Boeing Invests in Australian Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production

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August 22, 2024

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(Boeing) Investment supports development of Wagner Sustainable Fuels refinery to advance SAF production in Australia; - Expands Boeing-Wagner partnership announced earlier this year -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] has become an early investor in Wagner Sustainable Fuels to support the development of its sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) production facility in Brisbane, increasing Australian SAF supply and reducing aviation’s carbon emissions.

Boeing’s investment in the Wagner refinery is part of its strategy to support development of local SAF supply and expand global access to SAF, which remains the most effective lever to decarbonize aviation by 2050. SAF, which reduces CO2 emissions by up to 84% compared to petroleum jet fuel, currently represents 0.1% of global jet fuel use.

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Boeing Australia held a roundtable event with partners and key stakeholders at its Brisbane offices. Participating in the event were (left to right) Harry Jobberns, senior manager climate change, Qantas; Flyn van Ewijk, regional director Asia-Pacific, LanzaJet; John Wagner, chairman, Wagner Sustainable Fuels; Brian Moran, chief sustainability officer, Boeing; and Sean Simpson, co-founder, LanzaTech. (Boeing photo)

“We’re proud to invest in this project because it will make a real difference in developing a SAF industry in Australia,” said Kimberly Camrass, Boeing’s sustainability lead for Australia and New Zealand. “Accelerating local SAF supply enables Australia’s own climate goals and supports the global commercial aviation industry’s commitment of net zero CO₂ emissions by 2050.”

“SAF facilities such as Wagner’s new Brisbane site also strengthen Australia’s fuel security, since the country currently imports 90% of its liquid fuel including jet fuel, and the demand is expected to increase by 75% towards 2050,” Camrass added.

“Our partnership with Boeing to advance the Wagner SAF refinery in Brisbane is a commitment to proactively grow the SAF industry in Australia,” said Matt Doyle, Wagner Sustainable Fuels Chief Executive Officer. “The investment from the Queensland Government and Boeing will underpin Australia’s first, fully integrated SAF production facility.”

“It will create local jobs, contribute to fuel security and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation,” he said.

Building on an initial Boeing-Wagner partnership announced in April, Boeing’s new investment will support an engineering study for the eventual construction of a SAF refinery. The Brisbane facility will use waste-to-SAF technology that converts ethanol produced from waste-based feedstocks such as industrial waste into SAF.

“This project allows Australia to continue to stand out as a leader in SAF, now leveraging the solution we co-created with LanzaTech to convert waste carbon into sustainable fuels,” said Jimmy Samartzis, CEO of LanzaJet. “The combination of our platform with the front-end of LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology makes it possible to create SAF supply in Australia using local waste streams, further supporting the country’s energy security and protecting its natural environment.”

“Domestic SAF production will be critical to decarbonising the aviation industry and Australia meeting its emissions reduction targets,” said Andrew Parker, Chief Sustainability Officer at Qantas. “We have a target of using 10% SAF by 2030 and have invested in Queensland biofuel production through our $400 million Climate Fund.”

CSIRO and Boeing’s Sustainable Fuels Roadmap in 2023 identified that Australian SAF production not only enables local fuel production capacity to meet commercial demand, but also contributes to sovereign fuel security and regional jobs.

About Boeing
As a leading global aerospace company, Boeing develops, manufactures and services commercial airplanes, defense products and space systems for customers in more than 150 countries. As a top U.S. exporter, the company leverages the talents of a global supplier base to advance economic opportunity, sustainability and community impact. Boeing's diverse team is committed to innovating for the future, leading with sustainability, and cultivating a culture based on the company's core values of safety, quality and integrity. Join our team and find your purpose at boeing.com/careers.

About Wagner Sustainable Fuels
Wagner Sustainable Fuels is company focused on reducing CO₂ emissions from Australia’s hard to abate sectors including aviation and heavy transport through the supply of SAF and Renewable Diesel (RD). As part of the Wagner family’s group of companies, Wagner Sustainable Fuels is leading the development of renewable liquid fuels through the implementation of SAF blending facilities and renewable diesel supply chains in the near term and SAF/RD production facilities from waste products in line with global demand and Australia’s need to reduce GHG emissions across hard to abate sectors.

