Good morning, welcome to Green Plains Inc's Inflation Reduction Act Teach-In. Following the company's prepared presentation, instructions will be provided for Q&A. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. I will now turn the call over to Phil Boggs, Executive Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Boggs, please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for joining us today for our teach-in on the Inflation Reduction Act and the opportunities it presents for Green Plains. There's a slide presentation available on the webcast. It is also available on our investor relations website. On slide two of the deck, we have included a safe harbor statement. In summary, it indicates that we may make forward-looking statements on today's call, which are intended to be covered by this statement. Actual results could materially differ. Today, we will provide a brief overview of our progress on our transformation, take a deep dive on the Inflation Reduction Act, review various decarbonization strategies. Conclude with the overall impact to Green Plains. Joining us today is Todd Becker, President and CEO, as well as several guest speakers.
I'd like to welcome Anthony Reed, Industry Policy Expert from FGS Global, along with a couple members of our management team, Devin Mogler, Senior Vice President of Government Relations, and Jordan Sunderman, Director of Strategy and Development. After the prepared remarks, we will open the Q&A. Please keep your questions focused on the topic of the day, the IRA, carbon capture and storage, and related decarbonization opportunities. For any other company-related questions, please direct them to investor relations after the call. I'd like to turn the call over to Todd Becker for opening remarks.
Thanks, Phil. Good morning, everyone. As we talked about on our conference call, we are very excited to have an IRA teach-in, and that's what we're going to do today, and hopefully you'll find it educational, encouraging, and exciting for our company. We're excited to have you join us today for this deeper dive into the Inflation Reduction Act, and to discuss the opportunities we have to monetize the ongoing decarbonization of our platform and ingredients, as discussed on our last quarterly call. Lowering our carbon input is not new. Our carbon output is not new, as we have a long history at Green Plains of reducing carbon and having a positive impact on the environment. For starters, ethanol has a 46% lower greenhouse gas footprint than gasoline.
Increased use of biofuels, such as ethanol through expanded blends like E15, which is often sold now as Unleaded 88, already has a positive impact on global emissions today. With carbon capture and potential alcohol to jet fuel opportunities in sight, we are positioning ourselves for the future to further decarbonize liquid transportation fuels. The IRA, which we're here to discuss today, helps provide the necessary monetary incentives to further decarbonize our platform. Even before the IRA, though, we were an early investor in the Summit Carbon Solutions project to capture biogenic carbon from eight of our 11 ethanol plants, lowering our CI score by nearly a half. Additional investment is needed globally to further reduce the CI of our liquid transportation fuels, and there are numerous initiatives across our platform to do this, which we'll talk about today later in the call.
As we've been saying since it was passed last August, the IRA is a game changer in that it provides an overall structure, framework, and precise incentives that enable additional carbon reduction investments while enabling pioneering organizations, such as Summit and Green Plains, to earn a return on these investments. The IRA accelerates our strategic transformation by incentivizing additional investments in decarbonization so that we can realize our long-term goal of achieving a net zero CI, while also providing greater returns to our shareholders. Where do we stand today? How are we transforming our assets for the low-carbon future? Today, we have the capacity to bring in approximately 330 million bushels of corn annually. This renewable crop feedstock absorbs CO₂ from the atmosphere as it grows and stores it in a kernel.
Think of a corn plant as a direct air capture carbon system, and the kernels as little solar-powered batteries. This biogenic carbon capture from the natural carbon cycle is already uniquely positioned from the carbon released from fossil fuels and is part of why we've always been renewable. Our focus has always been: how do we maximize each kernel of corn and unlock its potential through a whole kernel solution to produce increasing amounts of diverse, high-value products? Our traditional dry mill process produced three products: ethanol, distillers' grains, and a little bit of corn oil, as well as the biogenic CO₂ that resulted from the fermentation process. We have focused for a while now on our acquisition of FluQuip and what it means for our expansion into ultra-high protein ingredients, clean sugar technology, and higher renewable corn oil yields.
We haven't spent as much time spelling out the full value opportunity for carbon and how we are going after it. Today, we're going to spend most of our time discussing how we can capture the biogenic CO₂, reduce our carbon intensity scores with additional technology investments, and earn a return on these investments in the process. Our first major initiative on reducing our carbon intensity is through carbon capture. We have eight of our plants committed to the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, which is on track for a 2025 startup, right in time for the IRA's new 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit to kick in, which we'll cover later in the call.
This not only begins to position our assets to produce lower carbon alcohol that can become a key feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel and existing low-carbon fuel markets, but also enables us to earn a return on any necessary investments to capture the carbon. Our three southeastern locations that aren't on Summit have potential for carbon capture and utilization as well. We're actively exploring a direct injection opportunity at our Mount Vernon, Indiana plant and anticipate this announcement in the near future, along with a carbon utilization strategy and partnership with Tallgrass and Osaka Gas out of Japan, to utilize our biogenic CO₂ from our Madison and Obion locations to produce synthetic methane, as well as exploring direct inject or transport solutions to an injection site at those locations as well.
The IRA is a game changer for Green Plains, and accelerates our transformations to Green Plains 2.0 and beyond, with key benefits in a number of areas, such as corn oil, transportation fuels, and the benefit of the capture and utilization of biogenic CO₂ itself. A number of programs exist today, whether it's the low carbon fuel standard programs across California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada, with additional states exploring incentives for low carbon fuels. New federal programs, such as the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit, which is essentially a national low carbon fuel standard that provides a carbon-based incentive for each gallon of low carbon fuel produced across our 1 billion gallons of capacity, or the 45Q incentives that are tied to tons of CO₂ captured and stored.
Now we are in the early days of seeing state-level sustainable aviation fuel credits, including programs from Illinois, Washington State, and Minnesota, all enacted this year, and we are strategically reviewing and executing to participate in these programs. Later, Jordan's going to discuss some of the individual strategies we are pursuing. For those that have been following along for a while or who have read our sustainability report, this is not a new concept. We believe there's a path ahead of us to significantly reduce the carbon intensity of our platform. Carbon capture has the largest impact for us, with about a 29 point reduction. It's the biggest bite of the apple and the first item we are executing on.
We will get into the calculations around value of the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit later, and what it means to our platform overall. Here's some simple math that the IRA provides: $0.02 per gallon for every point of CI below 50, multiplied across our 1 billion gallons of production, or $20 million per point of CI across our platform once we are below that 50 CI threshold. This transformational technology, neutral tax credit, fundamentally revalues our asset base and those of the industry, and that of any other company who can produce low carbon fuels. To be clear, we don't need to turn our ethanol into SAF to qualify for this. We are simply getting credit for our CI reduction on every gallon we produce, which previously only had an uplift in the low carbon fuel standard markets, such as California.
Beyond carbon capture and storage, we are having numerous discussions on cogeneration opportunities, which can be executed in a capital-light manner to generate a portion of our own electric power while reducing the CI from what we can pull off the grid today. Additionally, future opportunities exist as we explore thermal energy and work with our farmer customers on regenerative agricultural processes, which can lower the CI of their crops, our feedstocks, and ultimately lower the CI of every gallon of fuel, every pound of renewable corn oil and clean sugar, and every ton of ultra-high protein we produce. All of our customers want to see a lower CI for these ingredients and are willing to pay a premium. All combined, we could see our average CI score go from 60 to zero or below, and some of our plants are already below 60 as a starting point.
