From Seed to Sky: The Demand for Sustainable Aviation Fuel

February 18, 2026

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by Aimee Nielson (Seed World) Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is no longer a fringe idea. Airlines want it. States are building policy around it. Researchers are racing to lower costs. The next question is what it means for seed companies, breeders and the agricultural value chain that will ultimately supply it.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Pushes Agriculture Into Aviation’s Supply Chain

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is often framed as an energy transition story. In practice, it is becoming an agriculture story just as quickly.

The aviation sector is trying to replace petroleum-based jet fuel with alternatives that meet the same performance standards without requiring new aircraft, engines or fueling infrastructure. That constraint immediately pulls agriculture into the conversation. SAF must be produced from hydrocarbons found in biological materials, including crop residues, forestry byproducts, waste streams and purpose-grown biomass.

Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) executive director Steve Csonka describes the scale of the shift.

“We’re talking about really a new industrial sector that we’re trying to bring online to produce more sustainable fuels for aviation,” Csonka said in a press release.

Progress is real. SAF has moved beyond pilot projects and into commercial delivery at multiple airports. But the conversation inside the industry still revolves around one persistent barrier: economics.

Price Still Determines How Fast SAF Scales

The aviation sector knows how to produce sustainable aviation fuel. The problem is making it affordable enough to compete with petroleum-derived jet fuel.

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How Do Feedstocks Move From Concept to Farm-Level Reality?

The SAF conversation quickly narrows to the question agriculture understands best: what raw materials can be produced consistently, aggregated efficiently and converted economically.

Elvis Ebikade, director of aviation, Bioleum Corporation, says the pathway to fuel production is inseparable from the characteristics of the feedstock, adding that those technologies are primarily tied to the feedstocks.

Current commercial SAF pathways rely heavily on oil-based inputs such as used cooking oils and vegetable oils. Emerging technologies are pushing into lignocellulosic materials, including crop residues and woody biomass, with the goal of expanding supply and lowering costs.

But abundance on paper does not guarantee practicality.

“On paper, corn stover is abundant,” Ebikade says. “In practice, it is very hard to work with, because it has a lot of ash.”

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Co-Products And Conversion Technology Shape The Economics

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Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center director and University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Bacteriology professor Timothy Donohue, emphasizes that fuels and chemicals must be developed together.

“Only half of their profit comes from fuels. The other half comes from chemicals,” he says, describing petroleum refinery economics and the model bioenergy researchers are working to replicate.

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State Policy Drives Early Market Development

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Clean Fuels Michigan executive director Jane McCurry says uncertainty around federal policy has pushed states to take a more active role in building incentives and market frameworks.

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Michigan is pursuing both a sustainable aviation fuel tax credit and a broader clean fuel standard designed to reward lower-carbon fuels across multiple sectors.

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Infrastructure And Blending May Become The Next Bottleneck

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The Food Versus Fuel Debate Still Shapes Public Perception

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Agricultural residues, forestry byproducts, waste streams and purpose-grown energy crops are all part of the SAF feedstock landscape.

Ebikade notes that global food security concerns remain a factor in how the issue is viewed internationally, even when local production systems differ.

Csonka stresses that SAF development is not tied to a single crop or region. The strategy depends on sourcing feedstocks suited to local agronomic conditions worldwide.

McCurry points to a broader awareness gap and says consumers often do not realize how much of modern agriculture already feeds energy, industrial and animal production systems rather than directly supplying food. That lack of understanding shapes reactions to new uses for agricultural materials.

SAF Creates New Questions for Seed Companies and Researchers

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Opportunity and Risk Will Grow Together READ MORE

Related articles

The Growing Demand for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (ePlane AI/ChatGPT)
Sustainable Fuel Focus Shifts To U.S. States (Aviation Week)
Gevo to expand capacity at North Dakota plant, continues to evaluate SAF project (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

Excerpt from ePlane AI/ChatGPT: Market Growth and Future Constraints : The global SAF market is projected to reach $50 billion by 2036, yet industry experts anticipate a feedstock “tipping point” beyond 2030, which could lead to supply constraints. To address these challenges, airlines are exploring alternative technologies such as hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), which converts sewage and organic waste into jet fuel, offering a potential solution to the scarcity and high cost of traditional feedstocks.

