Green jet fuel guidance includes corn question

May 16, 2024

President Joe Biden’s administration issued long-awaited guidance on the production of green jet fuel, paving the way for U.S. corn ethanol producers to profit from the new market.

The Treasury Department on April 30 released guidance on the tax credit available for producers of sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF.

U.S. biofuel producers have lobbied the government for months to ensure corn ethanol qualifies for the credit.

The industry is counting on SAF to make up for an expected loss of ethanol demand from autos due to the rise of electric vehicles.

Biden is calling for a surge in U.S. production of SAF by 2030 to clean up an industry that’s tough to electrify. U.S. commercial aviation consumes about 10% of all transportation energy and generates 2% of the country’s carbon dioxide pollution, with those figures growing faster than any other industry, according to John Podesta, a senior adviser to the White House on climate policy.

The tax credit provides incentives for the production of SAF that achieves a life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions reduction of at least 50% versus petroleum-based jet fuel, the Treasury Department said.

The guidance also outlines a so-called safe harbor for SAF makers who use ethanol made from corn grown using certain emission-reduction practices, including use of “energy efficient” fertilizer.

It means the biofuel makers would qualify for the credit without fear of an IRS audit or penalty, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. The same would apply to green jet fuel made from soybeans, he said.

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Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.