Our total platform has approximately 3 million tons of opportunity for biogenic carbon that we can capture for storage and utilization. This is the equivalent of removing 7 million barrels of oil use annually or taking 668,000 vehicles off the road each year. That's more than the equivalent number of EVs that most automakers are selling today. Our eight locations on the pipeline would capture nearly 2 million tons of our total biogenic carbon starting in 2025, and our three southeastern locations stand to benefit from additional investments and partnerships. There is significant upside to every gallon of ethanol we produce as we decarbonize our platform.
From 45Q, which could be based on every ton of carbon we capture, to the 45Z, which would incrementally benefit each gallon based on our overall reduction in CI values below 50, to various low carbon fuel standard programs, which are on top of the IRA value, where the lower we can get our CI, the more opportunity there would be. Now Canada, which has a fuel market the size of California, plus Washington State and Oregon, with New York and other states moving in this direction as well. We are on this journey focused on decarbonization, The IRA provides a game-changing impact that helps drive the allocation of capital to decarbonize liquid fuels production, benefiting the planet, as well as providing a return to our shareholders. Truly a win-win program.
Near-term projects could provide nearly $1 per gallon of gross opportunity, with regenerative agriculture and natural gas reduction strategies that are a little further out, the opportunity increases to over $2 a gallon. I'll come back on the call toward the end to summarize the overall impact these investments and programs could have on our financial outlook. Right now, it's my pleasure to hand the call over to Anthony Reed, a biofuels and carbon policy expert with FGS Global. You've heard me discussing these programs since last August, I thought it would be great to have a third-party expert who has spent his entire career in D.C., on Capitol Hill, at the EPA, and as a biofuels lobbyist, take you through some of the finer points of the IRA as they pertain to Green Plains. Anthony, welcome to the call.
Great. Thanks, Todd. As you all know, last August, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law after months of Democratic intraparty negotiations. Its $369 billion in investment in climate change and clean energy, including $270 billion in tax credits, is the most significant in U.S. history. After years of piecemeal, short-term extensions that limited the potential of clean energy investment, the IRA spells out energy tax policy for the next 5-1 0 years, which project sponsors and technology developers to plan with greater certainty. It has already made a significant impact, as recent estimates show that the clean energy provisions alone will be worth $1 trillion over the next decade. Most relevant today, the IRA extended the biodiesel tax credit and advanced biofuel credit, while extending and expanding the 45Q credit for CCS.
It also created a standalone SAF producer tax credit, which took effect this year. These fuel credits transition to a new, broader technology-neutral 45Z clean fuel production credit for both aviation and non-aviation fuels, that adjust the value of the credit based on reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved. This approach, which uses the tax code as an undisguised climate policy tool, is arguably one of the most significant policy changes in the package. Taken together, the IRA provides a historical set of systemic funding and tax incentives to enable the ethanol industry to monetize their products for current and future markets. To start, distillers' corn oil will continue to be well-positioned in the biodiesel and renewable diesel market with the extended BTC, while the advanced biofuel credit will continue to benefit cellulosic ethanol production.
In preparation for a marketplace which rewards increasingly lower carbon fuels, the expanded 45Q credit provides an additional $35 per ton, which will incentivize the build-out of carbon capture infrastructure, offering, on average, a 29 CI point reduction per ethanol gallon. Without any other carbon reduction strategy, that would be enough to qualify an average ethanol producer for the, both the 45Z and SAF tax credits. An additional $500 million in biofuel infrastructure funding was also included in the IRA to expand offerings of higher ethanol and biodiesel blends at the pump. The law supercharges the SAF market and low-carbon fuel markets with the creation of the SAF and 45Z credits, creating additional market optionality and opportunities for low-carbon fuels, including ethanol.
Those benefits increase, as Todd said, by $0.02 a gallon for each point of CI reduction below 50, while enabling further carbon reduction opportunities, such as working with farmers to source low-carbon feedstocks produced with climate-smart agriculture practices. These are transformative market measures not seen since the first RFS was created in 2005. Like all laws, how the IRA provisions are implemented is a critical step. As I often say, carbon is the new currency, and these regulatory processes will define the specifics of each credit and have a substantial impact on eligibilities and valuation. For the clean energy credits, the regulatory process involves Treasury, the Department of Energy, and EPA, among others, as the statute requires consultation, and Treasury's inexperience in energy policy is limited.
Treasury has been prioritizing its work based on deadlines in the statute, the complexity of the task, such as simple extensions are likely to move more quickly than newer credits, and then the effective dates of each credit. While the credits we've been discussing do not have regulatory deadlines, the industry has been making an effective case that given the time to build a project and the shorter expiration date for 45Z of 2027, Treasury should prioritize guidance for these credits. So far, the biodiesel tax credit extension is already in place, and Treasury has issued guidance for the SAF tax credit, which went into effect this year, except for the greenhouse gas modeling provisions, which I'll touch on. They have also already taken public comments on the GHG modeling for the SAF credit, as well as the 45Z and 45Q credits.
The transferability and direct pay regulations were just proposed yesterday. We expect guidance on the SAF credit to be finalized in August or September, which will inform a lot of the details of how 45Z will be administered as well. Unlike the SAF credit, where rules were issued as guidance, we are expecting Treasury to issue a formal rulemaking proposal for 45Z, which would take additional time and public comment, but also provide longer-term stability. We expect that proposal by the end of the year, with a final rulemaking midyear 2024 in advance of the 2025 implementation date. There are several key issues that still need to be resolved for the SAF and 45Z credits. Arguably, the most important is greenhouse gas modeling for the SAF and aviation portion of the 45Z credit.
The IRA stipulates that either the ICAO CORSIA model or a model with a similar methodology may be used. For non-aviation fuels under 45Z, the IRA requires the use of the Department of Energy's Argonne GREET model to calculate GHG emissions, which is a scientifically rigorous, transparent model using up-to-date data that demonstrates the increasing efficiency of ethanol production and on-farm practices. SAF stakeholders, including airplane and engine manufacturers, airlines, current and prospective SAF producers, and the broader biofuels and agriculture industry, are asking Treasury to be able to utilize the GREET model for SAF due to the shortcomings of the ICAO CORSIA model, which relies on data published over a decade ago.
Other guidance provisions, which we expect to be favorable, include the ability for producers to generate facility-specific GHG scores that may be better than default values, the applicability of low CI feedstocks in generating those scores, and the ability for developers to structure projects such that the 45Q and 45Z credits can be fully monetized. Moving forward, as we've seen the Republican House consider forms of IRA repeal, I would point out several important considerations as it pertains to the future of the 45Z credit. Number one, it's extremely unlikely that any changes to the IRA will be made during this Congress. Any changes to the IRA would need to be approved by the Senate, requiring 60 votes, and then signed by the President, who considers the IRA a legislative crowning achievement.
This means any efforts to scale back or eliminate IRA provisions are extremely unlikely to succeed while Democrats hold one or more chambers of Congress or the White House. The recent debt ceiling debate in the House showed us that these biofuel credits, in particular, have bipartisan support, which caused Republican leadership to withdraw or significantly modify the IRA repeal provision in the original House-passed debt ceiling package. This was further reflected in this week's Republican economic tax package, which had no mention of repeal or modification of any of these credits. Number two, despite the 2024 election outcome, it's very likely the 45Z tax credit will get further extended.