Ambitious initiatives like the Cascadia Coalition aim to produce 1 billion gallons of SAF annually by 2035. New market entrants, including Syzygy Plasmonics, are securing demand through offtake agreements, while North America remains a leader in the bio-based SAF market due to strong policy frameworks and established production facilities.

Despite these advances, the industry continues to face significant hurdles in scaling production and ensuring a reliable, affordable supply of feedstocks to meet growing demand. The future success of SAF will depend on the coordinated efforts of agriculture, technology, and policy to overcome these challenges. READ MORE

Excerpt from Aviation Week: U.S. government support of sustainable aviation fuel has waned, shifting the impetus for increasing its production to the states. But progress continues.

“It’s a pivot,” says Keith Sawyer, Avfuel manager of alternative fuels. “The focus had been typically on the federal government; now investors are including what may or may not be offered by states in their calculations, in their rates of return on investment in facilities.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) that became law with President Donald Trump’s signature on July 4 amended the existing 45Z clean fuel production credit (CFPC) to benefit biofuel producers instead of blenders and extended it for two years through 2029. Added to the tax code during the Biden administration through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the CFPC was set to expire in 2027.

The continuation of the tax credit is cause for some optimism that ongoing development of SAF capacity is supported—given that one of Trump’s early actions after becoming president in January was to pause funding disbursements under the IRA, which was considered a major achievement of former President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.

Trump’s executive order was slowed by legal challenges, but the OBBB approved by the Republican majority in Congress contains a section that rescinds unobligated balances of the FAA’s Fueling Aviation’s Sustainable Transition (FAST) grant program, also established under the IRA.

The Biden administration had announced $291 million in FAST grants in August 2024, primarily for 22 projects “that produce, transport, blend or store sustainable aviation fuel.” The largest single grant—$50 million—went to Martinez Renewables LLC, a 50/50 joint venture of Marathon Petroleum and SAF producer Neste, to fund the conversion of a Marathon facility in Martinez, California, for renewable fuels production.

Neste confirmed to BCA that the grant was rescinded by the FAA earlier this year before any funds were disbursed.

Under the OBBB, the CFPC has been modified; the value of the credit for production of “neat” or pure, unblended SAF declines from $1.75-per-gallon to $1-per-gallon after 2025, aligning it with the credit for renewable diesel. And the CFPC will apply only to SAF that is derived from renewable feedstocks produced or grown in the U.S., Mexico, or Canada. Sugar cane, soybeans, tallow, used oils and greases sourced outside of North America won’t qualify.

“It’s a focus on North American supply and very centric to the U.S,” says Sawyer.

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States Take Precedence

At the same time, the federal government’s withdrawal of grant support and funding has shifted the onus of growing the industry to incentives and projects offered in various states.

California, Oregon and Washington have clean fuels programs that incentivize SAF production. Multiple states—Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota among them—provide tax incentives for SAF production or consumption.

There were 110 million gallons of neat SAF supplied in the U.S. last year, of which about 70 million gallons were imported, Sawyer says. (Overall jet fuel consumption was roughly 25 billion gal.) Neat SAF is typically blended with conventional jet fuel at a 30/70 ratio. Much of the imported neat SAF came from Singapore, a hub of Neste’s renewable fuel production operations.

Sawyer expects that neat SAF production will continue to grow to as much as 150-200 million gal. this year, with an increasing proportion of domestic production, as airlines take on more sustainable fuel and new SAF production facilities come on stream.

Finland-based Neste has increased production in the U.S. since commissioning capacity last year to blend and store up to 33.5 million gal. of SAF at the Galena Park Terminal on the Houston Ship Channel.

Calumet Inc., subsidiary Montana Renewables plans to expand annual SAF production at its biorefinery in Great Falls, Montana, from 30 million gal. currently to 150 million gal. by 2026 and 300 million gal. by 2028. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a $1.44 billion loan guarantee for the project in the final months of the Biden administration that initially was paused but then allowed by the Trump administration.

Also intact was a $1.46 billion loan commitment Gevo Inc. received from the DOE during the Biden administration for its Net-Zero 1 project in Lake Preston, South Dakota. An alcohol-to-jet project, NZ1 will use regeneratively grown feedstocks—primarily corn—to produce 60 million gal. of SAF annually.

