Increased demand for biofuels has sparked higher use of nitrogen fertilisers throughout the Midwest. Photo / Rory Doyle, Bloomberg via The Washington Post
The Millers are a family of beekeepers in Gackle, North Dakota, a tiny farming town about 112km east of Bismarck.
It was five decades ago when they began their labours here amid the endless swathes of sweet clover, alfalfa and the variety of other plant life that bees thrive on.
North Dakota has long been a top honey producer, churning out 18 million kg every year and bringing in close to US$67 million. All of it courtesy of these undulating fields of wild grasses, and the buzzing insects who return to them each year.
“It was bee paradise,” said Jason Miller.
Not anymore. That paradise is slowly being transformed into a heaving ocean of corn and soybeans.
Corn production in North Dakota alone has quadrupled to 6.6 million ha since the turn of the century, crowding out the diverse vegetation bees depend on.
Part of the reason has been the growing use of corn and soybean ethanol in biofuel, which mixes agricultural and waste feedstocks with fossil fuels for use in combustion engines.
More recently, it’s the promise of a newer biofuel that agricultural lobbyists and some environmentalists hope may someday supplant an intractable source of greenhouse gas emissions: jet fuel.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 created a US renewable fuel standard in part to decrease dependence on foreign oil.
In 2021, President Joe Biden’s “Sustainable Airline Fuel Grand Challenge” turbocharged interest in jet biofuel, offering tax breaks to encourage production of 11 billion litres of it by decade’s end.
The aim was to help shrink the carbon footprint of air travel while locking in demand for US corn and soybeans, especially as the rise of electric vehicles shrinks traditional ethanol use in cars.
Biofuels also can be made from animal fats, algae, waste cooking oils or agricultural waste such as wood chips and straw.
While the US Environmental Protection Agency is to evaluate all of the pathways for corn or soybeans to produce SAF, the agricultural industry and its lobbyists continue to prepare for what they hope is a fait accompli.
In the last year, US production capacity of SAF jumped from 5000 to 30,000 barrels per day, according to government estimates, with much of the increase tied to new facilities coming online.
And despite conflicting signals from the White House, the Trump Administration just unfroze a US$1.67 billion Biden-era loan for biofuel processing plants.
The downside of making jet biofuel from corn or soybean production is that it will likely fuel significant land transformation, according to several expert analyses, including one by Braden Limb, a research scientist at Colorado State University.
According to his study, about 50% more cropland is needed for corn and soybeans to meet the 2050 SAF production goals.
“The maximum amount of land that we’ve converted to cropland in a single year (700,000ha), would have to be quadrupled every year for the next 30 years,” said Limb.
And while collateral damage from efforts to slow global warming is not a new phenomenon, the expanded use of undeveloped land for biofuel-friendly monocultures and its destructive effect on bee populations could be especially significant for food production, the broader environment-and people like Jason Miller.
“We used to make 140 pounds [63.5kg] of honey per beehive,” he said. These days, Miller’s bee colonies appear to be weakening. This year, he averaged only 33 pounds (15kg).
The bees that once thrived in North Dakota and places like it are the backbone of a US$400m paid US pollination industry.
Miller’s bees follow a pollination circuit in the spring, from almonds to apple and stone fruit orchards throughout the West. By late summer, they return to North Dakota to produce honey.
Honeybee populations already face a number of stressors - disease, pesticides and poor nutrition.
Stressed bees are vulnerable to colony collapses: only a year ago US beekeepers lost more than half of their hives, according to an industry study.
Katrina Klett, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota who studies land use change and honeybee health, has seen up close the negative effects of grasslands giving way to corn.
“What I fear is that we’re not going to attach the environmental ethics to sustainable aviation fuel,” Klett said.
“If we properly attach environmental metrics and outcomes to tax credit payments, we could move the needle to support farmers to adopt practices that increase diversity on the landscape.”
As demand for air travel soars, so does aviation’s climate impact. According to the International Air Travel Association, air traffic rose more than 10% between 2023 and 2024, making it one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Aviation contributes roughly 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions but is responsible for at least 3.5% of human-caused climate change.