As someone who's worked firsthand on several extensions of the biodiesel credit and even the prior ethanol tax credit, Congress is always likely to extend expiring tax provisions, particularly ones important to a broad set of stakeholders like 45Z. It's usually more a function of finding a legislative vehicle to do so. As shown on this slide, a number of important tax provisions have expired or will expire that will push Congress to act on tax legislation, including in 2025, when we will see a significant number of the Trump tax cuts expire that Congress will want to address after the 2024 election. From a budgetary and process standpoint, it's also cheaper and easier to do shorter extensions than provide permanence, which is why continued extensions are much more likely. I think we are in a great position moving forward on this front.
With that, let me turn it back to Todd.
Thanks for the recap, Anthony. As we've been saying since last August when this bill was first passed, there's immense upside for Green Plains and for other industries as well, including others in the ethanol industry, from this new feedstock and fuel-agnostic credit. While there's still some pen stroke risks associated with some of these provisions, we are in a new era where carbon reduction has real value, and we are well-positioned to capitalize on that opportunity. As Anthony pointed out, these are transformative market measures not seen since the first RFS was created almost two decades ago. I'm going to introduce Jordan Sunderman, who's going to walk you through the details of the technologies we are implementing to allow us to unlock the full value of the IRA and low carbon fuel standard programs.
We are carefully evaluating each of our locations to ensure we are deploying capital in a manner that will provide the greatest CI reduction and return on investment. Jordan?
Thank you, Todd. We are focused on executing a strategy to greatly lower the carbon footprint of our assets while maximizing return to our shareholders. As you can see on the example we have shown, our near-term opportunities have substantial impacts to carbon intensity. Together, CCUS and cogeneration result in a total reduction of 35 CI points. That is over half the carbon footprint of our biorefineries today. As Todd mentioned earlier in the presentation, the 45Z tax credit provides an incentive of $0.02 per gallon per CI point under a threshold of 50 points. For example, if we took a biorefinery with a 50-point CI score and added cogen and CCUS, these projects together would earn $0.70 of value per gallon from the 45Z tax credit.
When we included low carbon fuel credits, assuming a price of $100 per ton, we add another $0.26 per gallon. These programs together come close to $1 per gallon of value. Longer term, we are exploring opportunities to implement regenerative agriculture programs, as well as strategies to reduce and eventually replace the usage of natural gas. This includes a combination of utilizing renewable natural gas, recycling excess heat in our production process, and drying less feed product. Together, these projects further reduce our carbon footprint to net zero. When adding up the benefits of all these projects, Green Plains has an opportunity of over $2 per gallon from 45Z tax credits and low carbon fuel credits. I want to clarify for those on the call that the amounts in this example are before expenses, discounts, and sharing arrangements with partners.
Our platform currently averages a CI score of 60 points, and therefore, 10 points would be above the 50-point threshold required for the 45Z tax credit. Though we are confident in the IRA language and the value to ethanol, we are awaiting guidance from Treasury on how the 45Z credit will be applied to our industry and low carbon fuels in general. Our first key decarbonization project involves carbon capture, utilization, and storage, which will reduce the carbon footprint of our biorefineries by approximately 50% and will further establish ethanol as one of the most effective solutions to decarbonize transportation fuels. Carbon capture and storage is a process that involves capturing the biogenic carbon dioxide that we generate from fermentation of ethanol. We will then compress the CO₂ to be safely transported and permanently stored in deep underground geological formations.
Because the biogenic carbon dioxide released from our fermentation is almost 100% pure CO₂, and contains little to no impurities, capturing compression of this CO₂ is relatively simple and inexpensive compared to other industrial sources of CO₂ capture. We view CCUS as a major step towards decarbonization of the industry, and we are pursuing carbon capture at all of our biorefineries. At many of our locations, we have capital-light options with our partners to amplify returns for our shareholders and minimize risk. Our first CCUS partner, Summit Carbon Solutions, remains on track to hit an early 2025 operational start date, and we can continue to see them make meaningful progress. Summit has over 70% of the necessary right-of-way signed up. They have more than 80% of the required port space leased.
They already secured access to a fully permitted Class VI well. They have submitted additional well permit applications in North Dakota. Green Plains has eight biorefineries signed up with Summit, equating to almost 2 million tons of biogenic carbon produced annually from these facilities. We believe that being first to market with low CI products will have sizable benefits for Green Plains, enabling us to realize the value from the 45Z tax credit earlier. Having the ability to sell ethanol into low-carbon fuel markets with a distinct advantage. Our partnership with Summit creates substantial value for the platform, with no capital investment required from Green Plains. The reduction in carbon intensity from CCS would put any of our facilities below the 50-point threshold required for the 45Z tax credit and sets us up for additional projects like cogeneration.
Cogeneration is a highly efficient system that offers a reliable and cost-effective approach to meet our energy needs and sustainability goals. These systems utilize natural gas to drive a generator, producing a reliable source of electricity. The excess heat from the electrical production is then recovered and utilized to produce steam at a high efficiency, maximizing the overall energy efficiency of our assets. We estimate that cogeneration will reduce the CI score of our biorefineries by six points on average. We are pursuing the installation of cogen systems at up to six of our sites. We expect these systems to come online in 2025 and 2026. This timeline could be impacted based on lead times for equipment and approvals from regional transmission organizations. We see multiple benefits from installing cogeneration on our biorefineries.
Cogen is a mature technology that is reliable, with an expected uptime of 98%, and reduces our dependency on the electrical grid. Also, at some of our locations, we could realize a reduction in operating costs compared to buying electricity. The cogen generation systems we are pursuing will have the ability to utilize renewable natural gas and hydrogen as an alternative fuel source. This gives us the optionality to further reduce the carbon intensity of our process. We are pursuing a capital-light structure for these projects, where we would retain all the benefits of the CI reduction without any of the burden of the capital costs. In summary, we view cogeneration as an important piece of our strategy to decarbonize our platform while improving the operational reliability of our assets. With that, I will hand the call back to Todd.
Outside of the decarbonization of each of our production facilities, there's also a massive opportunity for our farmer customers to lower the CI of their crops they produce through implementation of regenerative agricultural practices. While many farmers have already adopted conservation tillage practices, split application of nutrients, and cover crops to benefit the long-term health of their soil, they may now have additional incentives to implement these production practices as a reduced CI of their crops could translate to enhanced 45Z credit for the renewable fuels that we are producing from them. This is the final big bite of the apple that can take us to carbon-negative liquid fuels and further position us for markets like alcohol to jet, sustainable aviation fuel.
Decarbonized alcohol through these various initiatives is key to positioning our platform to be a low-carbon feedstock for SAF and motor fuels. Joining us today to discuss some of the dynamics of this potential market is Devin Mogler. Devin?
Thanks, Todd. Now that we've walked through our plan to decarbonize our assets, let's turn to the prospects for SAF. The market opportunity in this space is actually larger than that of surface transportation. As SAF, like renewable diesel, is a drop-in fuel that does not face blend limitations. The total U.S. jet fuel market is over 20 billion gallons today, and is projected to grow to 35 billion by 2050, and the administration has targeted that date as a goal for having all petroleum Jet A in the U.S. be replaced with SAF. Globally, jet fuel demand is over 100 billion gallons today, and multiple countries are setting blending requirements and introducing new incentives for SAF. Likewise, airlines have set aggressive GHG reduction commitments, almost all of their scopes one and two emissions are from burning petroleum jet fuel.
