Researchers are looking at how to make flying more environmentally friendly. Credit: muratart via Shutterstock.

The US ethanol industry is lobbying the Biden administration to ensure that low-carbon aviation fuels made from ethanol will be included under Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies.

The campaign claims that such fuels are necessary to reach climate goals set by the government. Biden hopes to have at least three billion gallons (11.4 billion litres) of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production per year in the US by 2030. The White House claims that this will result in a 20% emissions reduction for the aviation industry.

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Geoff Cooper, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, one of the groups involved in the campaign, said in a statement: “The inclusion of low-carbon fuel tax credits and grant programs in the legislation marked a major victory for the renewable fuels industry. But now it’s time to ensure these provisions are implemented the right way.”

The ethanol industry predicts that the corn-based fuel, used as an ingredient in gasoline, will see falling demand in road vehicles amid increased electrification.  

Under the IRA package, SAFs must yield a 50% reduction in life cycle emissions compared with petroleum-based jet fuel before it can qualify for a $1.25 tax credit.

Carbon emissions of ethanol-based aviation fuel

The emissions of SAF can be calculated in a multitude of ways and can vary according to the feedstock that producers use to make it. The industry is therefore campaigning for the US government to use a model developed by the Department for Energy (DoE) called the Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation Model (GREET).

According to campaigners, when using the GREET methodology, SAF made from ethanol has a lower carbon footprint than is currently presented under the IRA.

A coalition of industry leaders initially wrote to the Treasury in February requesting that the GREET model be used. The coalition includes the Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy, United Airlines Holdings, Delta Air Lines, and SAF producers LanzaJet and Gevo.

The US Government claims that SAF would “unlock the potential for a fully zero-carbon aviation sector by 2050”. As a biofuel, ethanol is often considered to be climate neutral due to the CO2 that is absorbed by the plants as they grow.

However, research published earlier this year, and funded in part by the US DoE, found ethanol to be at least 24% more carbon-intensive than gasoline. This was due to the land required to grow the crops, processing and combustion.

Cooper lambasted the results, telling Reuters that they were “completely fictional and erroneous” and accused authors of using “worst-case assumptions [and] cherry-picked data”.