Advanced BioFuels USA

by Katie Schroeder (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Several alcohol-to-jet projects, partnerships and technologies have been announced in the past 18 months. Ethanol Producer Magazine checks in on each, looking at where they stand and what they might ultimately achieve.

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Multiple airlines forged ethanol connections—some inking formal commitments—last year as interest in feedstocks and technologies of all types hit a near fever pitch and alcohol-to-jet was widely deemed both necessary and inevitable. In August, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which created an attractive federal tax credit for qualifying SAF, sparking intense questions about how, if at all, low-carbon corn ethanol might qualify. Almost all analyses of the legislation suggest corn ethanol is substantially hampered by the bill’s carbon math, but that hasn’t quelled ethanol producer enthusiasm for SAF, nor carbon reduction investments related to it. Corn ethanol producers are engaging in the play not as a result of SAF’s first big federal incentive, but almost despite being virtually excluded from it.

The federal SAF credit starts at $1.25 per gallon for qualifying biobased jet fuel that reduces carbon emissions by 50 percent, with one cent added for each additional percentage point of reduction, capping out at $1.75. SAF made from corn ethanol, experts say, has a difficult-to-impossible time qualifying since the law measures GHG reduction using the International Civil Aviation Organization’s CORSIA methodology rather than the Department of Energy-Argonne National Laboratory’s GREET model, which is more friendly to corn ethanol and believed by many experts to be the most appropriate lifecycle analysis methodology for the determination of SAF emissions.

In December, when the IRS issued guidance on the federal SAF tax credit—just a month after the DOE unveiled a roadmap for its SAF Grand Challenge—corn ethanol remained effectively sidelined as a result of the credit’s GHG methodology, despite the ethanol industry’s pleas for the adoption of GREET. In February, legislation signed into law in Illinois established a $1.50 per gallon tax credit for SAF.

Unlike the IRA, the state legislation allows SAF producers to qualify using either CORSIA or GREET, presumably putting low-carbon grain ethanol in the action. The bill was signed into law by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Feb. 3 and becomes effective June 1. Not only has the Illinois SAF credit sparked excitement among conventional ethanol producers, but put more weight behind ongoing appeals to somehow work GREET into the IRA.

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To replace all of the aviation fuel in the U.S. with a biobased counterpart, roughly 35 billion gallons of SAF will be needed. Worldwide, the demand is around 100 billion gallons.

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Freedom Pines Fuels
SAF company LanzaJet, has a 10 MMgy SAF and renewable diesel plant under construction in Soperton, Georgia. LanzaJet’s Freedom Pines Fuels will be the nation’s first alcohol-to-jet SAF production facility. The plant will use undenatured ethanol from a variety of feedstocks, including waste-based sources, to make 9 MMgy of SAF and 1 MMgy of renewable diesel. In January, the EPA approved LanzaJet to generate D4 RINs using sugarcane-based ethanol for its renewable diesel and SAF. This was a key milestone in the company’s EPA approval process, and the first approval of ethanol as a feedstock for SAF. LanzaJet is pursuing approval for ethanol made from other feedstocks as well, including novel and waste-based sources.

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LanzaJet is simultaneously working on developing additional  projects around the world.

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LanzaJet signed a memorandum of understanding in 2022 with Marquis Sustainable Aviation Fuel to build an SAF plant in Illinois, while also receiving government grant funding in the U.K. to support the deployment of its technology there. In early 2023, the company announced a memorandum of understanding with Indian Oil Corporation to pursue a joint venture to produce SAF in India.  

Blue Blade Energy
Green Plains, Tallgrass Energy and United Airlines announced a joint venture in January to pursue the commercial production of SAF by developing a novel technology that uses ethanol as its feedstock. Should the technology succeed, they plan to start construction on a pilot facility in 2024, followed by a commercial facility in 2028. 

