Green Plains is moving assertively toward a biorefinery model that does not center ethanol production. The company owns and operates 11 biorefineries in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana and Tennessee. Early in 2023, Green Plains, Tallgrass Energy and United Airlines announced a joint venture in Blue Blade Energy, which is currently in the process of developing the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s catalyst technology. The potential for SAF production provides Green Plains with another customer for its ethanol besides oil companies. Todd Becker, CEO of Green Plains, explains the company’s strategy and focus moving forward. “We’re slowly moving away from being wholly dependent on [fluctuating gasoline sales] every day at the pump,” Becker says. “It’s going to take a while, but I am one hundred percent certain we will look very different two years from now than we look today.”

SAF is not the only endeavor Green Plains is pursuing to diversify its products; the key pillars of Green Plains’ business focus moving forward include protein, sugar, corn oil and carbon. Becker discussed Green Plains’ status on each of its various pillars, along with the future of the U.S. ethanol industry and how the company is pursuing new markets.
 
Blue Blade
The announcement of Blue Blade as a joint venture between Green Plains, United Airlines and Tallgrass Energy to optimize PNNL’s catalyst for commercial-scale SAF production lays out the roles each partner will play. Currently, Green Plains is assisting in optimizing the catalyst. Should it scale up successfully, Green Plains will play the role of operator for the pilot and eventually commercial-scale refining facilities. Green Plains’ focus right now, within its role as the future feedstock provider for Blue Blade, is to work on lowering the carbon intensity of its alcohol.

Becker sees opportunity in SAF at a time when gasoline usage in the U.S. is shrinking. Since widespread adoption of higher blends seems uncertain to Becker, SAF is a good way to use that volume in an industry that needs it. “They want our fuel, and that’s the difference this time. The airlines want sustainable aviation fuel. The automakers were influenced by Big Oil, and they didn’t care if Big Oil controlled the gas tank and controlled the gas station,” he says. “It’s really going to be fascinating to watch this whole thing play out, but we’ve got to decarbonize; we need a strong U.S. ethanol industry.”

Becker explains that the company’s alcohol, which is currently going into gas tanks, needs to shift to other outlets, even though ethanol is a low-cost, high-quality octane additive. Expansive blends would be a great solution for the ethanol industry, but blends like E20 or E30 still have an uncertain future. “Alcohol-to-jet is really the path that has to work, and I think it will work actually. But it’s really, really important that we’re successful in converting our ethanol into jet fuel,” Becker says.

Decarbonization
The decarbonization efforts Green Plains is involved with are key to making sure the alcohol it produces  stays competitive, whether it is used in an alcohol-to-jet process to make SAF, or in ground transportation. One of the major efforts Green Plains is pursuing in the decarbonization sphere is signing eight plants onto Summit Carbon Solutions’ CCS pipeline, which will capture each facility’s fermentation CO₂, transport it to a sequestration site and deposit it underground. Along with this strategy, Green Plains also has partnerships with Tallgrass and Osaka Gas to explore the feasibility of producing synthetic methane and synthetic natural gas. Becker explains that the company is also considering strategies to lower CI scores associated with electricity and heat, such as implementing combined heat and power technologies or using renewable natural gas.

“We’re being open to the fact that there will be many winners [in] lots of different areas, whether it’s going to be around jet, or it’s going to be around carbon,” Becker says. “If we just choose one and we choose wrong, we’re not going to be in a great place. But if we are kind of involved in a lot of different opportunities ... we’ll see a lot and determine what’s the best opportunity for us to be involved in.”

Clean Sugar
One of Green Plains’ pillars is clean sugar production. At the 2022 International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo, Becker talked about developing clean sugar technology with Fluid Quip Technology, which Green Plains and partners BlackRock and Ospraie acquired majority interest in back in 2021. Becker says clean sugar is still a major emphasis for the company, and progress is being made on construction of the first commercial-scale system at the company’s biorefinery in Shenandoah, Iowa.

The technology will make dextrose that is equivalent to sugar produced at a wet mill, while having a 50 percent lower CI score, according to Becker. “It’s extremely difficult,” he says. “You’ve got to put  [up] significant dollars and invest behind it. You just can’t build it and think you’re going to make dextrose equivalent to what comes out of a wet mill. It’s not as easy as that.”

The goal is to reach 43 percent to 95 percent dextrose equivalent. While the first commercial-scale facility is under construction, Becker is confident that it will be successful and provide Green Plains with an important new market, giving them freedom to move away from being a conventional participant in the ethanol market. “Some of our plants will still make alcohol, just not all of them can be converted into sugar based on location, so we’ll make the low carbon alcohol, but the sugar is really where we’re going,” he explains.

Protein Markets
Clean sugar technology will not be the first time Green Plains has utilized a technology developed by FQT. Over the last few years, Green Plains has implemented FQT’s Maximum Stillage Coproduct system and, subsequently, its sales of high protein to customers around the globe has proven even more successful than anticipated, according to Becker. “We’re sold out every day. It’s not easy to bring a new product to market, and it’s a very different product than distillers grains—it has unique characteristics—[and] you can do many different things to alter its performance. [It’s] a very different way to run your plant,” he says. “But we’re really excited about our protein technology.”

The company has seen success in a variety of markets, including aquaculture, pet and poultry feeds. Becker explains that the Green Plains’ plants are not settling for 50 percent protein; instead they continue to upgrade the product, both in protein levels and in palatability and amino acids levels. FQT’s system has reached 60 percent protein, and 70 percent protein is in sight. “If we have customers that we are committed to, we will absolutely sell our 50 pro, but our goal is to move up to protein purities, move up very fast, and sell very high value products to the world,” Becker says.

FQT has been a key partner in pursuing clean sugar, oil and high protein, due to its deep bench of intellectual properties and expertise on a variety of “precision separation” technologies, Becker explains. “What we know how to do is take that little kernel of corn and go find the very highest value product in it, and we know how to get it out, we know how to separate them [from each other],” he says. “And nobody else in the world—in my view, in my opinion—nobody else in the world can do it as well as Fluid Quip can.”

Industry Outlook
Diversification is Becker’s strategy for the future of Green Plains; pursuing markets in SAF, protein, oil and more are key to adapting and ensuring the longevity of the ethanol industry. “This has to work for this industry because gas demand is not going higher; it’s only going to go lower in our lifetime,” Becker says. “But it’s not going to go higher. And that’s something we’re going to have to come to grips with as an industry.”

The U.S. ethanol industry has an oversupply problem, according to Becker. “This industry has some soul searching to do to determine how ... we earn more as an industry instead of making as much as we can without a market that will take all of it,” he says. Looking ahead to 2023, Becker sees this year as a challenge and an opportunity. “We just make a product that needs to compete every day, and we are just a little oversupplied,” Becker explains. “I think we need a little rationalization in our thought processes around what this industry really wants to be.”

Although some Green Plains plants may keep producing ethanol and supplying it for ground transportation, the company plans to think creatively and seek out the highest value markets for the products produced.

Author: Katie Schroeder
Contact: katie.schroeder@bbiinternational.com

PRINTED IN 2023 MAY EPM