Donnell Rehagen is chief executive officer of the Clean Fuels Alliance of America, formerly known as the National Biodiesel Board.
Rehagen grew up in the Jefferson City area of Missouri. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from Missouri State University and a master’s in public administration from the University of Missouri. He rose to become fleet director for the Missouri Department of Transportation before moving over to the biodiesel board in 2004, when he became its chief operating officer. He assumed the role of chief executive officer in 2016.
IFT: How did you first become involved with the National Biodiesel Board?
REHAGEN: It was about 2002. I was fleet director for MoDOT and wanted to try to make the fleet more green. Somebody told me I should take a look at biodiesel, but at the time it was very hard to find. So I found out about the National Biodiesel Board and they were only about a mile from my office. They were gracious and worked with me. A couple of years later I decided to move there.
IFT: Could you give us a brief history of the organization?
REHAGEN: It was formed in 1992 as the National Soy Diesel Board when state soybean boards from Missouri, Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota got together. In 1994 it changed its name to the National Biodiesel Board. It worked with farmers and with the industry to promote and develop the product. In 2021 the board changed the name to Clean Fuels Alliance America to reflect the organization’s position representing biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuels.
IFT: How about some history of biodiesel production?
REHAGEN: The short version is that in 2004, when I joined the organization, the U.S. production of biodiesel was about 75 million gallons. Now it is about 3 billion gallons. We are also working on developing markets for and production of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, both of which have great promise. Those products are made largely from the same feedstuffs as biodiesel, but the processing is different.
IFT: Ethanol was developed before we saw much biodiesel. Many of the political battles over biofuels have been about ethanol, and biodiesel seems to sometimes have been caught in the crossfire. Could you address that relationship between the two fuels?
REHAGEN: We think of ourselves as the younger sibling of ethanol. We learned from its mistakes and struggled at times to get out from under their shadow.
IFT: The recent federal Inflation Reduction Act, also known as the reconciliation bill, included items regarding biofuels. Tell us about that.
REHAGEN: There were several good things in that bill. There was an extension of the biodiesel tax credit. That credit had often been allowed to expire in the past. In 2019 Congress passed a two-year retroactive extension and then added three more years, through 2022. This extended it two more years and then added three years based on carbon reduction. We’ll see how that plays out. It will change the dynamics.
The bill also included money for infrastructure that will help. Those grants will help. Those are strong signals the government is sending, and they make people in our industry a little more confident.
IFT: There has been a great deal of talk about electric vehicles. What does that mean for biodiesel?
REHAGEN: We are watching the push toward electrification. But diesel is used for things such as rail and trucks and boats, etc. We think there is still a home in those areas for biofuels as industry looks to de-carbonize.
Using biodiesel could reduce carbon use by 74% compared to petroleum products. For example, if WalMart wants to reduce its carbon footprint by 40% by 2030, it will have a problem doing that without reducing the carbon in its transportation and shipping. And it’s worth noting that carbon adds up, which means reducing carbon use now is better than reducing carbon later. We think we can make a relatively quick impact.
IFT: You mentioned other products. Could you talk about those?
REHAGEN: Renewable diesel is a good potential market. It uses a different production process that is a little more expensive, but there is demand out there for it. We expect a billion gallons of new renewable diesel demand in the next 12 months and another billion in the 12-18 months after that.
Sustainable aviation fuel also has promise. Again, it uses the same feedstocks but a different process. Electrification is not yet a good option for aviation, and we think we could reduce carbon now by moving to a sustainable aviation fuel. That is a big potential market. The aviation industry uses about 24 billion gallons.
