Advanced BioFuels USA

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  …  World Fuel Services and World Energy have a World Economic Forum Sustainable Aviation Fuel Program designed to increase SAF availability and supply chain efficiency within the industry.

The program will be available in time for business jets traveling to the 50th Annual Meeting of the WEF to enable lower carbon emissions of flights departing from Jet Aviation’s facilities at Teterboro (TEB), Boston/Bedford (BED) or Dulles International (IAD) to Davos, Switzerland, for the January 2020 event.

SkyNRG is also now into the act, and explained:

How it works…

Set your ambition

Based on your leadership’s carbon footprint and your ambition level, we determine what SAF volume you want to commit to.

Sign up

You sign-up for a single offtake of SAF and absorb the respective premium (i.e. the price difference between fossil and SAF).

Source & deliver

For the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum we source the SAF volume from World Energy, we guarantee sustainability, and deliver it to a nearby airport to maximize your impact, optimizing sustainability of the supply chain and cost- effectiveness.

Fly & claim

An independent, third party auditor verifies the delivery and claims, and we provide you with a sustainability certificate to claim your carbon neutral flight.

Although Jet Aviation does not physically offer SAF at TEB, BED or IAD, the WEF SAF Program allows fuel consumers at those locations to opt-in and claim SAF environmental benefits. Under the program, for each gallon of conventional fuel purchased at TEB, BED or IAD, an equivalent amount of conventional fuel will be replaced with SAF on flights departing from Jet Aviation’s Van Nuys (VNY) location in California.

World Fuel Services and World Energy believe that the launch of the WEF SAF Program with Jet Aviation is another step forward in increasing the aviation industry’s access to low-carbon fuel and creating greater efficiencies in the distribution of SAF. World Fuel Services and World Energy expect to work with other strategic partners to expand the program to address the growing demand for cleaner-burning, low-carbon aviation fuels.

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The Book & Claim

You may have heard of this mechanism from the world of renewable natural gas, wind and solar and the way we account for low-carbon energy — if you buy a “renewable energy” package from your local power company, it doesn’t mean that they are actually supplying the precise electrons fed off a solar or wind project, into your home.

The electrons are fed into the system and accounted for at the point of entry on the gird (the “book”), and you use electrons in your home or office which are regarded as renewable because your payment caused the renewable electrons to be generated (“the claim”).

But, it’s easier to understand than that, because book & claim is the system we use to move money around the world to pay our bills.

For example, I deposit one hundred dollars in cash at my local bank, then I write a $100 check to a supplier, and they cash the check and receive $100 in cash. But they don’t receive the five twenty dollar bills I deposited. They just get five twenties at random, and the cash withdrawal is deducted from my account at settlement. When I made my deposit, my dollars were accounted for at the point of entry into the money system (“the book”), and when my supplier cashed my check it was deducted against my ledger, not someone else’s (“the claim”).

Why book & claim is useful

Infrastructure is expensive and setting up supply-chains for very small airfields is even more expensive, and small companies have to prioritize to service the bigger airports, first. So, it might be years before every general aviation airfield has reliable, affordable renewable fuel supply at the pump next to each runway.

There’s a deep dive into the science of Book & Claim that came out in Energy Policy just the other day — you can read all about it here.

Also, when United Airlines buys a million gallons of renewable fuel, it’s loaded along with fossil fuels, in a blend, at an airport tank farm. An individual United Airlines flight would only use those exact renewable molecules if we happened to load the fuels right at the wing, which might happen for demonstration or inaugural flight, but is not business as usual for airlines. So, we use Book & Claim.

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Why book & claim of renewable fuels is superior to indirect offsets

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Book & Claim generally refers to like-for-like — a renewable fuel gallon is booked here, claimed there, but it’s all renewable fuel. Offsets can be unlike-for-like — a renewable power gigawatt is booked here, but claimed against an aviation offset credit purchaser there, for example, When the purchaser pays to offset a fossil fuel gallon of aviation fuel, the offset money could be used to create solar power in Burundi.

Why’s that a problem?

In two words, Potemkin Power, a concept borrowed from the Potemkin Villages of the Soviet Era, show villages that were not actually constructed to house people but rather to fool foreign visitors into thinking that Soviet Russia was a worker’s paradise.

How does Potemkin Power work, exactly?

Well, say we have a cheap option to erect solar power in, say, Burundi. Maybe Burundi doesn’t have a way to distribute that power. Or, maybe this represents new power generation for Burundi rather than replacing, say, a coal-fired power plant.

In either case, we are adding renewable power capacity to the system without taking out fossil power. It sounds like we are offsetting power but in fact we are generating more of it.

Potemkin power schemes have the ability to chew up dollars for power gen that doesn’t actually reduce the demand for fossil energy, so it doesn’t decarbonize society. Not that there’s anything wrong with adding solar power in Burundi, the people desperately need more power and a workable grid to lift themselves out of poverty. It just isn’t an offset.

Book & Claim avoids this

Because Book & Claim is like-for-like, there’s never a case where we are generating extra energy capacity on the system. We are simply replacing physical fossil gallon with a low-carbon one, but we are doing the reduction in a different place than where the order was received.

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The Bottom Line

We hope to see more of Book & Claim and we hope that there emerges a better name for them, and one might be Assured Offsets, compared to Unassured Offsets which would be the traditional offsets. AO vs UO — a subject that will be part of an ongoing debate.

But there’s absolutely great news in the idea that business travelers heading for Davos will be able to support de-carbonization even if they are not flying out of the Van Nuys Airport.   READ MORE

Business Aviation’s Sustainability Commitment Highlighted At 2020 World Economic Forum (US National Business Aviation Association)

Sustainable aviation fuel available at Zurich Airport during World Economic Forum (Biofuels International)

World Energy, World Fuel Services to increase availability of sustainable aviation fuel (Biofuels International)

World Economic Forum Makes Sustainable Aviation Fuel Available for First Time (Environment + Energy Leader)