before lunch on Thursday. The Finance and Investment Summit where the banking and financing establishment (representatives from the likes of Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Faegre Drinker and Womble Bond Dickinson) explained that they could not think of investing in any project that basically, had any risk. Thus, don’t expect much money to be available in the middle of a policy dumpster fire.

It was clear that the big financial institutions were sitting on the sidelines waiting for the smoke to clear. For how long? No one would hazard a guess.

Mark Riedy, Partner, Womble Bond Dickinson, introduces the Finance and Investment Summit panel: Chris Berenct, Partner, Faegre Drinker; Krista Sutton, Principal Process Engineer, New Energy Risk; Joseph Abramson, Executive Director, Public Finance Department, Barclays Capital; Mark Glotfelty, Managing Director, RBC Markets; Kenneth Hill, Managing Director, BioCarbon Strategies.

Let's Try Tax Credits, the Capitalist Way to Effect Social Benefit

Thus, the tax credits: 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit 40A Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel Tax Incentive 40B Sustainable Aviation Fuel Tax Credit 45Q Carbon Oxide Sequestration Tax Credit 45V Hydrogen Production Tax Credit 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit

And the policies (regulations) that go with them. For example, the expectation that requiring use of some version of the US Department of Energy’s GREET Greenhouse Gases Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation Model for renewable fuel producers to obtain the 45Z tax credit would spur demand for low carbon intensity (CI) farming, efficient conversion technologies, use of low CI fuels in transportation and equipment, use of big data to document, track and verify environmental improvements….

The eventual success of adoption of these technologies and systems in the US and around the world will mean not only environmental benefit, but also the security of energy independence for every country around the world; the ability to produce their own energy and to avoid as much as possible the hardships from relying on international commodity markets for life essentials. The value of that objective has become abundantly clear in the last couple of weeks.

Benefit of Volunteering

Volunteers at ABLC and other conferences have the opportunity to become immersed in the real world of making academic and R&D innovations succeed beyond bench scale. And to have their own insights from their unique perspectives. In the renewable fuels and bio/circular economy world, I hope they see that this is a community and it has heart and soul and, although we might fight like family, we also share in one another’s anguish.

We know that the world can be a better place in many ways if we “get off our addiction to oil,” as former President George W. Bush said.

Getting off this addiction is harder than anyone imagined 15 or 20 years ago. The groups working on alternative fuels and chemicals must persist and persevere to achieve their (socialist?) goals when, in the US, the main option available is in this capitalist system.

That's one of the key 'take aways' from ABLC. I think these volunteers will figure that out. I hope that they then are inspired to join this community to carry on seeking to give life to its sustainability (social, environmental and economic) goals. It's not easy. We need people who will continute to perserver and persist.

*Joanne Ivancic serves as executive director of Advanced Biofuels USA. photos by J. Ivancic