In short, the airlines need us to produce this fuel at scale, they are quite literally begging for it. This is a stark contrast to the service transportation market, where we have historically had to fight tooth and nail for every incremental percentage of the gas tank. We don't have to push SAF into this market. The airlines want to pull it into their planes, and in order to do it at scale, you need readily available, decarbonized feedstock, and the U.S. corn ethanol industry is well-situated to provide it. It takes approximately 1.7 gal of ethanol to make one gallon of SAF. Today, 17 billion gallon capacity of the existing U.S. ethanol industry could, in theory, produce 10 billion gallons of alcohol to jet SAF.
The majority of SAF today is made from the same feedstocks that go to renewable diesel, soybean oil, fats and tallows, used cooking oil, and of course, our renewable distillers corn oil. As with RD, our corn oil is advantaged to soybean oil as a feedstock because it has a lower CI, which today means a higher value in LCFS markets like California, Oregon, and Washington State. Today, under the federal biodiesel tax credit, that gallon of RD gets the $1 per gallon regardless of feedstock. Starting in 2025, when all fuel-specific tax credits transition to the 45Z, the low CI of our renewable corn oil will be advantaged there as well, not only with RD, but also with SAF. As Anthony mentioned, Treasury is currently promulgating rules for the 45Z SAF tax credit, which will inform their approach to 45Z.
We are watching two things very closely in this rulemaking. First, whether an ethanol producer can claim 45Q for carbon capture as the feedstock producer, then the SAF producing entity can also claim 45Z. Second, which lifecycle assessment model they propose as an alternative to the ICAO CORSIA model. Airlines, agriculture, and biofuels are aligned on recommending the Department of Energy's Argonne GREET model, which is codified for all non-SAF fuels under 45Z. As detailed earlier, this model allows for CI reduction from carbon capture and on-farm practices to count, has a less punitive indirect land use change penalty. If the administration wants to see SAF produced at scale, they must allow for decarbonized corn ethanol to serve as a feedstock, or domestic production will simply not take off. I'll now hand the call back to Todd to tie this all together. Todd?
Thanks, Devin. If you asked me two years ago, and I've said this before, if we would see alcohol-to-jet sustainable aviation fuel at scale, I would have said, "No way." If you ask me today, the answer is absolutely. What's the difference? The IRA. Where does that leave us regarding the financial opportunity for Green Plains from carbon? When we first began discussing the opportunity, we laid it out at approximately $0.15 per gallon net to Green Plains from our 658 gal capacity we had committed to the pipeline. This was primarily related to sharing the potential uplift from LCFS programs.
While the LCFS pricing has dropped from what it was when we started discussing carbon, our opportunity has continued to grow thanks to new incentives from the IRA, with expanded 45Q and a potential to benefit from cogeneration on-farm programs under 45Z. Our opportunity based on the entire program, and if we assume a $100 tons per LCFS or potential carbon credit value market going forward, it puts our annualized 2025 opportunity to nearly $120 million, with the potential to double that by 2027 as we execute on additional direct injection opportunities and put up to six cogeneration systems into service. This is due to the 45Z and the $0.02 per gallon per CI point below 50.
If we see the 45Z get extended beyond 2027, then this opportunity continues with the potential to grow as we work through additional carbon reduction initiatives. If it expires, then our strategy continues to be supported by the 45Q and LCFS programs, which could still be well over $100 million annually based on our eight plants on the pipelines, cogeneration, LCFS opportunities, and direct inject in Mount Vernon. These projections depend on the overall value of LCFS and carbon credits, as well as how many cogen systems we have deployed. We are not factoring in any upside from the on-farm program at this point, so any CI reduction there which, by the way, would have no capital investment, is pure upside. Our strategy is clear, and we are already executing.
Our first step is decarbonizing our platform through carbon capture and storage, CCS, through a combination of pipeline commitments and direct injection. This gets us in the money on the 45Z and provides a 12-year backstop with the 45Q. We can attack the various low carbon fuel markets that want to pay you for a lower carbon fuel, which ultimately became a feedstock into alcohol on the jet, which would be the cherry on top. Cogeneration would occur in parallel and quickly after in order to maximize the returns in the 45Z. This is all shaping us up to allow us to have a decarbonized platform in time to benefit from the initial 45Z timeframe of 2025 to 2027, and then we'll have to see if it's extended.
Based on our views and the discussions today, we believe that is more likely than not. As they say, there's nothing more permanent than a temporary government program. There always will be pen stroke risk, the broad coalition of support from industry stakeholders will only grow, and with it, the bipartisan support for these programs. The opportunities for the on-farm programs could lead to further upside with minimal capital. Carbon layered on top of where we are going with our protein, renewable corn oil, and clean sugar opportunities in the years to come, the future of Green Plains is bright. Our 2025 plan continues to be intact across all phases. We have five MSC facilities completed, with our JV on track to start up in early 2024.
We are awaiting permitting from the state of Illinois, so we can take the next steps on our Madison location. We have a real opportunity to begin commercializing 60 Pro late in 2023, and could have 20%-30% of our portfolio going to 60 Pro in 2024 at a minimum, and rest assured, we will keep you apprised of our progress. Our first clean sugar location is under construction in Shenandoah and on track to start up in early 2024, and we continue to find new ways to unlock more of the renewable corn oil from each kernel. 2025 is not the end destination for our business, but rather an important milestone in our transformation, so I wanted to give everyone a peek at the potential of the platform, if we can go out a little bit further.
Remember, this is blue skies, but if we blue sky the opportunity, what could 2027 begin to look like across all four pillars of our protein, oil, sugar, and carbon? While we wanted to lay out the potential, we may not hit 100% in every phase, as some of this is just out of our control, the opportunities are real. In protein, we have an opportunity to continue to expand our 60% protein adoption widely could drive significant value to our platform, as every $100 a ton premium equals $0.06 per gallon.
If we are able to achieve an additional $200-$300 tons premium on top of the premium we received relative from DDGS to soybean meal, now to these higher values, from our completed platform, you can see that this potential is enormous, all without investing additional capital to achieve it. Again, this is without any government policy pen stroke risk. We have some exciting aquaculture prospects that are willing to pay for 60% protein and even more if it is low CI, and the recent challenges with the anchovy season in Peru is supportive to our strategy. Our corn oil is trading at up to a $0.12 premium to soybean oil, driven by our lower CI as it provides as a feedstock.
With the growth in renewable diesel demand and the enhanced value from the IRA, on top of the LCFS programs, it could once again track into these price ranges we have laid out in the future. For clean sugar, once Shenandoah is online, we are focused to move quickly to expand our capacity to several billion pounds in the future, depending on demand. Demand for this low CI-95 dextrose equivalent is even stronger than we originally anticipated, and every prospective customer conversation gives us more optimism for the transformative nature of this technology. While this program will require some capital, which we believe in the neighborhood of $1 per equivalent gallon of ethanol converted, the market is seeking incremental low-carbon dextrose capacity, and we have the IP and the platform to provide it, and again, without any government policy pen stroke risk.
