Heard on the Floor at FEW

What goes on at ethanol’s dazzling annual get-together? Behind the pomp and away from the klaxons and kleig lights, there’s serious thought leadership underway, and the Digest’s intrepid Jim Kendrick was on the scene in Omaha this week at the Fuel Ethanol Workshops. He filed this report on the major stories not otherwise covered in our Novonesis yeast launch story from earlier in the week.

Renewable Fuels Association calls for EPA action, E15 access, and 45Z clarity

The Renewable Fuels Association is advocating for policies to “unleash American ethanol,” according to its president and CEO Geoff Cooper, who delivered the keynote address to the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Omaha, Nebraska on June 10. The priorities: finalize strong Renewable Fuel Standard volumes for 2026 and beyond, pass year-round E15 legislation, expand international ethanol trade, establish fair emissions regulations for fuel technologies, and clarify implementation of the 45Z clean fuel tax credit.

But the RFA says time is running out. Cooper warned that the window to deliver policy certainty is narrowing and inaction will prolong market stagnation, undercut farm income, and weaken U.S. energy security. “Markets absolutely hate uncertainty,” he said.

Each point, Cooper said, addresses a major bottleneck. The EPA has yet to issue proposed 2026 renewable fuel volumes. RFA is calling for at least 15 billion gallons for conventional fuels and 5.25 billion gallons for biomass-based diesel. “Those volumes need to be real,” Cooper said. “They cannot be undermined or eroded by small refinery exemptions or any other sort of EPA waivers.” RFA opposes the 169 SRE petitions pending before EPA, some dating back more than a decade. “RFA has been regularly reminding EPA that if it approves any SRE petitions, it has a legal obligation to reallocate the exempted volumes to other non-exempt refiners.”

E15 remains a top priority. A legislative fix to allow year-round nationwide sales was cut from a December funding bill, but Cooper said bipartisan support is still strong. EPA’s latest emergency summer waiver helps, but is no substitute for lasting reform. He also called for removing rules that require fuel retailers to prove pump compatibility, arguing, “Lots of the existing equipment already in the field would be perfectly compatible with E15.”

On trade, U.S. ethanol exports hit a record 1.91 billion gallons in 2024 and are on pace for 2.1 billion in 2025. Cooper cited recent negotiations that secured duty-free access to 370 million gallons of U.S. ethanol in the U.K., and said talks are underway with India, Japan, and Vietnam. President Trump, he noted, pledged to “make it our mission to export ethanol all over the world.”

Regulatory fairness was another major theme. Cooper said previous standards overfavored electric vehicles and sidelined liquid fuels. “We believe any regulations focused on GHG emissions need to be fair and honest in how they account for the carbon impacts of different fuels and vehicles,” he said. “They need to be science-based. They need to be technology neutral. And we should be letting consumers in the marketplace determine the best ways of reducing carbon.” He pointed to flex-fuel vehicles running on E85, which RFA believes can match or exceed the emissions performance of EVs depending on the grid, often at a lower cost.

On the 45Z tax credit, Cooper said the program “needs clarity, certainty, and desperately some stability.” Though the credit was meant to take effect January 1, final regulations are still pending. A House budget bill would extend the credit through 2031 and remove indirect land use penalties, lowering CI scores by about 10%, but also repeal transferability after 2027 which Cooper warned could make it hard for producers to monetize the credit. Other issues, like prevailing wage rules and inclusion of climate-smart practices, remain unresolved.

The RFA sees these policy fixes as critical to restoring demand and reversing losses in the ag economy. Corn prices have dropped $2 per bushel since 2022, production costs are up, and many farmers are heading into a third year of negative margins. “They can either throw more taxpayer dollars at the problem,” Cooper said, “or they can unleash American ethanol.”

