Higher Commodity Prices Clog the Biofuels Pipeline

May 11, 2022--Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--"Buy land--they ain't making any more of it." That investment advice, attributed to both Mark Twain and Will Rogers, also identifies a key component in the biofuels availability discussion. To be sure, not all biofuels come from crops. Some comes from animal fats, discarded restaurant cooking oil and agricultural waste, but those sources are pretty fixed. As U.S. refiners increasingly add to their capacity for producing biodiesel or renewable diesel, the main option for increasing feedstock is to plant more soybeans or corn. That option quickly runs plant-base diesel--and, truly, ethanol and all crop-based renewables--headlong into competition with corn flakes and tofu. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts significant growth in the production of renewable diesel over the next decades.