Minnesota Corn joins hub moving toward sustainable aviation fuel
Minnesota Corn announced it has joined the Minnesota Sustainable Aviation Fuel Hub. The organization joins the GREATERMSP Partnership, Delta, Ecolab, Xcel Energy, Bank of America, and several other organizations in its mission to create a model for scalable sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
GREATER MSP Partnership CEO Peter Frosch said the coalition is an unprecedented approach bringing together industry leaders around a joint goal of reducing emissions.
“Our SAF Hub will accelerate progress toward decarbonizing the airline industry nationally while also creating thousands of good jobs across Minnesota,” Frosch said. “It is good news that some of the world’s most innovative companies are combining forces to build SAF production at the scale the market demands and at a pace the climate requires. Together, we are recruiting the next set of partners to join this effort to build an integrated SAF value chain in the center of North America’s economy.”
As Minnesota Corn finalizes the partnership agreement with GREATER MSP, Executive Director Adam Birr noted that Minnesota Corn is excited for what the partnership could mean for corn farmers in the state. “We’re starting from scratch here, but we’re no stranger to that—having been there with the ethanol industry,” Birr said. “There is huge opportunity here for corn demand through this partnership. We’re just getting started, but you will be hearing a lot more about this in the coming months.”
“We really look forward to moving ahead with everyone,” said Gary Prescher, chairman of the Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council. “We realize this is a long-term project and there’s really good opportunity for us to be part of getting the ball rolling here.”
Delta uses more than 250 million gallons of jet fuel each year at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and has set goals to use more than 10% SAF fleetwide by 2035. “While we can electrify some on-ground functions, 98% of an airline’s carbon footprint is in the air,” said Jeff Davidman, Vice President, State and Local Government Affairs at Delta. GREATER MSP undertook an analysis earlier this year which found that Minnesota’s abundance and diversity of agricultural feedstocks was a key advantage to creating a SAF value chain here.
Davidman said joining the MN SAF Hub along with Minnesota Corn and other industry leaders was a no-brainer for Delta. “Minnesota is taking a nationwide lead on this endeavor. We looked around the world to see where SAF made sense and where it can lead. Minnesota, time and time again, jumped to the top of the page.”
To learn more about the Minnesota SAF Hub, visit greatermsp.org/pages/saf/.
