05/02/24 Neither Happy nor Polite About It

When the Biden Administration released its new rules allowing corn ethanol to qualify for SAF credits, I noted how the biofuel industry took what to me felt like a gut-punch with barely a whimper. They said that they saw it as “opening a door” but that is fantasy. The door stayed shut. The new standard did decrease the controversial indirect land use change (ILUC) penalty in the 40B GREET model by over 20 percent which was hoped for. However, that penalty was unjustified in the first place so they really gave us nothing. We will raise about as much corn on the moon that qualifies for SAF given the agronomic restrictions emplaced on what it takes for corn to qualify. It appeared that the biofuel industry reaction was that they were more afraid of offending the Biden Administration then they were at truly characterizing the new rules as what they were…bull-crap. The rules released applied to 40B sustainable fuels tax credits for just this year and the previous year which means they were worthless as announced in arrears. They failed to release the model for the 45Z standard in 2025 which at this point is the pertinent info needed. There…