Add that to all the opportunities we defined on this call to decarbonize our platform and the concrete incentives provided by the IRA to do so, we have the opportunity to expand our impact well beyond 2025. The opportunity for our business continues to grow, the opportunity to provide low-carbon feedstocks by decarbonizing our platform positions our ingredients to have a meaningful impact as feedstocks for low-carbon transportation fuels and low-carbon feed ingredients. As Anthony said, carbon is the new currency, our platform is well positioned to be at the nexus of agriculture, energy, and technology to capitalize on the opportunities to decarbonize. Before we take any questions, I also did want to provide just a quick company update on the status of our Wood River facility.
We are beginning to start it up as we speak and anticipate that it will be online fully by the end of the month. With that, we would be happy to take some questions at this time if we can open up the call. Thank you very much.
The floor is now open for your questions. To ask a question at this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point you'd like to withdraw from the queue, please press star one again. Please limit your questions to no more than two at this time. If you wish to ask additional questions, please rejoin the queue. We'll now take a moment to render our roster. Our first questioning comes from the line of Kristen Owen from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking the question. As usual, lots of material that we can dive into, but, I wanted to come back first to some of the Treasury guidance and, how we should think about those milestones. Anthony, you gave us a lot of great information, but if I could ask you to sort of double-click on timing of Treasury guidance and how to think about those milestones, maybe over the next 18 months.
Yeah. As I said, I think we're expecting the SAF, the 40B tax credit guidance here in August or September. That will be final guidance for that credit, giving us line of sight on how they're addressing the modeling issues, which are also contained in 45Z. We're expecting a proposed rulemaking approach to the 45Z credit because it's new, a little more complicated, it also gives it some lasting, it's harder to undo a rulemaking. We expect that rulemaking later this year. They'll take public comment on it, like a normal rulemaking, we expect a final rulemaking on the 45Z credit guidance probably midyear next year in advance of the credit going into effect January 1, 2025.
Okay. Thanks for that. If I could tie that to what you just walked through, Todd, on sort of the uplift, some of the blue-sky outlook. Just help us understand how much of the premium pricing, you're assuming from the lower CI score versus, say, using protein as an example, just the incremental protein and move up the J curve, so we can parcel that out a little bit?
From the standpoint of the ingredient, the consistent message from our end users, especially around going to 60% protein, it is: How does it compare to the carbon intensity of competing products from corn gluten meal through soy protein concentrate, all the way up to fish meal? We believe through the data that we have, you know, when you put into add in regenerative farm programs, we have the lowest CI ingredient out there, which satisfies a lot of their desires, which is why we're just starting to see acceptance of our 60 Pro product into global aquaculture. We have, we are in process of negotiating on sales for late 2023 and 2024, and we think we'll have some success there.
We're seeing expansion in interest, both domestically and globally, and actually mainly globally for our 60% protein product. We believe, like, when we look at a couple of our lanes, we own and control the 60 Pro market today based on our technology package, as well as our partnership on the biology side. We think we own and control the dextrose 95 DE opportunity coming out of a dry grind facility, first of its kind. Takes a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort, and a lot of science and technology, and we believe we own and control that lane. Our first plan comes out in 2024, early 2024, and we believe that's a game changer for us, as we mentioned in previous calls.
A lot of it still comes down to: Can you provide us lower CI dextrose than what we can buy today? What's the opportunity to co-locate near this dextrose, and is there hydrogen available? That's oftentimes we get a question: Is there hydrogen available? Well, the cool thing about our industry, you know, when we look at things from renewable chemicals that will need hydrogen to SAF that will need hydrogen, is our biorefineries, actually, the whole ethanol industry's refineries, sit on natural gas pipelines and are gonna sit on a and a lot of them are gonna sit on a carbon pipeline, like the Summit line.
When you crack open that natural gas molecule and you break it down and you take the hydrogen, you could still ship the dirty carbon on a pipeline while shipping our biogenic carbon as well, or while using that hydrogen, shipping it on a pipeline, and then making something out of the sugar as well. It's really interesting how this is all kind of starting to play out. Number one, you have to have the asset base. While at times we've had as high as 1.8 billion gallons, we have somewhere around 1 billion gallons of capacity today. Again, opportunity is wide open for not just us, but lots in the industry around decarbonization.
I think what's really interesting is when you kind of take a look at all of that's happening in our industry, I, and I said this on the last call, I believe that this industry, from an asset value perspective, is off its lows and will continue to because you can't just build them next, you know, the next day, and it's gonna give us great opportunities. When you take all of that and put it together, there isn't any more available feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel than low-carbon alcohol will be.
That's great. Could ask a lot more questions, but I'll leave it there. Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate you being on the call today.
Our next question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, Don and team, I just want to run. I know you are on a capital-light strategy. I think it's a great strategy. Out there is a part of this IRA. Everything is DOE handing out a lot of loans at a very low interest. Are there any of your projects you think could qualify for a DOE loan? Are you talking to them? Help us understand if you can use this cheap financing to your growth advantage.
Yes. I think when we look at our capital light strategy, it's gonna be around things like cogeneration and combining power systems, where we partner with a cogen partner who's looking for a PPA, a power offtake. We get to buy our energy at market or below. They get a return on the investment, and we get to keep all the CI. For us, that's the best opportunity that exists from a capital light. We can buy our CHP systems, but from our standpoint, let somebody else with possibly cheaper capital go do that, and we participate there. In terms of the pipeline, certainly that's capital light today, where we participate, that we don't have to buy our compression equipment, which is... Yes, did we give up some value for that, to do that?
We also don't have to spend, you know, $500 million on compression equipment either, and we still get a significant benefit. We're very happy with the decision we made, not having to outlay the capital for the compression equipment with our partnership with Summit. Lastly, you know, when we look at things that are available under the DOE, we're getting a lot of interest, actually, in our dextrose to energy, dextrose to chemical partners, which that's where I think DOE will be a big opportunity for us, is that we bring to the market new sources of low-carbon 95 DE that can be created into everything from energy to biochemicals. We'll make the investment in the dextrose.
We want to sell the dextrose, uplift our margin, but our partner then makes the investment into the energy or the chemical side, and that's also capable of DOE loans. That would benefit our ability to not use our own capital because the dextrose facility would be part of that. We're working on partnerships like that as well. Yeah, some of it applies, but some of it we're probably not just gonna go after, just because no reason to put any excess leverage on our balance sheet and the fact that we can make these capital light, that works really well.
Yeah, perfect. I'm just gonna quickly go back to the IRS guidance. You gave us an understanding of the timing. Also, help us understand that as these guidelines come out, what's the absolute blue-sky scenario for you in terms of what would you like to see in those, you know, clarity on guidelines which would help GPRE the most?
Yeah, I'll turn it back over to Anthony and Devin and let them kinda comment on that, and I can close after they speak. Guys?
Yeah, the most important thing is, you know, being able to have facility-specific credits, which we think they're moving in that direction, and then also the lifecycle analysis modeling. It's very much locked in in statute that it's the Argonne GREET model for non-aviation fuels for 45Z, but getting that an alternative model to ICAO CORSIA to open up that cherry-on-top scenario for SAF would be important there as well. Anthony?
I would add the other piece of that, too, which we also think is going in our direction, is the ability to quantify low-carbon feedstocks, like low-carbon corn for climate smart ag processes, given how much of a percentage that can contribute to carbon reduction for ethanol production.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Our next question comes from the line of Ben Bienvenu from Stephens. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. I appreciate all the information here. I wanna ask, you know, like Manav, I think the asset, the asset-light strategy here makes a lot of sense as you kind of wait for the permanence of some of these things to become more tangible. As you see the roadmap unfurl, and particularly as you start to continue to kind of close the chapter on the capital spending with MSC and Clean Sugar, what are the things that you'd like to see to perhaps allocate more capital and be less capital light as you move to take advantage of some of these opportunities? Then I have a follow-up question.
