Cargill has awarded $2.5 million to the Forever Green Initiative at the University of Minnesota to support research into new oilseed crops that can potentially produce low-carbon fuel.
The research will focus on winter camelina and domesticated winter pennycress, two crops that can produce seed-based oil for low-carbon transportation fuels while also protecting soil, improving water quality, and providing new revenue streams for farmers.
Winter camelina and pennycress could be a major climate solution for hard-to-electrify parts of the transportation sector because their seed oil can be refined into drop-in replacements for jet fuel and diesel. Grown in the off-season and with few inputs, the crops produce seed-based oil with a small greenhouse gas footprint.
Fuel made from these crops could reduce emissions by more than 60 percent compared to petroleum jet fuel or diesel. Demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is increasing rapidly—spurred by state and federal tax credits and the newly launched Minnesota SAF Hub—and the shipping industry is looking for low-carbon replacements for conventional diesel fuel. The oil can also be used for food, biopolymers, and other industrial applications, and the high-protein meal can be used for animal feed.
Forever Green is an international leader in the development of winter camelina and pennycress. The Initiative is advancing a portfolio of over 15 new perennial and winter-annual crops. By integrating these novel crops with common Midwest crops like corn, soybean, and wheat, farmers can keep their soil covered with living crop plants year-round—a strategy known as “continuous living cover” agriculture.
