Observe the 10-inch pipeline that stretches south from Minneapolis–St Paul Worldwide Airport, and after 13 miles, you will end up at a probably main future hub for sustainable aviation gas within the Higher Midwest.
In a deal announced in September, the Koch Industries-owned Pine Bend Refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota would obtain sustainable aviation gas (SAF)—gas made utilizing non-petroleum feedstocks, like renewable supplies or waste—mix it into its typical jet gas, and ship the gas combine by way of the pipeline to the airport, the place it is going to be utilized by Delta Airways and different carriers.
The proponents of the undertaking, together with its monetary backers Deloitte and Financial institution of America, stated final 12 months that as much as 60 million gallons of blended gas, containing probably as much as 50 p.c SAF, could be flowing by 2025, and so they intention to supply 1 billion gallons of SAF per 12 months, which might surpass the demand on the Minneapolis airport and make the hub a producer for extra airports across the nation, and probably the world. (There isn’t a timeframe for the refinery to hit this bigger goal.)
However this undertaking—and others prefer it—depends upon financial-support frameworks like tax credit or loans that had been set out below the Biden administration’s signature 2022 local weather regulation, the Inflation Discount Act, and which now could also be taken away.
Late final month, Montana Renewables, considered one of just a few US SAF producers—and the deliberate supplier of the primary batches for the Minnesota hub—stated that the primary $782 million tranche of a $1.67 billion mortgage from the Division of Vitality was present process a “tactical delay to substantiate alignment with White Home priorities.” (Montana Senator Steve Daines stated on February 11 that the funding, which is factored in to finance the undertaking, has since been unfrozen.)
Federal incentives like this are “on life assist” below the Trump administration, says Scott Irwin, a professor of agricultural and shopper economics on the College of Illinois. In response to Irwin, the Trump administration has to date proven it’s prepared to utterly dismantle the Inflation Discount Act and its funding, even when it means clawing again guarantees to farmers and companies which have already begun implementing climate-smart work.
Whereas state incentive packages together with low-carbon gas requirements nonetheless assist SAF manufacturing, Irwin doesn’t see who may step in to switch the federal authorities within the credit score stack if the funding is withdrawn. “With out the incentives within the Inflation Discount Act, SAF is lifeless within the water,” he says.
The Refinery Maths Already Didn’t Add Up
Late final 12 months WIRED spoke to Jake Reint, vice chairman of exterior affairs for Flint Hills Assets, the corporate inside Koch Industries that owns Pine Bend and several other different refineries, petrochemical vegetation, and pipelines. (Flint Hills is the corporate that struck the take care of Delta and different company companions to make use of the blended gas from Pine Bend.) Even earlier than Donald Trump was elected, Reint articulated the challenges of ramping up the SAF trade.
Beneath the plan, Pine Bend will offload the SAF produced elsewhere from vehicles operated by Shell, the distributor within the association, after which mix it with its current jet gas combine. It will require Pine Bend to order specialty pumps that he claims gained’t be delivered for a 12 months—and so they can’t be ordered till a radical planning course of is accomplished, together with exact estimates for short-term demand.