Valero Energy Corp. has completed construction of a SAF project at its Diamond Green Diesel renewable diesel plant in Port Arthur, Texas, that potentially will produce 235 million gal. annually of sustainably sourced jet fuel. Diamond Green Diesel is a joint venture between subsidiaries of Valero Energy and Darling Ingredients of Irving, Texas, the largest collector and processor of used cooking oil in North America.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Avfuel, a “refinery-to-wingtip” fuel distributor, takes blended SAF from Neste’s Selby and Vopak terminals in San Francisco and Los Angeles to supply customers on the West Coast and from Galena Park in Houston to supply customers in the mid-continent.

Last October, Avfuel announced a partnership with Valero Marketing and Supply Co. to supply blended SAF across the southeastern U.S. Since then, the company has expanded its distribution footprint beyond Port Everglades in Florida to the East Coast with the addition of a supply terminal in Linden, New Jersey, and to the central U.S. with a terminal in Denver.

Avfuel now has eight SAF supply points in California, Texas, New Jersey, Florida and Colorado serving the U.S. market. “There really isn’t a place in the U.S. that Avfuel can’t supply SAF,” Sawyer says. Including its operations in Europe, the company supplies 58 of the 110 airports where SAF is available worldwide.

Fixed-base operator (FBO) Signature Aviation offers sustainable jet fuel at 33 locations worldwide through multiple blended SAF supply agreements, including eight locations in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa region.

FBO chain Jet Aviation, a General Dynamics subsidiary, has agreements with World Fuel Services and other producers to supply SAF at 12 locations worldwide, including at FBOs in Bedford, Massachusetts; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Palm Beach, Florida; Scottsdale, Arizona, and Teterboro, New Jersey.

Industry analysts estimate that around 10% of neat SAF is consumed by business aviation operators and airframers including Boeing, Embraer, Dassault Falcon Jet, Gulfstream and Textron Aviation that are mainly supplied by truck at fueling locations. The bulk of SAF is delivered by pipeline to major airports, including Chicago O’Hare, New York JFK, and Los Angeles and San Francisco international airports, and consumed by airlines.

Sawyer doesn’t think SAF has become less of a priority for business aviation, though he observes that corporations with flight departments have become more focused on other issues like tariffs. He notes that fractional operators NetJets and Flexjet are strong proponents of using SAF as a percentage of their fuel. READ MORE

Excerpt from Ethanol Producer Magazine: Gevo Inc. on March 5 announced plans to expand capacity at its North Dakota ethanol plant to 75 MMgy. The company also plans to make a final investment decision (FID) on the development of an adjacent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project later this year.

Gevo in February 2025 acquired the existing North Dakota facility from Red Trail Energy LLC. The 67 MMgy has operational carbon capture and storage (CCS) capabilities.

During a fourth quarter earnings call held March 5, Gevo CEO Patrick Gruber said the plant “has performed superbly well.”

Paul Bloom, who currently serves as president of Gevo and will transition to the role of CEO on April 1, explained that production at Gevo North Dakota exceeded nameplate capacity last year, reaching approximately 69 MMgy. The company also captured and sequestered 173,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The facility achieved a yield of nearly 3 gallons per bushel. Production included approximately 2 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol produced from corn kernel fiber feedstock.

“To further build on these strong results, I'm happy to announce that we've approved our capital plan for Gevo North Dakota to expand capacity to 75 million gallons per year, produce more co-products, improve energy efficiency, capture more carbon dioxide and invest in our operational reliability,” Bloom said. “We are reinvesting in Gevo North Dakota to grow our base business and improve our returns while we set the table for alcohol-to-jet.”

Bloom noted Gevo has set “an aggressive timeline” to deliver these projects and currently anticipates they will be operational in 2027.

Gevo in October 2024 received a conditional commitment for a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to support the development of a 60 MMgy ethanol-to-jet project in South Dakota. Development of that project has been negatively impacted by delays associated with Summit Carbon Solution’s proposed CCS pipeline project.

The company one year later, in October 2025, received a notice from the DOE granting an extension of the conditional commitment until April 16, 2026. The notice indicated the DOE is open to modifying the loan guarantee to support a smaller-scale 30 MMgy ethanol-to-jet project adjacent to the existing Gevo North Dakota ethanol plant. Gevo aims to make a final investment decision on that project, referred to as Project North Star, by the end of the year, according to Bloom.

Gevo reported revenue of $45 million for the fourth quarter, and $161 million for the full year 2025. Loss from operations was $2.2 million for the fourth quarter. READ MORE

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