Jet fuel prices have fallen since the spring, but they remain higher than they were before the start of the Iran war and ensuing energy shock. One ripple effect of the higher prices? It means sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is less expensive relative to traditional jet fuel right now. Typically, SAF can cost two to five times as much as traditional jet fuel, and it makes up less than 1% of global jet fuel use. “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal checked in with Gene Gebolys, founder and CEO of the biofuels company World Energy. Since they last spoke, the second Trump administration entered office, altering a slew of federal policies from the Biden administration that were designed to help jump-start the SAF industry. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. Kai Ryssdal: It's been a couple of years since you and I spoke, and I guess the first thing we need to do, probably, is an update on the status of things in the world of sustainable aviation fuel, and I guess to World Energy's point now, the decarbonization industry.Gene Gebolys: Well, I think we had talked right after an election and right before an inauguration, so to say things have evolved — it would be putting it lightly. It's a very different environment that we're in today, in some ways, but in many ways it's very similar. So you may remember that we sell primarily to corporations who are focused on decarbonizing their activities, and most of those corporations are carrying right along with their activities. So our business is strong and things are good, but certainly the broader environment is quite different.Ryssdal: On that topic of the broader environment and government involvement, you said when we spoke, “once it's really rocking and rolling, you don't need as much government intervention, but you do in the early going.” Are you guys in the industry rocking and rolling yet, or are you still in the early going?Gebolys: Well, I think it's somewhere in between those two. But what is happening is markets are playing a bigger role in decarbonization than ever before. So, companies that have made a commitment to do what they can to decarbonize their activities are increasingly doing what we offer, which is a tool called insetting. Insetting enables them to take the benefit from low-carbon fuels to apply to their aviation activity. That's very much growing, and its applications go far beyond aviation. So, I'd say that part of things very much are rock and rolling.Ryssdal: It’s insets — just on the wordplay here — as opposed to offsets, right?Gebolys: Yeah, very much so. People know about carbon offsets, and those have been around for quite a while. The difference between an offset and an inset is insetting happens in the sector that you're decarbonizing. So, in our case, we focus on the aviation fuel, and the decarbonized activities relate to lower-carbon aviation fuel.Ryssdal: Reading up on you and World Energy and what you guys have been doing last couple of years, some of your customers are upfront about what they're trying to do with decarbonization. Others are not so upfront, but they're still doing it sort of behind the scenes — which strikes me as interesting.Gebolys: It strikes me as interesting too. I can't tell you how many times we've taken on a new client who has said, ”We're happy to do this work, but at least for the time being, we'd rather do it quietly.” And in some ways, that's not a horrible thing. I think years ago there was a bit too much talk and a little too little action. And now to some degree we've got really an increasing amount of action, but less talk.Ryssdal: Can we talk geopolitics here for a second? What effect has the president's war on Iran and all of that had on you guys? Oil is more expensive now, which has to be good for you guys.Gebolys: Yeah, in the near term, obviously, when conventional energy goes up in cost, ours become relatively more affordable. But it turns out for a whole bunch of reasons, that continued reliance on fossil energy forever is not sustainable. But the work that we're doing is on domestically produced energy that is inherently more sustainable, not only on a climate basis, but on a national security basis, and in a whole bunch of other areas. So in the near term, yes, the changes in various commodity prices have been impacting us to the positive. But I think more importantly, is this is an ongoing reminder of the need to transition to cleaner and more domestic forms of energy. Ryssdal: Can we talk about the sort of theoretical drop in the bucket here? I mean, SAF is like less than 1% of all the aviation fuel that we use. So, you guys, by definition, sir, you have to be playing the long game. Gebolys: Yeah, obviously it's a question that you have to wrestle with, and of course, it's a drop in the bucket. And it's meaningless in the volumes today. But nothing's going to make a much of a dent in the near term in a 150-year-old industry. So yup, it's a drop in the bucket, but it's a small drop, and that drop, more drops, and more drops, and more drops. Eventually, you're filling up the bucket with something different than what you started with.Ryssdal: With the understanding that it's your job to be optimistic but realistic for your company, are you holding on until there's a change of tone in Washington?Gebolys: Well, the good news is our customer base is largely international companies. They play in lots of different environments. They don't play for any particular election cycle. Look, we live in democracies. There's always going to be change. I think it would be foolhardy to think that we're always going to get in any particular jurisdiction a government that is 100% supportive, so it's not not much of a business if it depends on a particular election cycle. So yeah, we're carrying on.