HOUSTON—Yesterday, Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor joined global biofuel industry leaders on a panel at S&P Global’s CERAWeek to discuss the changing biofuels supply chain and the central role that American bioethanol will have in further decarbonizing the transportation sector.
S&P Global Senior Vice President and Head of Agribusiness Consulting Juan Sacoto moderated the panel, titled Business Models to Scale Biofuels Supply, and BASF’s Head of North American Business Development Jeremy Zidek and Raizen CEO Ricardo Mussa joined Skor as fellow panelists. Throughout the discussion, Skor highlighted how focused the bioethanol industry and its farm partners are on driving down the carbon intensity of their supply chain and overall production practices.
“Bioethanol plants are making all the optimizations at the plant, [including] looking at carbon sequestration. The last thing for us to do is to decarbonize that feedstock,” Skor said. “The good thing is that we can do that—through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) we can monetize the value of low-carbon farming and we can pay a premium for that low-carbon corn because of the tax credits provided for in the IRA.”
Realizing the full potential of these opportunities, however, will require clearer support from policymakers in Washington—including in the updated modeling guidelines that will be used to apply the IRA’s 40B sustainable aviation fuel credit and 45Z clean fuel production credit.
“Washington has to send a signal and give us the guidance on the tax code that says ‘we will give you credit for everything you do on the farm,’” Skor said, specifically citing climate smart agriculture practices like no-till farming and cover crops. “We’ve got to make sure the modeling of carbon intensity allows bioethanol to be competitive.”
Learn more about the importance of carbon modeling here.