First biofuels flights run on corn processed at Gevo

Minnesota corn made history Tuesday when Alaska Airlines flew with alcohol-to-jet biofuel made from corn at the Gevo plant in Luverne.
The recently certified fuel underwent extensive testing and analysis and received certification from ASTM International last month.
Tuesday’s flights were the first to be flown on Minnesota corn, and Beaver Creek corn farmer David Kolsrud said this is significant in the world of renewable fuel and commercial agriculture.
“This is a big deal,” said Kolsrud, one of several local farmers to build the Luverne ethanol plant 20 years ago.
“We’re starting to bridge that gap between the environmental community and commercial farming.”
This “circle of life” corn and beef production (feeding corn and applying manure) allows farmers to leave a lighter carbon footprint in their operations.
“Most of the arguments about farming’s effects on the environment are based on antiquated practices,” Kolsrud said.
“Today’s farmer uses modern technology and is better for the environment — they use less tillage and chemicals and more precision nutrient management.”
He said farmers have adapted well to more environmentally sustainable practices, but they haven’t done well communicating these successes with the public.
With Gevo’s launch of commercial biofuel in Tuesday’s Alaskan Airlines flight, Kolsrud said the message is finally reaching consumers where the discussion is most intense — in California and Washington, D.C.
“It’s going to start changing the dialogue of the argument about food versus fuel, which was actually started by others in agriculture (chicken production) who wanted cheap corn,” he said.
Kolsrud shared results of a survey of local farmers who supply corn grain to Gevo’s isobutanol facility in Luverne, and he said it offers an unprecedented glimpse of practices and outcomes for local farm operations.
“One thing is abundantly clear: Regardless of how we parse the data, these farmers stand out from the so-called average U.S. corn farmer, whether we are talking about their ability to produce corn at impressively high yields or we are talking about their ability to manage their land and resources as parsimoniously as possible,” the survey’s executive summary states.
“Both aspects of this community of producers point to a corn grain supply that stands head and shoulders above the U.S. corn producers in terms of its sustainability.”
Kolsrud said these might be obvious observations, but they’re lost at the national level of promoting sustainable, low carbon biofuels.
For Tuesday’s flights, Alaska Airlines used a mixture of traditional petroleum and a 20 percent blend of the biofuel on two flights departing Seattle for San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
The biofuel being used for these flights has been derived from carbohydrates sourced from sustainable corn production in Luverne.
Alaska Airlines was the first U.S. airline to fly multiple commercial passenger flights using a biofuel from used cooking oil.
The carrier flew 75 flights between Seattle and Washington, D.C., and Seattle and Portland in November 2011. The airline has set an ambitious goal of using sustainable aviation biofuel at one or more of its airports by 2020.