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The technology Blue Blade plans to use was initially developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

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SAFFiRE Renewables
SAFFiRE Renewables is partnered with Southwest to make cellulosic SAF with an ultra-low CI score, using corn stover as a feedstock. Mark Yancey, chief technology officer with D3MAX and SAFFiRE (an acronym for Sustainable Aviation Fuel from Renewable Ethanol) explains the potential of corn stover and other agricultural residues as feedstock. “Since corn is the biggest crop in the U.S., it is the biggest agricultural residue available by far, bigger than anything else,” he says. “It just makes sense for SAFFiRE to start with corn stover, but I see us moving to wheat straw, energy crops, switchgrass and other fast-growing crops down the road. But with corn stover alone, I think we could conceivably produce seven-and-a-half billion gallons of SAF with SAFFiRE technology. Theoretically, it could approach 10 billion gallons based on how much stover is out there.”

SAFFiRE’s cellulosic SAF will have an estimated CI score of 15, without the addition of renewable energy and carbon capture and sequestration technology, which would lower the CI score further.

With matching funding from the DOE’s SAF Grand Challenge, SAFFiRE aims to commercialize a low-temperature deacetylation and mechanical refining pretreatment process first created and tested at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. The process  combines enzymatic hydrolysis and C5/C6 sugar fermentation to make cellulosic ethanol. DOE selected SAFFiRE to prove its technology at pilot scale before ramping it up to produce commercial volumes of ethanol as a biointermediate feedstock for SAF.

The company is in the mid-to-late stages of what it calls Phase One, which involves completing the plant design, permitting, updating lifecycle analysis, working on the business plan, updating the financial analysis and more, Yancey explains. With the project’s first phase scheduled for completion by the end of August, pending DOE reviews, SAFFiRE will move into Phase Two.

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Gevo: Net-Zero 1
Technology company Gevo has its Net-Zero 1 project underway in Lake Preston, South Dakota. The project will utilize ethanol made from low-carbon corn as the feedstock for SAF, oxygenated blendstocks for gasoline and renewable premium gasoline. Gevo broke ground in September at its 240-acre location in Lake Preston. According to a January update from the company, the facility is projected to produce 65 MMgy of renewable liquid hydrocarbons, including 55 MMgy of SAF. This volume is part of the roughly 375 million gallons of SAF Gevo is contracted to provide to the airlines it has signed agreements with, including Virgin Atlantic, Iberia Airlines, Qatar Airlines, Delta, Japan Airlines and others.

The Net-Zero 1 plant will utilize regenerative agriculture, carbon capture and sequestration, biogas, green hydrogen and renewable energy to reach net-zero carbon emissions as calculated with the GREET model.

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Gevo plans to develop other facilities for the production of SAF and has signed letters of intent with existing ethanol plants that are good candidates to develop alcohol-to-jet technologies, while other projects would be greenfield facilities.

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Honeywell: Ethanol to SAF Technology
Technology development company Honeywell has developed an alcohol-to-jet technology that produces SAF with an 80 percent carbon reduction over fossil-based jet fuel, according to the comapny.

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Honeywell has the capability to modularize its plants, building the pieces off-site and then delivering SAF plants to ethanol producers for on-site installation. 

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Honeywell’s process starts with dehydrating the ethanol to make ethylene, which is then run through oligomerization, and finishes with hydrogenation to saturate the olefin molecules in hydrogen. The SAF is essentially finished after this step, but it is run through a final refining step to ensure it meets ASTM standards.

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BASF: Catalyst for Bio-Ethylene from Ethanol
BASF has brought its CircleStar dehydration catalyst to the market, which assists in dehydrating ethanol for conversion into ethylene. 

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Bio-ethylene is a crucial component of many chemical processes, including the production of SAF. This catalyst provides producers with a variety of different benefits, including reduction in energy costs for the dehydration process, less mechanical wear out and more. READ MORE

Alcohol-to-Jet Could Become Predominate SAF Platform (Ethanol Producer Magazine)

Rabobank Analyst Sees Potential in SAF (Energy.AgWired.com)