EPA has opened up the opportunity for grain sorghum oil to be used for making advanced biofuels and biomass-based diesel under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.

EPA has released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with biofuels that are produced from grain sorghum oil extracted at dry-mill ethanol plants and found no significant upstream agricultural GHG emissions. As such, biodiesel produced from distillers sorghum would meet the life-cycle GHG emissions reduction threshold required under the RFS.

Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor says this will allow ethanol producers who use grain sorghum as a feedstock to have an additional market for one of their key co-products. “We look forward to filing comments and working with the EPA to finalize this important rule.

The comment period will begin once the rule is published in the Federal Register.