The Long Haul to Getting Aviation Biofuel off the Ground

November 05, 2019

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by Angeli Mehta (Ethical Corporation) With the IPCC warning against growing crops for fuel, Angeli Mehta reports on how LanzaTech, SkyNRG and Velocys are trying to get the next generation of aviation biofuels to scale

The first flight using a blend of kerosene and biofuel took place back in 2008. Eleven years and another 150,000 flights on, how much further forward is the industry?

The International Energy Agency estimates that aviation biofuel production was 15 million litres in 2018. To meet the 10% of consumption envisaged in sustainable development scenarios, production needs to reach 31 billion litres by 2030.

So how will it be possible to achieve the scale-up needed?

US-based LanzaTech, which makes aviation fuel from industrial waste emissions, has just secured $72m from Novo Holdings, an achievement its chief sustainability officer Freya Burton describes as “significant”.

“There has been a bit of hesitation because there are no quick returns,” says Burton. It has taken LanzaTech almost 14 years to get from the lab to commercial scale. Investment is tied to policy and the policy landscape has not been stable, she says.

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Indeed, the special IPCC report on land use, published in August, said: “Bioenergy needs to be carefully managed to avoid risks to food security, biodiversity and land degradation. Desirable outcomes will depend on locally appropriate policies and governance systems.”

It points out that some waste streams that are currently used to make alternative fuels are not sufficient. One example is tallow, a by-product of the meat and dairy industry, which will diminish if eating habits change as they need to.

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And for many airlines, there’s no incentive to invest in fuels that can cost two to three times the price of kerosene.

“From a global perspective, the lack of sufficient policy incentives for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is constraining [its] affordability, and availability as a result,” says Aaron Robinson, United Airlines senior manager for environmental strategy and sustainability. United has been buying biofuels since 2016 from what is now World Energy, a US advanced biofuels company, and is awaiting an almost seven-fold expansion of the company’s California facility, due to be complete in 2021.

Robinson noted that while some regions, like California, Netherlands and the UK, did have good policy frameworks, these aren’t enough to fully close the price gap for all producers.

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In the Netherlands, SkyNRG and KLM are working to persuade corporates to pay the difference in price between the two fuels for the flights they make, arguing that this will lower their own carbon footprint, and help scale up biofuel production.

Stable and long-term policy is essential if the industry is to grow. Last month, Norway became the first country in the world to mandate that 0.5% sustainable fuel be blended with kerosene from 2020. The aim is to grow the blend to 30% by 2030. Only fuels from waste and residue will qualify, and these cannot be based on palm oil. READ MORE

Airlines get ready for jet biofuel take-off in Norway (Reuters)

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