Airlines have been exploring the few options available to lower emissions, including SAF. The industry has committed to biofuel use and the International Civil Aviation Organisation adopted an ambitious target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which would require significant biofuel inputs.
Researchers such as Limb point to crops other than corn or soybeans, like sorghum and miscanthus, that can be used for biofuel but aren’t as damaging to ecosystems.
“All of our optimisation worksays corn and soybeans are not the answer,” Limb said.
There are forces at work that may yet forestall the mass repurposing of grasslands for biofuel.
In 2022, the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit, created by Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, crafted more incentives for domestic production and sale of low-carbon transportation fuels.
The Republican tax and spending bill passed this summer, while extending the credit, decreased the US$1.75 per gallon credit for SAF to US$1. Without that added subsidy, it may be difficult for SAF to be cost-competitive with regular jet fuel.
The bill did, however, change how biofuel sustainability is calculated in a way that makes it easier for producers to qualify while still clearcutting forests or eliminating grasslands.
“Existing policy incentives make renewable diesel more profitable for most biofuel producers.”
There are other reasons SAF may still be too expensive to justify the investment.
Jet fuel purity standards require complex processing and specialised equipment, and current feedstocks for SAF - including virgin vegetable oils - are typically more expensive than other biofuels.
“Existing policy incentives make renewable diesel more profitable for most biofuel producers,” said Andrew Swanson, an agricultural economist at Montana State University.
Still, agricultural lobbies continue to express eagerness when it comes to jet biofuel given the effect EV use is having on corn and soybean ethanol markets.
While pushing for a higher percentage of ethanol in fuel blends used in land transportation, organisations such as the National Corn Growers Association and state-based trade groups are seeking more government incentives to use corn and soybeans for SAF.
Another driver of aviation biofuel is the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), an initiative that aims to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions from international flights.
CORSIA is a three-phase international agreement - the first two phases were voluntary, but beginning in 2027, CORSIA becomes mandatory for most of international aviation, with some exceptions. Under the agreement, airlines must measure, report, verify and offset emissions that exceed the 2019 baseline.
For environmentalists, just the threat of SAF-directed agriculture in places like North Dakota is a sobering thought, especially given what’s happened elsewhere.
A new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, found biofuel demand drove the conversion of 1.7 million ha of forest to oil palm production in Indonesia and Malaysia between 2002 and 2018.
Turning wild grasslands into homogenous fields of corn and soybeans remains a “very real problem for biofuels”, said Jeremy Martin, director of fuels policy at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, in a November 5 blog post.
There are other troubling consequences of the US biofuels push. Proposals for its production far exceed current domestic availability, meaning current mandates can only be met with imports and diverting vegetable oil from food to fuel, which will raise the cost of both while accelerating deforestation.
Swanson said the wild card in the SAF debate is trade, noting that the US exported almost 2 billion gallons of corn ethanol last year.
“If US exports declinethen we will need to find ways to increase domestic consumption - increasing land-use change pressure.”
SAF advocates such as Veronica Bradley, director of environmental science for the industry lobby Clean Fuels Alliance America, counter that existing biofuel sources - used vegetable oil, beef tallow and forestry wastes - could satisfy near-term demand, as could shifting uses for corn ethanol amid the EV boom.
For now, it appears the uncertainty over regulatory policies and incentives has put both the threat and promise of SAF, and in some respects the expanded use of biofuels in general, on hold.
“There is no real indication that we will move towards a clear widely applicable standard for assessing land-use change and biodiversity impacts,” said Swanson.
“This puts the SAF industry in a difficult position. Contradictory policy standards will mean that by catering to one market you are cutting off the opportunity to produce for a different market.”
Back in North Dakota, Klett said beekeeping families like hers and the Millers remain worried about what comes after that uncertainty lifts.
“Folks are concerned about how sustainable aviation fuel production could change the landscapeunless we get the rules right.”
- With assistance from Marie Monteleone.
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