More Chronicles of Metamorphoses

from 2023 July Ethanol Producer Magazine

A Merchant Take On The Carbon Dioxide Industry

As we prepared to print this issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine, Southwest Airlines announced that it had been named a 2023 Sustainability, Environmental Achievement and Leadership (SEAL) award winner for its investment in SAFFiRE Renewables LLC, a pilot project supporting the development and production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from cellulosic ethanol. As we’ve reported before, SAF is a big part of Southwest's plan to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050; the airline has announced multiple offtake agreements and memoranda of understanding with SAF producers like SAFFiRE and intends to replace 10 percent of its jet fuel consumption with SAF by 2030.

SAF announcements like this seem to be happening almost weekly now, and it is all but certain that ethanol, either from future plants or existing ones, will support significant volumes of SAF production in the future. For now, SAF in the U.S., which will be largely coproduced with renewable diesel (RD) at first, will come from plant and waste oils like soybean oil, used cooking oil, and almost certainly, distillers corn oil (DCO), which is already a coveted RD feedstock. As we report in “Getting the Drop On Purification,” on page 16, the rise of RD production—already consuming huge volumes of corn oil—is setting the stage for DCO-based SAF, especially if the DCO is purified so it can be delivered to refineries ready (or more ready) to hydrotreat.

From enhanced products leaving our plants, we jump to improved products arriving in “Grain Changers,” on page 22, a look at the smart lineup of fermentation products that IFF is offering ethanol producers, as well as its nextgeneration ethanol modeling and services toolkit that helps clients make informed decisions about yeasts and enzymes. We’ve all been hearing a lot about how artificial intelligence, or AI, is going to change everything—business, medicine, finance, industry—in the future. But IFF is using advanced analytics, machine learning, AI and predictive modeling already, and it’s kind of a game-changer in fermentation science.

As our readers know, the ethanol molecule is amazing and can be turned into myriad high-value fuels and chemicals. I’ve already mentioned alcohol-to-jet fuel, but “Turning Ethanol Into Hydrogen,” on page 30, offers another example of ethanol’s incredible versatility. Specifically, we look at Proteum Energy, an Arizona-based company that wants to use ethanol as a feedstock for producing H2 fuel for the hard-to-electrify sector—namely over-the-road trucks. It’s another promising example of how ethanol could be transformed for a new use; and based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s “new energy earth shot” to decarbonize sectors currently reliant on diesel and jet fuel, it seems plausible.

Finally, be sure to read “Building for Food and Fuel”—our cover story—on page 38, which is an exclusive look at Summit Ag Investment’s reimagined ethanol plant in Philipsburg, Kansas. The former Prairie Horizons Agri-Energy corn ethanol plant is now called Amber Wave and, as its name suggests, now processes wheat—hard red winter wheat, to be specific. Summit invested heavily in the plant’s transformation after recognizing a major need for more domestic vital wheat gluten, a form of protein. So, starting this summer, Amber Wave will be the largest producer of wheat protein in North America, while also making another valuable coproduct, ethanol.

Enjoy the read.

35 Billion Gallons of Low Carbon SAF Required within the U.S. by 2050