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The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that ethanol set a record for its share of America’s gasoline in 2021, averaging 10.34 percent of every gallon sold. The final EIA data for 2021 also confirmed a significant rebound in both ethanol production and consumption after COVID-related shutdowns in 2020.

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper said the data underscore the resilience of the U.S. ethanol industry and highlight the fact that the so-called “E10 blend wall” continues to crumble.

“Ethanol’s share of our nation’s gasoline continues to rise, as consumers are increasingly drawn to lower-cost, lower-carbon options like E15 and E85,” Cooper said. “Based on the EIA data, we estimate that 600-700 million gallons of ethanol were consumed in blends other than E10, proving that the oil industry’s so-called ‘blend wall’ is nothing but a figment of their imagination. As war in eastern Europe destabilizes global petroleum markets and crude oil prices continue to rise, our nation’s leaders should be taking steps to increase the use of cleaner-burning, homegrown ethanol. We have enough unused production capacity in the ethanol industry to entirely replace U.S. crude oil imports from Russia.”

Cooper touched on many of these themes in his State of the Industry address and press availability at last week’s National Ethanol Conference.

Jean Claude Mbarushimana, Daehwan Kim, Traci Menke, Bill Pracht, Geoff Cooper, Jessica Sodeke, Justin Diehm

Those receiving scholarships included Jean Claude Mbarushimana, a Virginia Tech graduate student studying agricultural and applied economics and several members of the Renewable Fuels Association Young Professionals Network including Daehwan Kim, an Assistant Professor of Biology at Hood College; Justin Diehm, Commodity Manager at East Kansas Agri-Energy; Traci Menke, Executive Assistant at Renewable Fuels Nebraska; and Jessica Sodeke, Ethanol Program Manager at Nebraska Ethanol Board.

“We were happy to see such a positive response to our call for applications and we are impressed by the caliber of these seven young men and women,” said Bill Pracht, chairman of RFF and CEO of East Kansas Agri-Energy.

Mbarushimana, who is from Rwanda, was thrilled with the chance to attend the conference this week. “I’m meeting different people who are innovating in the industry,” he said. “It’s a great networking opportunity.”

2022 National Ethanol Conference Photo Album

The first female chairperson of the Renewable Fuels Association has had a pretty quiet two year term, thanks to COVID, but Jeanne McCaherty of Guardian Energy is excited about the future.

“I’m more bullish on ethanol today than I have been in my entire career here at Guardian,” said McCaherty at the National Ethanol Conference in New Orleans this week.

One reason McCaherty is so optimistic about the future is because of the new leadership she sees coming up in the industry’s Young Professionals Network. “We are really pleased with that group,” she said. “We have 140 professionals that have joined that group and that is our future.”

As the first woman chairperson of the organization, McCaherty organized a brand new women’s leadership group which met for the first time at the conference. “We got nearly 50 women who came so I consider that our founding group,” she said.

Listen to McCaherty’s address to the conference and interview below.

A pair of studies released this week in conjunction with the National Ethanol Conference this week in New Orleans show an industry that strongly rebounded in 2021 and is ready to move forward into a net-zero future.

Following up on a pledge by members of the Renewable Fuels Association to achieve average net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 or sooner, one report shows that new and emerging technologies and practices could help the industry achieve this vision well before mid-century. “Pathways to Net-Zero Ethanol: Scenarios for Ethanol Producers to Achieve Carbon Neutrality” by 2050, was prepared by lifecycle analysis expert Isaac Emery, Ph.D., of Informed Sustainability Consulting LLC. Altogether, the study identifies five distinct pathways to net-zero corn ethanol by 2050, based on a set of 28 emissions reduction actions that were considered.

Emery discussed the results of the study during a panel at the conference.
NEC22 Isaac Emery, Net Zero study (13:26)

The second study, conducted by ABF Economics, shows how the U.S. ethanol industry “recovered substantially” from pandemic conditions in 2021, with ethanol and gasoline use approaching pre-COVID-19 levels in the second half of the year. Due to the combination of resurgent demand and higher values for ethanol and co-products, the ethanol industry’s contribution to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 was the second-highest ever.

In 2021, more than 73,000 U.S. jobs were directly associated with the ethanol industry, which supported an additional 334,200 indirect and induced jobs across all sectors of the economy. The industry created $28.7 billion in household income and contributed just over $52 billion to gross domestic product. Compared to 2020, this represented a 55 percent increase in income generated and a 50 percent increase in the contribution to GDP.

RFA Chief Economist Scott Richman summarizes the findings of the two studies in this interview.
RFA Economist Scott Richman (5:01)

2022 National Ethanol Conference Photo Album