Dear Readers,
In this month’s Innovation Lane, Bailey Arnold offers a clear-eyed explainer on biodiesel and renewable diesel — how they’re made, how they differ, and why Illinois fleets should think of them as complementary rather than competing. It’s the kind of practical, technology-neutral analysis IACT was built to deliver.
I want to build on Bailey’s piece with a Chair’s-eye view of what it means for Illinois.
Illinois’ Quiet Advantage
In clean transportation conversations, the technologies that get the loudest coverage are usually the newest—megawatt charging, hydrogen fuel cells, autonomous trucks. Those matter, and IACT will keep tracking them. But they are additions to the toolkit, not replacements for it. When I talk with Illinois fleet managers about what they can deploy this quarter, one of the answers is often already sitting in their tanks.
Illinois is one of the nation’s leading biodiesel-producing states, with a distribution network reaching from Chicago to the smallest downstate communities. B20 is widely available at retail fueling stations across the state today, and that same network puts higher blends—up to B100—within reach for fleets that want them, without new vehicles, new infrastructure, or new corridor buildout. That is not a small thing.
An Illinois-Made Supply Chain
Here is the part I don’t think gets said often enough: this is an Illinois-made supply chain from end to end. The soybeans are grown by Illinois farmers. The oil is crushed and processed in Illinois plants—in places like Iroquois County, where a single biodiesel facility is the largest employer in the county. The fuel is blended and moved by Illinois businesses and burned by Illinois fleets. Statewide, biodiesel and renewable diesel together account for about $3.2 billion in economic impact, roughly 8,100 full-time-equivalent jobs, and $411 million in wages, according to a GlobalData study commissioned by Clean Fuels Alliance America.
That matters beyond the emissions ledger. Every gallon blended here is a gallon of demand that stays inside Illinois, and a domestic market for soybean oil is a real hedge for growers who have watched export markets swing hard in recent years.
A Thread We Intend to Keep Pulling
Biodiesel’s Illinois story runs through the farm gate. It is not the only one we have.
This state has put serious money and serious policy behind clean transportation across the board: electric vehicles and the EV supply chain, from the vehicles coming off the line in Normal to the seats and bumpers built in the supplier park next door to the compressors made in Decatur; ethanol production that ranks third in the nation; and utilities, fuel providers, and building trades investing in infrastructure from the Metro East to the collar counties. Every one of those pathways has Illinois workers, Illinois communities, and Illinois businesses attached to it. Each deserves the same look we are giving biodiesel this month.
I will be candid that the ground is moving. Federal policy is shifting, incentives are being rewritten, and some ventures that once looked like sure things are no longer with us. That is precisely why this column will keep coming back to the economics. IACT’s job is not to predict which fuel wins. It is to help Illinois fleets make sound economic choices about fuel and technology with the best information we can put in front of them, whichever way the policy winds blow.
So consider this the first installment. In the months ahead, this column will keep putting the same three questions to every fuel we cover: who in Illinois makes it, who does it employ, and where do the dollars land? Cleaner air is the reason we do this work. The economics are a large part of why Illinois can, and they are the part that too often goes unsaid.
Renewable diesel, as Bailey notes, is growing fast but remains concentrated in parts of the West and along portions of the East Coast and is not yet widely available across much of the Midwest. That will change, and Illinois should be positioned to benefit when Midwest supply catches up. In the meantime, biodiesel, and biodiesel/renewable diesel blends where available, remains one of the most practical, immediately deployable tools for reducing emissions from the diesel equipment that moves Illinois’ economy.
Why this Matters for IACT Strategy
Three implications regarding alternative fuels for Illinois the board and our members should keep in view:
- Right-now reductions come from the vehicles already out there. Every Class 8 tractor, every school bus, every municipal truck, and every piece of construction equipment in service today has years, often decades, of operating life still ahead of it. Fleet turnover is a long arc, and the installed base is where near-term reductions have to come from. Renewable liquid fuels are one way to reduce emissions from that base today. There are others. The right answer depends on the duty cycle.
- Policy already shapes the math, and fleets should know it. On April 1, the minimum biodiesel blend required to qualify for Illinois’ state sales tax exemption stepped up from B17 to B20. The final phase of bipartisan legislation was enacted in 2022, which exempts qualifying blends from the state’s 6.25% sales tax. Whatever pathway a fleet is weighing, changes like that one moves the cost comparison, and they are easy to miss. IACT’s job is to make sure Illinois fleets, local governments, and fuel providers understand the incentives, requirements, and funding programs that apply across every fuel on the table—not to argue for any one of them.
- This is exactly the “match the fuel to the mission” work IACT does best. Biodiesel isn’t the answer for every fleet or every duty cycle, but for a large share of Illinois’ diesel-powered work, it is a right-now option worth evaluating. Our job is helping members figure out which parts of their operations fit which fuel.
On the Horizon: Fueling Illinois’ Freight Future
This is precisely the conversation we are building the Fueling Illinois’ Freight Future summit around—a multi-fuel policy and solutions event we are planning for 2027. The agenda taking shape is deliberately technology-neutral: sessions on biodiesel and renewable diesel alongside electricity, RNG, propane, and hydrogen; hands-on equipment demonstrations so fleet decision-makers can see and touch what’s available; and corridor and workforce sessions that connect fuel choices to the broader freight system.
Bailey and the B20 Club of Illinois are exactly the kind of partner that makes a summit like this valuable: practitioners with technical depth and real Illinois deployment experience. If you are a fleet operator weighing a biodiesel or renewable diesel transition, a fuel provider, an OEM, a utility, an economic development organization, or a prospective sponsor who wants Illinois to have a serious multi-fuel conversation, we would like to hear from you. Agenda input, demonstration participation, and sponsorship conversations are all welcome now.
And a genuine thank you to Bailey for this month’s Innovation Lane. It’s a reminder that some of Illinois’ most important clean transportation infrastructure is already in the ground—some of it grown right here—and that our job is making sure every Illinois fleet knows what is available to them.
To reach us, fill out the contact form at il-act.org/contact, or email info@il-act.org.
All my best,
Ann Schneider
Chair, Illinois Alliance for Clean Transportation
Dr. Ann Schneider became IACT’s chair in 2026, bringing 36 years of professional experience in public finance, public policy, and solutions development and 18 years of executive-level transportation policy experience to the role. Now a transportation policy consultant, Dr. Schneider has helped clients secure nearly $357 million in grant funding.