I think on the carbon program, you know, when you look at it's pretty well in line with how we're thinking. I think in our Eastern program, if we do finalize this opportunity we are working on, which we think, you know, sometime in the next 30, 45 days, we're gonna have a plan to talk to you about some of our Eastern facilities. That will be capital that will be needed to be deployed. Could we go capital light? There's a possibility, but the economics of that are very far superior to just shipping it on a pipeline. They always will be. So we think potentially there is an opportunity to deploy capital in the Eastern programs. I think value add, you know, if we do find value-added opportunities that, you know...
And potentially going all the way to SAF. I mean, you saw one project announced already. I think there's gonna be a multitude of strategies deployed to put SAF at destination, put it at origin. Where's the hydrogen? Where's the demand? Our partnership with Tallgrass and United is an example of that, where we would look to potentially all three of us deploy capital to do something in between Denver and Chicago. I mean, I think it's the big thing first is let's monetize our decarbonization in the most efficient capital strategy that we have, and then from there, where can we deploy that, some of that free cash flow next? You know, I think that's something that we'll look at.
You know, as we have said, if sugar hits, that will take capital as well, and we have to start thinking well beyond Shenandoah, Clean Sugar number one, to start already planning for where. You know, expecting success based on the customers we're talking to, where would we start to work with our customers? We are working with many customers today in Clean Sugar, to where they want us to deploy number two and number three. We would do that in concert with potential customers that would want to use those locations to maximize their returns as well.
We will have no shortage of places to invest, kind of post MSC, but I think we have to remain a bit open to where the direction of that'll go and remain as capital light as we can on some of these carbon strategies, to just to get to that next level.
Okay. Very good. My follow-up is related to kind of your positioning within the industry, which I think is relatively advantaged when you look at your peers. I'm wondering, you did allude to the fact that you would expect the industry to be able to participate in some of these programs, and I'm wondering, kind of as a consequence of that, how you would expect kind of the ethanol margins of the overall industry to shift ex this. Meaning, as there's more participation in these programs, you know, maybe the cost curve steepens and then flattens again. What do you think could ultimately happen to the industry as that kind of tug-of-war takes place with participation juxtaposed with, you know, potentially these huge demand in markets like SAF for alcohol to jet?
Yeah. The first thing is who's gonna be decarbonized first? Which pipeline gets up and running, which pipeline gets funded, and who's gonna be able to do that? Which direct inject project? You know, there's several that are underway with our peers that, I wish I had some of those opportunities, because those are excellent opportunities that some of our peers have been talking about. Then on top of that, you know, where's other ways to use carbon? That others are announcing as well. I think there's gonna be, first is who gets to attack the 45Z from 2025 to 2027 first?
Our view is that Summit is, has a great opportunity to go early, and if you're on that pipeline, you're gonna be able to attack early opportunities around monetization of carbon. Some will take longer, so that's the first step. Ultimately, you know, will the rest of the industry catch up? Will other pipelines get built as fast? You know, we'll wait and see on some of those. There's some that will probably be faster than Summit, and some that'll be not as fast as Summit. You know, we're looking at those opportunities. I think, when you, when you take it to the end game, yes, if everybody does carbon, will we have to give it away?
I don't think that's the case at this time, because you do have the 45Z, you do have a growing blend rate in the United States on motor fuels. Low carbon fuels are extremely important to anybody that sells fuel to the consumer. On top of that, the SAF, alcohol to jet, to SAF, is a real opportunity. As I said, I wouldn't have believed it two years ago, but I believe it today because of the credits and the programs that are in place, and there's technologies out there. You know, we're developing one, doesn't mean we wouldn't buy another. You know, we've talked about some of what we believe are the ones that are available today that are ready to be commercialized.
You know, if we get to 2028 after we all decarbonize, and we start making, somebody starts producing alcohol to jet-. You are going to have a push-pull that we've never seen before in this industry, because jet fuel can take everything we make. How are you going to satisfy the Clean Air Act for motor fuel, which is about 9 billion gallons of base need, if the economics are so good for jet fuel? I think that's going to be the, probably the bigger opportunity for this industry. I think those discussions on, will we have to give it away? Who's going to take it? How is it going to get shared? How are we going to use it? Those are going to be all in the past.
Okay, very helpful. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Adam Samuelson from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning, Adam.
Good morning. Hey. I guess the first question is I want to is you framed the EBITDA scenarios in 2025 and 2027 relative to the potential implications of the different tax credits. I want to make sure kind of I'm properly understanding how you're seeing kind of the net value capture to GPRE, given some of the capital light sharing that you're and project sharing that you're doing. It looks like on the decarbonization in 2027, which presumably is 100%, is either on the pipeline or capture or direct injected. With Cogen, that decarbonization line on a base case is worth roughly $200 million of EBITDA, which I believe would correspond to the $0.70 a gallon full value of the 45Z that you present on slide 17.
You're capturing, around a third of the full 45Z value. Am I interpreting that right? Again-
Yeah, you have to do it. Well, not a third. It's probably a little, you know, it's somewhere between kind of $200 million-$280 million, is kind of how we're rounding it out, just depending on what you can go after. Remember, there is expenses.
Right.
You get your 45Z tax credit, you have to pay your pipeline charges, or you have to pay your direct inject charges. There's going to be expenses after that. You're going to definitely be. You know, that's the gross number. The net numbers are gonna, you know, settle in those, in those ranges of about 30%-50% of what you'll be able to keep out of that. If you go after all of it, you get decart, you get cogen, you get direct inject, or you get pipeline opportunities, and then on top of that, you get some other carbon points elsewhere for some doing other things like RNG and other opportunities. You know, that's the opportunity that we kind of look at, is what's the net available capital.
So we're trying to be at least a bit conservative from that $200 million-$280 million range for the ultimate amount that you can go after conservatively. Then on top of that, you know, you can get creative on going after farmer carbon and other things as well, but we just want to give it from our base platform.
No, that's exactly that. Gross to net conversion is exactly what I was trying to make sure I understood then. Along those lines, from an LCFS perspective, I mean, between Canada, California, Washington, Oregon, I mean, maybe New York, down the road, I mean, what percentage of your liquid fuels do you actually think you could sell into markets that actually have a state level or non-U.S. federal LCFS standard, that would be additive?
Yeah, I mean, it's not just, but you have to take it in two parts. Yes, we're going to go after those markets, but also, yes, we believe that carbon will have value as well. The question really is there a, is there going to be markets that are satisfying carbon obligations? What are those credits going to be worth versus monetizing them in the LCFS markets? Yeah, I mean, there's definitely billions and billions of gallons of alcohol that can go that way. When you look at Canada, what they're gonna import, California demand of a couple billion gallons, you've got Washington, Oregon, New York, so you know, a couple billion gallons plus. You start to have real demand for the, for these gallons.
With, and Jordan can comment on with what CARB is doing around pulling forward some of these targets. That's why we're using $100 today, maybe $90, maybe $120, maybe $60. We kind of settled in at $100 because of what CARB is doing around pulling some of these credits forward. Correct, Jordan?
