Advanced BioFuels USA

by Tony Harrington (GreenAir Online) Three significant new agreements have been announced to collectively deliver more than 1.5 billion litres of sustainable aviation fuel to seven airline operators, reports Tony Harrington. German-based freight airline DHL Express has agreed to acquire more than 800 million litres of SAF within the next five years through two agreements, one with oil company bp and the other with wastes-to-fuel producer Neste. The carrier described the combined SAF deals as one of the largest in aviation to date. In a simultaneous development, the oneworld airline alliance has announced the intention of six of its 14-member airlines to jointly acquire almost the same amount – up to 200 million gallons, or around 750 million litres – of SAF from US-based renewable fuels provider Gevo for use in key Californian airports from 2027. And in the UK, the Saudi Arabian industrial group Alfanar has announced a £1 billion ($1.3bn) investment in a new waste-to-energy project to produce up to 180 million litres of SAF per year.

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In the US, the oneworld airline alliance has announced a plan for six of its members – Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Japan Airlines and Qatar Airways – to collectively acquire up to 200 million gallons of SAF per year at a range of airports in California, for five years from 2027.

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The Gevo deal is the second to be announced by oneworld within five months. Last November, the alliance revealed a joint commitment by most of its member airlines to purchase more than 350 million gallons (1.34 billion litres) of blended sustainable aviation fuel from another supplier, Aemetis, for uplift from San Francisco.

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Gevo said it had developed two alcohol-to-jet methods which would use a variety of feedstocks produced using sustainable farming and renewable agricultural techniques. The company said its production processes would incorporate renewable energy from sources including wind turbines, biogas and combined heat and power systems (CHP) to boost efficiency and cut carbon intensity to net zero.

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The Lighthouse Green Fuels project also complements the establishment in Teesside of the UK’s first Hydrogen Transport Hub, a partnership with Teesside University to create an innovation centre focused on clean energy research, development and testing for all modes of transport.    READ MORE

Delta Air Lines to acquire 2 billion litres of alcohol-to-jet SAF from Gevo under a seven-year agreement (GreenAir Online)

Feature: US airlines cast a wider net in search for sustainable aviation fuel supply (S&P Global)

United Airlines Ventures joins with Oxy to fund CO2-to-SAF development with startup Cemvita (GreenAir Online)

Excerpt from S&P Global:  As US airlines seek to lock in sustainable aviation fuel supply to reach their 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, many are looking beyond suppliers who produce SAF using traditional feedstocks like hydrogenated vegetable oils and tallow.

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United Airlines Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund for United Airlines, recently took a stake in Cemvita Factory which uses microbes to turn carbon dioxide into a feedstock for alternative fuels, including SAF. Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a founding investor in Cemvita Factory, is collaborating.

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Finnair on March 30 signed an offtake agreement with California-based Aemetis for 17.5 million SAF gallons over seven years beginning in 2025 — part of a $2 billion contract with Oneworld Alliance members to meet their long term net-zero ambitions.

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Before its foray into renewable diesel and SAF, California-based Aemetis produced low-carbon ethanol and built biogas digesters to capture dairy farm methane to convert into renewable natural gas.

Aemetis recently acquired a former military terminal in Riverbank, California, and plans to produce 90 million gallons of RD, SAF and other fuels by 2025 from the facility, named Carbon Zero 1.

For feedstock, Aemetis will use cellulosic hydrogen, byproducts from its other biofuel plants, as well as wood waste from local orchards. Operations are expected to begin in 2023, ramping up to full rates by 2025.

Aemetis will be using the HEFA-SPK process to make renewables at its Riverbank facility, “the lowest cost and widely accepted process” approved to produce SAF, said Credit-Suisse analyst Manav Gupta.

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Incentivized by $4.3 billion in government funding to increase SAF production to 3 billion gal/year by 2030, Chicago-based LanzaJet plans to make 1 billion gallons of SAF by 2030 using alcohol-to-jet technology.

In January, LanzaJet received $50 million in funding from Microsoft to build the first alcohol-to-jet SAF production plant to be based in Soperton, Georgia, using ethanol waste as feedstock for the plant, named Freedom Pines.

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LanzaJet recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Marquis Sustainable Aviation Fuel to build a 120 million gal/year plant in Hennepin, Illinois, using its ATJ process.

Colorado-based Gevo plans to break ground in 2022 for its Net-Zero 1 Project, located in Lake Preston, South Dakota, where it will produce about 46 million gal/year of SAF and gasoline products from corn.  READ MORE

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Excerpt from GreenAir Online:  United Airlines Ventures (UAV), the United Airlines subsidiary formed last year to invest in start-ups, new technologies and sustainability concepts, and Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV), a similar business, which is part of the global energy group Occidental (Oxy), have come together to work with US biotechnology company Cemvita Factory to commercialise a new process which converts carbon dioxide and synthetic microbes into sustainable aviation fuel. UAV has also joined OLCV as an investor in Houston-based Cemvita Factory, which is developing a synthetic biology process which transforms CO2 into chemicals and fossil-free fuels, including SAF. The initiative adds to a growing list of investments by United in sustainable fuels, new propulsion systems and carbon capture and sequestration, as it seeks to decarbonise its operations without using offsets, reports Tony Harrington.

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Through their new partnership, UAV and OLCV will fund development work by Cemvita Factory to turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons for SAF. Subject to Cemvita’s achievement of performance targets, UAV and OLCV will establish a joint venture to commercialise the process by funding projects including pilot and demonstration plants and engineering studies. They will also finance construction of, and operate, SAF plants.  READ MORE