About LanzaJet
LanzaJet is a leading sustainable fuels technology company dedicated to accelerating the clean energy transition. As a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) technology provider and producer with patented ethanol-based alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) technology, LanzaJet is creating an opportunity for future generations by accelerating the deployment of SAF and other clean technologies critical to addressing the climate crisis and transforming the global economy. Further information is available at https://www.lanzajet.com/.

About LanzaTech
LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA) is the carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials for everyday products. Using its biorecycling technology, LanzaTech captures carbon generated by energy-intensive industries at the source, preventing it from being emitted into the air. LanzaTech then gives that captured carbon a new life as a clean replacement for virgin fossil carbon in everything from household cleaners and clothing fibers to packaging and fuels. By partnering with companies across the global supply chain like ArcelorMittal, Zara, H&M Move, Coty, and On, LanzaTech is paving the way for a circular carbon economy. For more information about LanzaTech, visit https://lanzatech.com. READ MORE

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LanzaTech and LanzaJet Announce New Project with Wagner Sustainable Fuels in Australia (LanzaJet)
More Electric Cars Are Key To Meeting SAF Targets, Boeing Says (Aviation Week)
LanzaTech, LanzaJet announce project with Wagner Sustainable Fuels in Australia (SAF Magazine)

Excerpt from LanzaJet: First Project to be Developed with the CirculAir Platform, the End-to-End Commercial Sustainable Fuels Technology Solution Converting Waste Feedstocks into SAF

CHICAGO, August 19, 2024 – LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA), the carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials, and LanzaJet, Inc., a leading sustainable fuels technology company and fuels producer, today announced a new project with Australia’s Wagner Sustainable Fuels to evaluate equipping Wagner’s Brisbane SAF Refinery (the “Project”) with the CirculAir™ platform. The CirculAir platform is LanzaTech and LanzaJet’s joint technology solution that converts waste carbon and renewable power into Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

In addition to securing a commercial partnership with LanzaTech and LanzaJet, the Project has received financial investments from The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) and the Queensland Government. The Project is expected to generate a multitude of benefits, including creating jobs in Queensland, increasing domestic energy security for Australia, and helping reduce global greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.

“LanzaTech and LanzaJet look forward to providing our joint commercial solution to Wagner Sustainable Fuels to accelerate the development of a domestic Australian SAF market,” said Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech and Board Chair of LanzaJet. “There is enough carbon above ground to transition the 100 billion gallons of fossil fuel-derived jet fuel consumed each year to jet fuel made from recycled carbon. The flexibility of the CirculAir platform makes it possible for this Project to unlock carbon from the myriad waste-based resources available in Australia to meet local demand.”

The CirculAir process first utilizes LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology to transform local waste streams, such as industrial emissions and municipal solid waste, into CarbonSmart™ ethanol. Then, LanzaJet’s Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) technology converts the ethanol into drop-in SAF. The CirculAir platform was designed to accelerate decarbonization of the global aviation industry by utilizing a variety of locally sourced waste-based feedstocks to produce the SAF volumes needed to supplant fossil fuels.

“The Wagner Sustainable Fuels project in Brisbane allows Australia to continue to stand out as a leader in Sustainable Aviation Fuel, now leveraging the CirculAir platform we co-created with LanzaTech to convert different forms of waste carbon into sustainable fuels,” said Jimmy Samartzis, CEO of LanzaJet. “The combination of LanzaJet’s leading SAF solution with the front-end of LanzaTech’s proven and commercialized carbon recycling technology makes it possible to create a domestic SAF supply in Australia using local renewable waste sources, further supporting the country’s energy security, while also working to protect its natural environment.”

