Firefly Green Fuels and Synagro Announce Alliance to Unlock Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production from Biosolids in North America

(Synagro) Firefly Green Fuels and Synagro Technologies, Inc. have partnered to bring Firefly’s novel fuel-production techniques to the American market. Synagro, the preeminent provider of sustainable solutions for biosolids, organics and residuals, has agreed to be the exclusive supplier of the biosolids feedstock used in Firefly’s innovative process.

Firefly has developed a unique process to turn biosolids into a product slate of highly sustainable, high-performance fuels, including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The company uses a process known as hydrothermal liquefaction, which chemically alters the biosolids waste, breaking it down into biocrude and biochar. The crude is then upgraded into SAF, and the remaining biochar goes to various uses.

“We are extremely excited to work with Synagro on this next phase of Firefly’s development,” said James Hygate, Chief Executive Officer, Firefly Green Fuels. “There is a huge future need for SAF in North America, and by working together we can bring operations online quickly, creating new jobs and vast volumes of truly sustainable fuel.”

As outlined in its inaugural Sustainability Report, growing sustainably is at the heart of Synagro’s business and is central to their purpose as a company. Expanding into natural and innovative adjacencies is key to its growth as a business and its purpose to have a net positive impact on both people and the planet.

“This is a perfect partnership with monumental implications,” said Bob Preston, Synagro’s Chief Executive Officer. “We’re pairing Synagro’s expertise in sustainable solutions for biosolids, with Firefly’s SAF technology to evolve the circular economy.”

Independent analysis by Cranfield University has shown that Firefly’s SAF offers a highly significant 92% CO2e saving versus fossil jet fuel.

Kip Cleverley, Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief Communications Officer, Synagro, added, “Both of our companies’ commitments on sustainability run parallel. Combining our strengths will have a net positive and circular impact on the planet and its inhabitants. This is the future, and we’re both passionate about leading the way.”

The two companies are working together to prove out the technology in North America and secure additional participants. Firefly is currently building a first-of-a-kind facility in Harwich, England, and expects to expand into North America in the near future.

Firefly’s technology originated in the laboratories of Green Fuels, a pioneer in renewable fuels founded in 2003 and awarded a Royal Warrant of Appointment to the former HRH the Prince of Wales, now King Charles III. Firefly demonstrates an integrated technology route to SAF using biosolids as feedstock, addressing a market opportunity and unmet need. This route, once qualified to international standards, will make a significant contribution to the supply of SAF globally. The company is on a mission to fight climate change by transforming waste into truly sustainable fuel.

Founded in 1986, Synagro Technologies, Inc. works to turn waste into worth by helping more than 1,000 municipal, industrial water and wastewater facilities, and agricultural partners in North America move toward safer, cleaner and more environmentally beneficial practices. For some, it’s simply cleaning the water supply. For others, it’s much more – we partner with them to process their waste for compost or fertilizer pellets, creating healthy soil and avoiding carbon emissions in the process. As the largest recycler of biosolids, organics and residuals in North America, we are a trusted partner for sustainable solutions. Because we have the most experienced team in the industry, we can offer tailored solutions that ensure no waste goes to waste. Much of our work isn’t pretty. But it’s a greener world emerging from a cleaner one – worth coming from waste – and we think that’s pretty beautiful. Visit www.synagro.com to learn more. READ MORE

Excerpt from Biofuels International: Food waste, the types collected through municipal collections from households, have potential as an ongoing supply.

However, this would need a strong intervention from local authorities across the country to ensure food waste was collected separately in order to deliver the kind of consistency and quality of waste that is needed for conversion into a biofuel. The technology and processes for converting the world’s mass of waste plastics into SAF is currently being trialled across a number of schemes.

Virgin Atlantic has a deal with Norwegian chemicals firm Agilyx to turn plastic waste into a crude synthetic oil that will, in turn, be converted into SAF at a US facility.

In the UK, the Clean Planet Energy start-up has a production facility capable of converting 60 tonnes of plastic waste a day into SAF that is expected to deliver a 75% reduction in carbon emissions.

The bigger question here though is over the use of plastics for burning as fuel at all. It should not be regarded as a ‘sustainable’ process, not when it involves the use of a finite resource – hydrocarbons that have been created over millions of years are a critical element to the chemical engineering industries and in so many different polymers and plasticbased products and materials, which are not re-used or recycled, but destroyed.

Using human sewage sludge to produce SAF will be a genuinely sustainable foundation, addressing both waste management and lowcarbon energy demand.

It is estimated that around 53 million tonnes of untreated sewage sludge are collected in the UK from about 8,500 wastewater treatment works each year. The UK’s wastewater system is heavily over capacity, meaning storm events (or even, in some locations, just rain) regularly lead to raw sewage ending up in rivers and seas.

According to Environment Agency figures, there has been a 37% increase year-oyear in incidents – meaning 9 million hours of sewage being pumped into rivers and seas since 2016. Finding alternative uses for sewage sludge will be a huge benefit to businesses, to the environment and society as a whole.

The FIREFLY project, funded by Department for Transport as part of its Green Fuels, Green Skies competition, has shown how this can work, proved that the quality of the resulting biofuel will meet strict industry standards, and led to the engineering design and construction of a demonstrator plant for production.

With further industry investment, the project is due to lead to a first-of-a-kind commercial refinery and the development of a network of UK sites close to airports, pipeline terminals and wastewater treatment works. The integrated processes involved will also reduce the processing costs involved and help keep unit costs low.

Alongside other development pathways, the FIREFLY technology is expected to become a strategic asset for the UK as part of the broader national SAF portfolio. Costs for SAF will remain relatively high, at least for the short-term. This is why the huge potential for SAF – and the opportunity for a circular economy approach to their production – will only be realised with a clear mandate from government, stimulating mass uptake of SAF, more investment from finance institutions and a rolling cycle of lower costs for every stakeholder involved.