> a wealth transfer to support poor rural American communities

My immediate reaction to this is: it's probably a wewlth transfer to the few landlords owning the land and probably charging higher rent, not to the communities.

Of course I haven't analysed the data. If I am wrong, hopefully someone will feel compelled to correct me.

They already grow, they are already harvested, and this process uses discarded parts of the harvest. It is putting in use what we already had but had no use for.

Edit: the article speaks about possibilities that open. It also clearly notices that the a number of problems are unsolved. The infographic is direct: https://studyfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Coconut-Bi...

Note that if some product available in limited amount, say "coconut oil", becomes an asset to improve any context, say "aviation", it does not follow that one should maximize that amount psychotically without a cost-risk-benefit. You can just exploit the available yield through planning.

> it’s led to poor use of land with questionable climate impact.

In the short term, yes, because they were unnecessarily using carbon energy to grow the fuel.

But if we want to de-fossilise society in the long run, we need solutions for flying and long distance travel. Electric flying seems infeasible at the moment, and people are looking for suitable bio-fuels to make flying carbon neutral. Afaik the maximum planes were allowed to handle up to now, was a 50-50 mix kerosene-biofuel. [0]

Coconuts could be a breakthrough!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_biofuel

Is it not a bad thing to encourage poor people to continue doing the thing that has apparently made them poor?

It's also very not true that farmers are poor in the US (median household income about 30% greater than general population). This mindset is like a century old.

All subsidies are wealth transfers. That's the whole point- to incentivize something that wouldn't otherwise happen at a scale the government deems to be of benefit or necessary.

Biofuels are part of the all-in-one story of renewable energy, especially the transition phase of reducing carbon emissions before we can get to full electrification.

The question of whether or not they are effective in doing so- and whether or not the money for those subsidies would better benefit society elsewhere- is the very same one that skeptics of solar and wind hammer on.

I would much rather see those subsidies go to farmers growing human consumer food, and sending the excess to bioreactors to produce fertilizer and/or methane for power generation. Cheaper groceries make it easier for people to eat more whole foods, after all. Just last week, I found napa cabbage at $3/lb- meaning one head would have been $24. Fresh broccoli and other good veg are also expensive.

The reduction of harm from reduced CO2 by bio-jet-fuel would pale in significance compared to, say, subsidies in regenerative farming practices, or even simply healthy crops.

Middle of the road, comparable to Sunflower oil. But they want to utilize waste products and a low energy conversion process.

"It’s effectively become a wealth transfer to support poor rural American communities"

I'm skeptical that rural community are the primary beneficiaries. Seems more likely that it's benefiting people who own the patents/companies.

Are the people against bioengineered produce also be against us working towards super efficient coconuts or some other plant we designed to fill the same role?

This isn’t awesome, it doesn’t work at scale and it only lets idiots ignore what should be done: leave fossil fuels in the ground, and only then do what we can with the energy that’s still available. Aviation is mostly incompatible with a sane global environmental policy.

Leaded is slowly going away, but regulation means these changes take many, many years and dollars to implement and test.

It will be similar (worse?) implementing a new type of fuel for commercial jets, especially when it comes to wide adoption across a majority of countries around the world. Basically you need something which is as least as reliable, clean (I.e., won’t clog/solidify), non corrosive, etc. and remain that way after being mixed with standard jet fuel.

I too want to see alternatives but expect to see more failures than success at this stage.

Replacing fossil fuel with biofuel only works if we starve half the planet and use their food for fuel.

Such a great documentary:

https://youtu.be/Zvhd3tt7fx4

The question is which habitat destruction is worse? That which is already happening at scale for oil, versus what would happen if we lean into this in any meaningful way.

I don't think the answer is obvious. And I think many of us are blind or numb to environmental harms of oil outside of carbon exhaust and the occasional spill, simply because we've accepted it as status quo.

Just intuitively I doubt there's nearly enough coconut oil produced to replace any meaningful amount of jet fuel. I scanned the article and didn't see this addressed, but may have missed it.

Various other bio-fuel and synthesized replacements for petroleum-based jet fuel have been tried and are in development. The aviation industry is very slow to approve and adopt changes.

The point isn't to make cheap jet fuel. The point is that to the coconut processor (someone who makes food or whatever) your "coconut tailings" pile is a big liability. The environmentalists could start screeching any day without warning, that's a big risk to your business. Waste that costs you nothing could cost a lot. You might be able to sell it as loam or fertilizer or whatever. But then they'll screech that you need to buy somme compliance solution. Just shipping the damn thing off to the next guy who'll squeeze some jet fuel out of it is real attractive because then the rest of the tailings become his problem. Maybe he's in a better jurisdiction. Maybe it's more inert at that point. In any case it's a liability off your books. The jet fuel just needs to be cheap enough to make this whole process cheaper than whatever way you were dealing with it before. It's like this the world over. Whether you're selling coconut scraps to the people who'll squeeze the oil out of them or strawberry waste to the people who'll make dyes and fragrances it's all the same.