I beg your carbon...

from 2023 August Ethanol Producer Magazine

Mo re than a Check v alv e

tion, because this is not a short-term goal,” Resch says. “This is a path toward decarbonization, no matter the political lens.”

The advancement of technology that can convert ethanol into other fuels could be beneficial as EVs may begin to reduce the size of the liquid fuel market. Although e-fuels are farther down the road, Reed sees near-term ethanol markets in the SAF industry. “Ethanol is and always has been an incredibly important molecule to our nation’s economy; as we see electric vehicles come into the market and reduce potential ethanol market share, first of all that will be slow,” Reed says. “That’s going to happen over time and ethanol will remain an important fuel, certainly as an oxygenate for the existing gasoline we’ll need to provide for those legacy vehicles. There are near-term options to convert ethanol through an alcohol-to-jet process that can produce sustainable aviation fuel today, and we see this with companies like LanzaJet and Gevo, which are both moving in that direction, so there are ways to get to aviation fuel, utilizing ethanol as an intermediate and [achieving] reductions [of] 70 to 80 percent greenhouse gas.”

SELECT SOURCE: Fermentation CO2 generated at ethanol plants is an ideal e-fuels feedstock option due to its purity. “It’s very helpful on our side because it cuts down on purification costs and potential issues of ‘poisoning’ downstream with various catalysts and other processes. So, that’s [principally] why we like bioethanol CO2,” says Gary Grim, staff scientist with NREL.

Electrofuels may be another way for ethanol producers to use their CO2 coproduct to continue to create valuable fuels that lower greenhouse gas emissions. Although e-fuels are still being researched, they could give producers an inventive way to increase their output.