Yeah, they plan to raise their targets to a reduction of 30% by 2030. We are estimating that those targets will start to be impacted in 2025, we should start seeing prices rise from that market near term, maybe as soon as 2024. In terms of reaching those markets, you know, we believe all of our Western Corn Belt plants can reach LCFS markets today. Now with Canada's program, we think some of our Eastern plants can now reach it. A vast majority of our plants are gonna be able to reach these markets, especially when we can get CCS installed at these facilities.
Got it. Okay, there's a lot of ground covered today. I asked those two questions, so I'll pass it on. I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yep, thanks for coming on the call.
Our next question comes from the line of Salvatore Tiano from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, thank you. Great presentation. I wanted to ask firstly, about, I want to see if I understood correctly, on some of the slides where you have the components of 45Z and other benefits. If I understood correctly, you mentioned that because you're going from a 60 CI to 29 points lower, you could get $0.58 from 45Z, if I understood correctly. You are assuming, therefore, that the 10 point decrease to 50 is also going to give you credit? If, did I misunderstand it? Also that's also based on slide 10 as well, or is that your interpretation of what you're pretty much trying to say here?
No, I mean, remember, we are starting with an average of 60. If you get 30 points off of that, you get down to 40, so you get 20 CI points to monetize. Those are your first 20 CI points to monetize. Some plants we already have are below 50 or at 50, so you're gonna get full monetization there. Some of it's a bit scaled. After that, if you go to your cogeneration, you know, you have an opportunity there of, you know, another 6-10 CI points, depending on how you do it. Again, another $0.12-$0.20 a gallon, which we kind of put on an average of $0.17 a gallon. You know, there's just, you have to start at...
You start earning below $50.
Yes
-some things there as well. You don't start at 60. The first 10 points are not. You don't get anything for it. That's kind of how we came up with those numbers, if that makes sense for you.
No, I agree. I'm just looking at slide 10, where it says the 45Z tax credit would be $0.58, implying that you would get benefits from going from, essentially, from the 10 points, from 60 to 50, unless I'm missing something in that chart.
We're just showing that as a, as a generalization overall of the program, that if you get 29 points times $0.02, you're gonna get $0.58.
Yes.
Depends on where your starting point is. By plants that start at... Oh, then it's the incremental. It depends what your starting point is. If you start at 50, you get all of it. If you start at 60, you don't get all of it.
Yes.
It's where you're starting from.
I guess my point is across your network, though, if we're to apply with a broad brush, you'd actually we should take the first 10 points out on average because you wouldn't realize that. Okay, perfect. The second, you know, since we do have the opportunity to ask some policy experts about the 45Z tax credit extension, you know, which is only for 2025 to 2027. Firstly, what is your view about not being extended because the cost of the IRA has ballooned? I know you mentioned that, typically many of these credits have been extended, including 45Q, but I think there were recent articles saying that the cost of the IRA was budgeted at $400 billion, and already, based on projects being announced, we're talking about $1 trillion.
Is there actual concern that these many of these provisions, including 45Z , may not be extended? Secondly, when we talk about an extension, historically, many times the extension doesn't mean that you keep on getting the credit. It just means that new projects qualify for it. To say it differently, if you produce SAF in 2025, you only get the 45Z credit for three years. An extension doesn't mean you keep on getting it for more years. It just means someone who starts in 2028 will also get a three-year credit. Can you talk about your view on an extension and what it truly would mean? How many years you would get the 45Z credit?
Devin or Anthony, you want to address that?
Sure. This is Anthony. I'll take the second one first. Just to clarify, you would continue to get the credit in any year that the 45Z credit exists. If you think about it, like the biodiesel tax credit, as long as it's live for a calendar year or up until its expiration date, you can continue to get the money per gallon for that tax credit. There's no stipulation about when the projects are constructed or begin operation. Any extension would continue to benefit anyone who's producing enough to a carbon reduction to qualify for the credit. On the cost, a couple of things.
This is an issue that's come up in the past with other, with other credits. What I will say is that historically speaking, when Congress does their tax extender package to extend tax credits, by and large, they are not paid for. The idea that there needs to be an offset or they need to go make cuts in other government spending to pay for it, that is generally not been applied to tax extender packages. Again, I use the biodiesel tax credit as a reference. The last major extension of five years was not paid for. I would further point to the House tax package that just was approved this week.
Republicans, as a general rule, kind of view tax policy as accretive to revenue. Generally, they view those as not necessarily having to be paid for. That is how Congress has generally handled extensions of existing tax policy, is not paying for it. I understand the concern about the cost. When they do these extensions, that's how they've handled it in the past, and that's how I would expect it to be looked at going forward.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Craig Irwin from Roth MKM. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. Most of what I would have focused on has already been asked. One near-term question, right, that I think drives the model for all of us is corn oil yields in your high-pro process . Can you maybe update us on your progress developing higher yield processes? You know, what will it take for us to get to blue sky as far as the potential capture rate of corn oil in the future? And what sort of CapEx is involved in that to roll that out across the existing platform?
Yeah, we have three major R&D initiatives around what we're doing. I'll give you a couple of them. First one is 60 Pro, and potentially up to 70 Pro on protein. On oil, it's getting our yields to 1.3 and above. Obviously on dextrose, making sure that our 43 DE product is of the highest quality, and we're in the process of doing that at York today. If we focus solely on our oil opportunity, Fluid Quip has upgraded a system, a third-party system actually, to prove the value of their technology. We didn't want to do it in line with our systems, today, they're getting as high as 1.3 lbs and 1.4 lbs , we'll update the market on that as we just get more and more data around it.
We are understanding on how to unlock the oil in the kernel. There's still another half a pound after that, potentially, or 0.6 lbs. You know, we're gonna then take those learnings and put them back into MSC. We think there's some other technologies to apply. You know, part of the thing about corn oil today is that the starting points are now higher. We have plants without MSC that are over 1 lbs already today because technology has changed, but that's OpEx versus CapEx, so we're looking at the combination of that as well. I mean, the industry is learning how to get more oil out. They're paying more attention to their machines, but I think there's ultimately that limits itself right around 1.0.
We think we're gonna make good progress to not just stop at 0.15 lbs to 0.2 lbs per bushel uplift, to go to 0.2 lbs to 0.4 lbs per bushel uplift. We think we're very close, and we think that that technology is ready not only to deploy within our own platform at our MSC sites, but also externally as a opportunity for plants to get, you know, towards that 0.25-0.35 uplift.
Great. That's solid progress. Good to hear that. My second question's about the $0.30 a gallon you outlined for natural gas reduction replacement in the 45Z tax credits. You know, am I correct in assuming that this is predominantly from the adoption of cogen? This technology has been settled technology for a long time, right? Cogen is, you know, relatively low risk for adoption. You know, what do we need to understand or see for the potential risk around this $0.30? Is there potentially any upside in that, in the existing 45Z credit as expected?
Yeah. I'll let Jordan talk in a second here, but cogen is cogen, and natural gas replacement is natural gas replacement. I think those are two absolute differences. The first one is, you know, cogen is through our reduced electricity using natural gas, actually, to power the turbines to make our own electricity cheaper and lower carbon. On top of that, you could have natural gas reduction strategies. We have products today that need to be digested on-site and made into renewable natural gas on our own sites today. We're just slow as an industry, and we're I don't know that the technology is close to take some of our products today that maybe we put back on, maybe we make disappear, maybe we sell off cheap, to put those in anaerobic digesters and start to capture the renewable natural gas from that.
