USGBC shows Japanese journalists ethanol's role in sustainable marine fuel
USGBC took Japanese business journalists from a Marquis ethanol plant to ABS and Advario, linking road-fuel ethanol to marine fuel policy. Japan’s E10 goal is 2030.
On June 24, USGBC escorted Japanese business journalists through Illinois and Texas as Japan kept an 824 million-liter on-road ethanol target through March 2028.
The tour focused on how ethanol can move beyond gasoline blending and into sustainable marine fuel, with stops at a Marquis plant, a corn farm in Mazon, Illinois, a seminar at the University of Illinois Chicago Energy Resources Center, and logistics meetings in Houston.
Tommy Hamamoto, USGBC’s director in Japan, led the group. The delegation also visited Paul and Donna Jeschke’s farm in Mazon and spent time at the Marquis ethanol plant, giving Japanese business journalists a view of the supply chain from corn production to fuel output.
At the University of Illinois Chicago Energy Resources Center, the group discussed carbon intensity scoring and the environmental profile of sustainable marine fuel. The International Maritime Organization’s 2024 guidelines on the life-cycle greenhouse-gas intensity of marine fuels put life-cycle assessment, feedstock, conversion process and emissions factors at the center of marine-fuel accounting.
The delegation then went to Washington, D.C., for meetings with USDA biofuel experts and private-sector stakeholders including Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association. The final leg in Houston took the group to the American Bureau of Shipping and Advario, where the focus shifted to the storage, transport and vessel-side logistics that a marine ethanol pathway would need.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry introduced an action plan on June 10, 2025, aiming for nationwide E10 gasoline by 2030 and E20 by 2040.
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