SAFFiRE Renewables: About to Stack Up

by Luke Geiver (Ethanol Producer Magazine) While still not off the ground, the SAFFiRE Renewables pilot plant in Liberal, Kansas, continues to taxi toward construction with the right partners, technology and market conditions for the build to take off.

Acquired by Conestoga Energy in 2025, SAFFiRE—known mostly for its previous airline affiliation and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) ambitions—has a team of contractors in place to design and build a smaller-scale facility that will showcase a unique approach to cellulosic ethanol production from corn stover. An impressive portfolio of firms—some based in Kansas—are actively working in parallel with out-of-state and European tech providers to help bring the company’s unique deacetylation and mechanical refining process to life next to Conestoga Energy’s 115 MMgy Arkalon Energy ethanol plant.

When Conestoga purchased SAFFiRE, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony in Liberal that included DOE personnel and major political figures from Kansas. Since then, project activity has been mostly limited to design, preparation and planning. But momentum has not been lost.

Marykate O’Brien, chief technology officer for SAFFiRE, and now also senior vice president of technology for Conestoga Energy, says Conestoga’s acquisition of the advanced biofuel startup has been the most meaningful thing to happen to SAFFiRE since work began on early iterations of the biorefining platform at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly NREL) a decade ago.

SAFFiRE now has Conestoga’s immense biorefining ecosystem—the working infrastructure of a large multi-plant ethanol production company—to help manifest its vision, from safe and efficient operating procedures to day-to-day feedstock handling, a trading desk and much more.

Building the Blueprint
Few technical details have been released about the pilot project, but its refining technology supplier, Andritz, has roughly described its pending work on the pretreatment system. The scope of supply includes a single-disc high-consistency refiner and a low-consistency refiner with a capacity to process 10 tons of corn stover per day.

Building next to Arkalon means portions of the construction will not need to be greenfield. The utilities are already there and accessible. When foundations are poured and walls begin to go up, O’Brien says her team will also work to get the early-stage lab up and running so they can continually test and refine their products as soon as possible.

“We will be able to share samples of our cellulosic ethanol and also our lignin byproducts,” she says, “determining where we can take the [lignin byproduct], whether it’s [for use in] critical minerals, renewable cement replacements or even renewable asphalt.”

If Kansas weather allows, there’s still a chance that major construction will start before the end of 2026. Either way, 2027 “will be a busy year,” O’Brien says.

Supply-Chain Focused
Although the ownership of SAFFiRE has changed hands (Conestoga acquired the company from Southwest Airlines in 2025), efforts to understand, test and perfect the corn stover collection and processing platform have been largely unremittent.

Since 2023, SAFFiRE has been working in Kansas to harvest, store and test different approaches to managing the ubiquitous crop residue.

Beyond the Build
SAFFiRE’s engineers, technologists and partners are also busy working on the next important stage of the company’s growth: intellectual property, which O’Brien says is “a big push” right now.

With SAFFiRE, O’Brien knows cracking the cellulosic code—making corn stover ethanol finally happen—is priority number one. Working under Conestoga will accelerate technology development, of course, but also help commercialize the outputs. Conestoga’s trading desk personnel will help find places for the products that eventually flow from the stover processing plant; they will also navigate and manage tax credits and generate cellulosic RINs. The Arkalon team has also helped facilitate a plant layout and is helping SAFFiRE create a safety plan and standard operating procedures for a potentially 24/7 operation.

Tom Willis, CEO of Conestoga, said in the 2025 acquisition announcement of SAFFiRE that the IP acquired could provide the producer with optionality in SAF across its operations.

While changes to SAF policy drivers, specifically the elimination of a premium credit for SAF under 45Z, have dampened enthusiasm in the space, O’Brien says there continues to be enormous international pull for not just SAF, but the other premium, low-CI products that can come from corn stover bioprocessing.

SAFFiRE’s tech has been well documented for its combination of mechanical processing and alkaline pretreatment as seen through funding rounds awarded. And, while the company’s ownership has changed, its core mission hasn’t.

“The fact that we are still here and there are a lot of people interested in our products speaks to the strength of our tech,” she says. “Now, putting steel in the ground and getting our hands dirty is very exciting.” READ MORE