Who tamed whom? Leaf by Lesaffre’s Marcelo Amaral on fermentation, flexibility, and the future of ethanol

In San Francisco, Marcelo Amaral, General Manager of industrial biotech Leaf by Lesaffre, stepped into a driverless taxi and thought of yeast. It was a Waymo, one of the autonomous vehicles gliding through the city like something out of a thought experiment. “Initially my response was whoops, that’s scary,” he said. Then came the switch. “A fraction of a second later, I just enjoyed it.” For him, the ride was not just transportation, it was metaphor.

Fermentation, he says, is entering a phase like autonomous driving: responsive, adaptive, and deeply informed by data. He calls it “digital fermentation.” Its goal is to empower ethanol producers, who live on tight margins and shifting inputs, to respond dynamically to real-world pressure.

Fermentation has always been about change. For Lesaffre, founded in 1853 (the same year Louis Pasteur began unravelling the mysteries of microorganisms), this means navigating complexity with humility. “Fermentation makes you humble every day,” Amaral said. Leaf, the company’s biotech division, operates 80 fermentation sites across the globe. It supports ethanol producers from Nigeria to Brazil, the U.S., and beyond, facing volatile energy markets, variable feedstock quality, and climate shocks that hit without warning.

The challenge isn’t simply scientific, it’s financial. “Ethanol remains a commodity,” Amaral said. “Producers need to make money. That’s the foundation of everything.” Leaf’s approach is to equip producers with technologies that are capex-light but capability-deep: genetically advanced yeast strains, fermentation software, metabolic engineering. The goal is flexibility. “We’re working toward a plant that doesn’t just run, it adapts. Not just longer or shorter fermentation, but dynamic fermentation.”

The industry, he argues, has lagged behind others. “Since the 1970s, oil and gas refineries have learned to adapt to different feedstocks. Our industry hasn’t had that,” he said. “But it’s coming.” Leaf is investing heavily in yeast libraries, microbial platforms, and the data tools needed to translate variability into resilience. “We see the future in pairing biotech with process intelligence,” he said. “That’s how we help customers respond: not in two years, but now.”

Amaral traces ethanol’s arc through a lineage of adaptation. In the 19th century, Austrian distilleries began using compressed yeast from breweries to make better bread. Two Austrian immigrants, the Fleischmann brothers, carried that concept to America, establishing a yeast industry that helped reshape how the U.S. baked. “But it wasn’t copy and paste,” Amaral noted. “The U.S. had different strains, different realities. They adapted.”

That contextual, collaborative, and iterative model defines how Leaf works across continents today. “We learn from feedstock variations in Germany, from temperature events in the Midwest, from startups in Africa. But we don’t assume what worked in one region will work in another. We co-construct.”

This work, Amaral said, requires a sense of shared responsibility. “We can’t pretend to know what others need. We test it, prove it, at the customer site. We get our boots dirty.” And increasingly, the feedback loops are shorter. With extreme heat now disrupting fermentation performance more frequently, Amaral sees a growing need for systems that sense, interpret, and adjust. “You don’t have time to debate why the corn is different. You just need to make it work. That’s the level of maturity we need.”

The future of ethanol, in Amaral’s view, lies not in preserving tradition but in evolving its core functions, especially in light of new uses. “SAF, light-duty transportation, biochemicals: ethanol has a future. But only if the producer is profitable.” His analogy is clear: oil and gas companies have lobby power, scale, consolidation. Ethanol by contrast is decentralized, driven by farmers, cooperatives, and local investors. “If we don’t protect the base, the system collapses.”

The role of Leaf, then, is to empower. “We bring biotech that works now,” Amaral said. “Sometimes it’s a bag of yeast. Sometimes it’s a digital tool. But it has to respond to today’s pressure.” As he put it: “That’s what motivates us. The producer’s problem becomes our problem. And when they succeed, we succeed.”

Asked whether humans tamed yeast or the other way around, he laughed. “We selected them for beer, for bread. But to make ethanol, we had to farm. So maybe yeast made us settle down.” Either way, the relationship endures. And as the climate warms, the margins tighten, and demand shifts, Leaf’s strategy is simple: stay flexible, stay connected, and above all, stay humble.