That's the next step for this industry, not just Green Plains, but this industry, where, you know, we believe that where we're gonna go next is to not use those waste streams for anything but natural gas replacement in the future. I think within the next 5 years, and even probably quicker than that, you're gonna start to see this ethanol industry transition to doing things like that. Jordan, what else was on that?
I think you covered a good portion of it, Todd. You know, the 15 CI that we're attributing that, you know, isn't really related to the cogeneration piece. It's gonna be a host of strategies around, you know, what's the impact of natural gas after we do our near-term strategies on our platform, and we have a host of different solutions to attack that score. Depending on location, we can dry less feed product and gain the CI from using less natural gas there. There's longer-term strategies, as Todd mentioned, around the RNG piece. Further, you know, heat recovery and natural gas reduction work that we can do, to get that score, removed from our CI.
You know, some of it, again, Craig, is post-combustion carbon that we don't even talk about, that we're capturing off of all the other equipment. That actually has potential for any. Again, if you own an ethanol plant, so it's not just Green Plains, but post-combustion carbon alone is not in many of these numbers, and there's many CI points there to go capture off of boilers and other parts of the equipment and ship that on a pipeline as well.
So we've made sure that when we negotiate with our partners, wherever we are going to ship or store or sequester carbon, it's not just gonna be the biogenic from the fermentation carbon, it's the other post-combustion carbon that we capture as well, and that is already being worked on and is the next step to carbon capture in this industry. It's not just be for Green Plains, but it's a technology available today.
Just as a point of clarification, if I can. Anaerobic digesters are also settled technology. You know, obviously, many examples out there that are functioning well, not necessarily for the ethanol industry, but these tend to be quite capital-intensive projects to build. I'm assuming that your analysis is that these would be built by third parties.
Yeah.
with Green. Okay. Okay, excellent.
Yes, you are correct. We have been approached and have been in discussions with third parties who want to do that while we get the benefit. Of what we need out of it without having to put the capital out there as well. There's some technologies in South America that are being deployed today for some of our flows out of our plants that we can put in place as well. Again, that would be try to be as capital light as we can on those processes. Thank you.
Thanks again for this presentation today. Really great detail. Thanks.
Thank you.
Our final question comes from the line of Andrew Strelzik from the BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. This is Ben on for Andrew. Thanks so much for fitting me in. What a great presentation. I have just a question on corn oil. A, how do you view any current offtake agreements materializing? B, if you could, now that we have the government experts on the phone, what are your views on the RVO delay?
I'll answer A, and I'll let Anthony and Devin answer B. You know, we have been in and out of discussions for the last several years, and thus far, we haven't found anything that is more appealing than just being in the market. You know, we are constructive on our view of veg oil pricing long term. While we came down pretty aggressively here earlier in the year, we've come back aggressively on the other side. What we have finally, and I think this is really important. We delayed or we didn't do anything, you know, when corn oil would trade at a slight premium or a slight discount to soybean oil, you know, not locking in something long term was the right decision.
Because today, you know, we can get somewhere between kind of $0.05-$0.12 a pound over soybean oil consistently. Yeah, I mean, some days might be a little less than that, but we have sold forward in the last half of the year as high as $0.12, $0.10-$0.12 a pound over soybean oil. If I would have been locked into an offtake agreement, I would be locked in a much lower premium than what I, we believed the market was capable and willing to pay. Once we got through a couple of things on the RVO, but more so once we got through or once we got to some of the startups of the new RD plants that are out there.
On top of that, what Devin mentioned, it might be good, before you start, Devin, on the government program, talk one more time about the impact of corn oil to SAF and why that's even worth more as a premium to vegetable oil as well. I think we did the right thing. We're still in lots of discussions. We still have discussions with people about longer-term offtakes, monetizing our corn oil flows. We know it's always there. We're increasing our corn oil. We want to get up to 400 million pounds once we deploy all our systems. I think, you know, that's a pretty good, given that most of those cash flows will be there and are intact, and now we're achieving better premiums, and now it's time to maybe re-up some of the discussions.
I think you have to listen to Devin one more time because he talked about it in the script earlier on the impact of SAF from corn oil. Devin, if you can talk one more time on that, and maybe comment on the RVOs?
Sure thing. On today's structure of a $1 per gallon biodiesel tax credit, that the feedstocks are treated the same. The CI doesn't matter. Soybean oil and corn oil have the same value under the federal tax credit. Starting in 2025, with the 45Z, the CI matters. Where it already matters in the California, and Oregon, and Washington State programs, now it's also going to matter for the federal credit. You get more value from a gallon of renewable diesel you produce or a gallon of sustainable aviation fuel you produce if you make it from our renewable distillers corn oil versus soybean oil. I'll let Anthony take the RVO delay question.
On the RVO delay, I don't think I would read anything into that. If you remember, there was a consent decree for them to issue the proposal in November. That got delayed. EPA asked for a two-week delay before they put out the proposal, and there was nothing kinda new that they were trying to get finished or changed on the proposal side, and there's nothing we picked up that they need another week to adjust anything. I think this is just general government. They want another week to dot the I's, cross the T's, pick their own announcement, window. I wouldn't attribute it to anything specific being changed or being reconsidered in the proposal.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for coming onto the call today. We covered a lot. We wanted to get in front of you to talk broadly about the impact of the IRA to our company, but also educate you more deeply into some of the nuances that are very important to our programs going forward, such as what Devin just discussed around 2025, and what happens to the value of corn oil then as a premium to soybean oil, because you do get a even a higher credit under the new 45Z program. Those are all beneficial, but those are all nuances that potentially, as all of us read the IRA, we don't see some of those things. We wanted to give you a good education on...
With experts, not just me talking, on the IRA and the impact to our company and our industry, and broadly. On top of that, we wanted to kind of give you another look into where we're heading. We're making great progress on our protein, oil, sugar, and decarbonization. Protein with our 60 Pro initiatives we are putting in place. Hopefully, we start to see some success there. That takes our returns significantly better on our assets that we've put in place, and really lines us up well for our 2025 plan. Oil, we're using $0.70 a pound today, ±. We're not that far away from that in our numbers, but we're gonna have to watch and see what happens there.
You can see the value of corn oil and low carbon oil continues to gain traction. Dextrose, more to come on that. We have lots of discussions with potential customers, high value, multinational, very large conglomerates, all the way down to smaller, independent food companies. More to come on that as well. Then decarbonization, you see the opportunity. When you look at all that, our guidance remains on track. What we're doing is everything to set ourselves up for that area going forward.
I think also, which we didn't talk about, I appreciate that we stayed on task here, is that the fundamentals of our liquid fuels that we produce every day around ethanol, whether decarbonized or not, are actually very interesting at this point, as we see gas demand recovering from pre-COVID lows. Weekly driving demand is up, exports are up, Canadian programs are up, hopefully, that sets ourselves up as a company, as an industry for the last half of 2023 as well into 2024, to fundamentally have a better market than we saw for the last couple of years, and we're hoping for that as well. Again, as we said, Wood River is in the process of starting back up. We appreciate you jumping on the call today.
Have any other questions, Phil is always available. We can jump on calls with you for follow-ups. Hopefully, this was educational. Hopefully, this helped your understanding of the IRA and the impact of Green Plains, and we really appreciate your support, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.