The Digest’s 2018 Visual Guide to the economics, politics of renewable fuels

You see, you can buy wholesale ethanol for $1.51 (again, thanks to PFL for the price data), which you can see here.

The math on the value equation is not hard. There’s money to be made in ethanol, even for oil refiners, under the RFS, if you consider the costs of obligation as imposed by government as a pollution tax imposed on fossil fuels and not negotiable.

If the RFS goes away, there’s still business for corn ethanol, but at much lower values as indicated by octane value.