Airlines Could Abandon Dirty Jet Fuel with Cleaner Biofuels

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February 26, 2024

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(MITECHNEWS.com) In an exciting move toward sustainable fuel, airlines are exploring powering planes with biofuels made from corn and other plants. This would slash aviation pollution and boost American farming, bringing tidy financial and environmental wins, according to The New York Times.

Turning corn into ethanol for fuel could funnel money into rural economies all across the United States — and it’s already happening.

In 2023, United Airlines signed a deal with a Nebraska ethanol company to buy enough ethanol to power 50,000 flights a year, and Delta announced plans to create a sustainable fuel hub in Minnesota.

The Biden administration is also jumping on board with plans to support American crop-to-fuel innovation through new clean energy tax credits.

Aviation churns out 2% of the planet’s carbon pollution, according to the International Energy Agency — more than some countries produce. Biofuels can curb that output while putting money in farmers’ pockets. This perfectly aligns with America’s can-do spirit of self-reliance and resourcefulness.

Yet challenges remain. Ramping up corn production on short notice would pressure limited water reserves. READ MORE

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Airlines Race Toward a Future of Powering Their Jets With Corn: Carriers want to replace jet fuel with ethanol to fight global warming. That would require lots of corn, and lots of water. (New York Times)

Excerpt from The New York Times: Part of a series on the causes and consequences of disappearing water.

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“Mark my words, the next 20 years, farmers are going to provide 95 percent of all the sustainable airline fuel,” President Biden said in July.

This year a New York Times data investigation found that groundwater is being dangerously depleted nationwide, largely by agricultural overuse. As climate change makes rainfall less reliable and intensifies droughts, rising demand for ethanol could put even more pressure on America’s fragile aquifers to be used for irrigation.

It’s a powerful example of tradeoffs that can arise as the world tries to transition away from fossil fuels. Other energy sources can have their own environmental cost, whether it’s mining the minerals and metals required to build more car batteries, or straining groundwater reserves to produce ethanol.

Farmers can still rely on rain in most parts of corn country, but elsewhere irrigation has been surging, driven by the climate threat and the pursuit of more reliable yields.

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The Department of Energy, which is helping draft the rules that would allow biofuels to be considered sustainable aviation fuel, said in a statement that “water use is a critical component of the conversation surrounding bioenergy sustainability.”

It pointed to a 2016 department study that concluded that the United States could significantly reduce strain on aquifers by shifting biofuel production away from water-intensive crops like corn, instead growing more crops that don't require irrigation, like various types of straw, grasses and trees.

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But there are few options for powering aircraft without fossil fuels. Ethanol, advocates say, is the best solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. Farmers argue that agriculture has become much more efficient — and will continue to do so — and will not necessarily require huge amounts of additional water. Ethanol makers also say the industry has gotten cleaner over the years, and that government incentives would further help.

The airlines say the renewable fuel options that exist for powering planes today are too expensive and would force them to raise ticket prices if mandated. Adding ethanol into the mix, they argue, would significantly reduce those costs and allow them to more quickly start blending renewables into jet fuel.

“Sustainable aviation fuel is the best tool we have to decarbonize airplanes,” said Lauren Riley, United’s chief sustainability officer. Her counterpart at Delta Air Lines, Amelia DeLuca, called for federal support “like the incentives that already exist in the automotive industry.”

Most major U.S. airlines have pledged to stop adding additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2050.

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Adding to the pressure on farmers to irrigate: Global warming means that drier weather patterns historically concentrated in Western states are pushing eastward, deeper into the Corn Belt.

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Researchers recognize a line that divides the continent into a more arid West and more humid East.

That line has shifted eastward in recent decades, and corn states risk becoming drier, requiring more irrigation.

Source: Seager, et. al., Earth Interactions (2018)
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Ethanol has been promoted by both Democrats and Republicans based on the view that it’s good for the economy while also replacing fossil fuels. Advocates also say ethanol is in America’s strategic interest because it reduces reliance on foreign oil and broadens the market for American farmers.

“Without ethanol, we’d have an enormous corn surplus. That would mean exporting more of it abroad, and make us as farmers reliant on countries like China,” said Matt Jennen, 39, who farmed more than 3,000 acres of corn this season and sold most of it to a Green Plains ethanol plant near where he lives in Foxhome, Minn.

Not all new biofuel demand would have to be met with corn. Algae, manure and cooking oil (which some airlines already use in small amounts) also could be sources for jet fuel.

But experts say the government’s ambitious targets — 35 billion gallons a year of sustainable aviation fuel from all sources by midcentury — require what are essentially dedicated energy crops, particularly corn. To qualify as sustainable aviation fuel under Biden’s tax-credit program, the fuel would have to be produced in a climate-friendly manner, for instance using renewable energy for harvesting, manufacture or transport.

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Industry representatives also argue that fears of aquifer damage to meet new demand are overblown because corn has become increasingly water-efficient with new irrigation methods and new types of seeds and fertilizer. These improvements are also increasing yields, they say, reducing the need to convert more cropland to corn.

“There’s only so much land, and we’re already using it now,” said John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union. “The West has been settled. That’s the rumor.”

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Nebraska has one important advantage. Much of the state sits atop a particularly flush part of the Ogallala Aquifer that can recharge relatively quickly. Some researchers also commend Nebraska’s 23 Natural Resources Districts, made up of local regulators, who put into place stricter rules when aquifer levels drop. Lately, though, that has been happening more frequently as the state endured conditions so dry that wildfires broke out.

Still, there are concerns about prices climbing high enough that soil-conservation practices could be reversed. Farmers could stop rotating corn with soybeans and other crops, or new policies could allow farmers to take land out of the federal Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to leave environmentally sensitive land untouched. All of it could require more pumping.

On the Stoltenberg family farm in tiny Cairo, the elder Mr. Stoltenberg, 72, welcomes the airlines’ appetite for corn. His farm is surrounded by three ethanol plants within easy driving distance.

After facing aquifer declines, local regulators capped the number of new wells in the area. But Mr. Stoltenberg thinks advances in seed technology will help meet demand without adding corn acres. While the family can’t dig a new well, for now, the Stoltenbergs have no limits on the groundwater they can pump. READ MORE