Advanced BioFuels USA

by Marc Hamy & Nancy Gillis (Green Biz/First Movers Coalition)  It will take long-term, coordinated action from airlines, aircraft manufacturers, fuel producers, airports and governments for zero-emissions flight to really take off. — … On Nov. 27, a small piece of aviation history was made: Rolls-Royce conducted the world’s first test run of a modern aircraft engine powered purely by clean hydrogen. Although the technology is not expected to be commercially viable until the mid-2030s, this test takes the aviation industry a step closer to the holy grail of zero-carbon, long-haul flight.

With clean hydrogen-powered passenger flight more than a decade off, the near-term net-zero hopes of the industry are pinned to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). This article examines how to accelerate both supply and demand for this revolutionary way of powering aircraft — at the speed and scale demanded by a 1.5 degrees Celsius-aligned pathway.

Aviation agrees to change its flight plan

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Although aviation was left out of the Paris Agreement on climate in 2015, the industry agreed in September 2021 to commit to net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. And in October, 184 governments came together under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to adopt the same long-term goal.

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Earlier this year, the Mission Possible Partnership and the World Economic Forum (WEF) published the world’s first 1.5 degrees Celsius-aligned aviation transition strategy, backed by 70 corporate partners. The strategy maps out a “prudent” pathway towards 95 percent decarbonization by 2050, in which SAF plays a leading role (45 percent), with a variety of options to deliver the remaining emissions reductions, including fuel and aircraft efficiencies, clean hydrogen, battery-electric power for short-haul flights and optimizing air navigation.

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Today’s commercially available SAF are typically biofuels made from vegetable oils or ethanol derived from crops such as sugar cane or corn. Depending on the feedstock used in their manufacture, they can already deliver a 60-85 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions.

SAF’s great advantage is that it’s a “drop-in” fuel — you can pump it straight into aircraft fuel tanks without expensive retrofitting to aircraft or special infrastructure at airports.

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The bad news is that SAF is still very expensive — anything between two and five times the 2019 price of conventional jet fuel. As a result, SAF represents less than 0.1 percent of global aviation fuel consumption today — a tiny step that needs to become a giant leap.

Airbus is among more than 100 companies, convened by the Forum’s Clean Skies for Tomorrow initiative in September 2021, that set a goal for SAF to meet 10 percent of aviation’s fuel needs globally by 2030. To achieve this, three things must happen:

1. Scale-up supply: Production volumes must ramp up five or six times to hit the 10 percent target by 2030. This will require at least 300 new SAF plants.
2. Reduce the cost: Fuel producers won’t invest in these new SAF plants without demand signals from industry. But airlines won’t buy sufficient SAF to send this signal unless the price comes down.
3. Set clear market and demand signals from governments and companies: Governments must help kick-start investment in SAF production through a mix of incentives, tax credits and mandates. Leading aviation companies can commit to long-term offtake agreements to derisk investment by fuel suppliers.

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Two new technologies hold out potential to produce near-zero emission SAF: the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) and Power-to-Liquid (PtL) processes. FT’s advantage is that it can turn a wide range of “non-food feedstocks” — municipal solid waste, switchgrass, residues of forestry and agriculture — into jet fuel that delivers 90-100 percent CO2 abatement.

PtL, meanwhile, is a pilot-stage technology that combines green hydrogen (produced by renewable power) with CO₂ directly captured from ambient air to create a synthetic fuel often known as “e-kerosene” — a virtually fossil-free power source. Airbus is part of a consortium that recently announced a new industrial-scale PtL plant in Hamburg. The advantage of PtL is that it requires no arable land or biological feedstocks. The challenges with PtL will be around cost and competition for green hydrogen from other sectors.

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Now that over 100 aviation companies are committed to ensure that 10 percent of their global jet fuel supplies are SAF by 2030, the demand for a completely new type of fuel market is clearly there.

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While mandates could help level the playing field, to be effective they need to be accompanied by public investment in R&D as well as buyers’ incentives to develop what is still a very nascent market. The EU is also considering helping reduce the cost of SAF by offering free carbon credits under its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that are equivalent to the CO2 abated by using sustainable jet fuel.

Common certification and accounting standards are also vital.

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While SAF is the most viable medium-term pathway towards reducing aviation’s carbon footprint, two other revolutionary near-zero fueling technologies are being developed: battery-electric and clean hydrogen.

While the weight of batteries is expected to limit electric-powered technology to short-haul routes only, battery-electric flight could become a commercial reality as soon as the end of this decade. READ MORE

Setting sights on net-zero carbon emission goals in aviation (Biofuels International)