Enhancing SAF production is critical for aviation to reduce its carbon footprint, as it is estimated that SAF will account for 65 – 70% of the emission reductions needed to meet the industry’s 2050 goal of net zero emissions. Historic supply constraints, high costs, and technical barriers have made it difficult for the industry to default to SAF as the primary aviation fuel source. The CirculAir platform breaks down these barriers, as the technology is able to turn a wide range of waste-based feedstocks into SAF to meet demand, and it is being adopted by a range of customers across the globe. This widespread adoption is projected to accelerate the production and economies of scale necessary to bring down the global cost of SAF.

“Our partnership with LanzaTech and LanzaJet will advance the Wagner SAF Refinery in Brisbane, accelerating the SAF industry in Australia and helping to decarbonize aviation by 2050,” said Matt Doyle, Wagner Sustainable Fuels Chief Executive Officer. “Together, these proven technologies can help us realize Australia’s first, fully integrated SAF production facility and provide a path to producing domestic fuel at scale.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Aviation Week: Aviation needs other transport sectors, particularly road transport, to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles to give the U.S. any hope of meeting its projected sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) needs, says Jim Hileman, Boeing VP and chief engineer of sustainability and future mobility.

Although SAF production is accelerating relatively quickly, the rate is inadequate, says Hileman, who joined the company in 2023 from the FAA where he was chief scientific and technical advisor for environment and energy. “There is tremendous growth happening right now. Factor two growth from 2022 to 2023; factor three growth from 2023 to 2024, but we’re starting from small numbers, and we need to grow quickly,” Hileman says. “And the truth is, it’s not growing quickly enough.”

Hileman, who was speaking at the 2024 Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences here in Florence, echoes others who have voiced similar concerns. Late in 2023, Hemant Mistry, IATA's director for the net zero transition, said the association was “expecting significantly greater output” of SAF for 2023 and, for 2024, IATA hoped fuel producers would make available 1.5 million tons.

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Underlining the magnitude of the problem facing the U.S., he adds that 30% of the American corn crop goes to produce ethanol. “We can have all kinds of discussions about the sustainability of ethanol. That’s not my point here,” he says. “That results in roughly 17 billion gal. per year, which is energetically equivalent to 9 billion gal. of jet fuel. That’s 33% of the uplift of jet fuel in 2019 in the United States. That’s why it’s important that ground transportation electrifies if aviation is going to be getting large quantities of biomass. There’s just not enough biomass out there.”

“Within the United States, there is the potential for that biomass to get to 35 million gallons per year to meet the needs of the SAF grand challenge,” Hileman says, referencing the U.S. government initiative launched in 2021 to expand domestic consumption to 3 billion gallons in 2030 and 35 billion gallons in 2050 while achieving at least a 50% reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.

“However, there’s not enough biomass to also feed every car and truck. It also means that we need to be very careful in thinking through how we use biomass, and it also means that we in aviation really would be benefit from having more discussions with other users of energy, such that we all get on a similar page.”

Referring to the multiple types of feedstocks that are available for SAF, he says: “The challenges that we have with them is related to how much environmental benefit do they give us in terms of lifecycle CO2; how much should it cost? How much of it do we get? How much biofuel feedstock is available? And then where’s our competition? Who else is getting this stuff before us?”

Government policy is also at fault, Hileman says. “The reason those numbers are small, to be quite honest, is because all the SAF being used in the planet right now is that 98% of it is HEFA from plant oils. There are actually billions of gallons of that stuff being produced every year, but it’s all going to diesel trucks because of policy choices,” Hileman says. “That’s where it’s going right now. It’s there—it’s just not going to aviation. That’s important to know, and SAF from sugars and starches are also going to ground transportation for cars.”

“The price is also actually rather high, and so where we really need to be thinking of as an aviation industry is not necessarily the aerospace part, but the industry as a whole is thinking through, how can we bring down these prices?” he asks.

“It’s a lot to ask for policymakers and the flying public to pick up that entire bill,” he continues. READ MORE