While hard to find many positives with commodity prices down, a Farmfest panel shared excitement around the possible future of sustainable aviation fuel in the state.
MORGAN, Minn. — Farmers gathered inside the Farmfest grounds in Morgan on Tuesday, Aug. 5, said they needed something to improve the current negative margins they are seeing in major commodities. They also needed something that would get the next generation excited about farming.
Minnesota Farmers Union president Gary Wertish said farmers must look to emerging opportunities. Wertish was on a panel speaking to the topic of building sustainability in Midwest agriculture on Tuesday afternoon of Minnesota Farmfest’s three-day event in Morgan, Minnesota. Sustainable aviation fuel was the central opportunity of discussion that had farmers hopeful for a new market and businesses like Delta Airlines hopeful for local access.
Jerry Groskruetz, farm director of KDHL Radio, a Faribault, Minnesota, radio station, said one thing putting sustainable aviation fuel in a strong position is that it’s where ethanol was 30 years ago in the state, yet even before farmers are pushing for the industry to grow, a market already exists.
“We’re ahead of where we were 30 years ago,” Groskruetz said.
Charlotte Lollar, director of Sustainable Aviation Fuel at Delta Air Lines, agreed. She said not only does a market exist, but existing infrastructure can also be used to create the jet fuel that companies like Delta , and those around the world are looking for. Every commercial airline has a target of reaching some level of sustainability, she said.
“And that market is huge. Every year, we consume about 100 billion gallons collectively, globally, of conventional jet fuel,” Lollar said.
While Minnesota wants to lead in the area of SAF, the world also wants SAF. Wertish said this became clear on a trade tour to Japan.
“Officials on the Japanese airline … that’s the first thing he said: ‘We want sustainable aviation fuel,’” Wertish said.
Several factors are involved in getting Minnesota and the world, SAF, though.
Panel members shared that the SAF tax credit in Minnesota is helpful in pushing this industry forward. It offers tax credit to producers of sustainable fuels and those that blend it, both are areas that require expensive infrastructure. But there was discouragement that the 45Z credit at the federal level has not made it across the finish line. That credit is another tax incentive for those who produce sustainable fuels. Like getting anything else done, it requires looking beyond party lines, Wertish said.
The good news is that experts know how to make SAF, it is currently being used, and they know you can make it from a variety of crops, wood, oils and fats. On the infrastructure front, Minnesota is planning to complete construction of a SAF blending facility that would be the third in the country.
But there remains work to be done on the most sustainable way to make SAF.
It makes sense that corn would be in the crosshairs as it is already grown on about 8 million acres, or about a third of farm acres in the state, according to Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen. But ask what the best crop is and you may get different answers. That’s because determining the carbon index score of any crop does not have a standardized measuring tool, according to Julia Silvis, managing director of the Minnesota Sustainable Aviation Fuel Hub. She said this is a key area that farmers need to share their input on because of competing methods of tracking carbon.
“Try to say to the people who are building these systems, we need it to be more standardized. We need to have it not be as burdensome to use or to understand, frankly,” she said. The public and banks need to be able to understand the method.
The SAF Hub has seen major movement since it started two years ago, including the first flight with SAF out of Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport last year. They announced that a blending facility is being built at the Pine Bend Refinery near Rosemount, Minnesota, and they worked to create a consortium of buyers of SAF.
This year they are focused on an opportunity to announce production of SAF in the state. The blending facility is expected to be operational this winter. She noted that there are headwinds they must face at the federal level, but that through coming together and building innovations, they will find a way forward.
“You know it’s good for energy and resilience,” Silvis said. “It’s good for rural communities. It’s good for the environment, it burns cleanly. And it fits in with sort of the domestic energy agenda that we are seeing develop from the Department of Energy.”