“It causes deforestation”

“It increases food prices”

“It won’t prevent climate change”

All of these assertions about sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are widespread and scary to read. However, are they real?

As is typical, there are many hues of grey in the solution. SAF manufacturing may have very detrimental effects. Equally, it can be created in a way that has a remarkable influence on the climate, safeguards forests and other ecosystems, guarantees food security, upholds land rights, and does much more. In fact, many environmental and social dangers are further diminished by the creation of some of the most inventive alternative fuels from waste products, including recycled carbon. It's not required that this next generation of fuels contain any bio-based materials.

We are aware that people are worried about the actual effects of travel, so how can passengers separate the "good" alternative fuels from the "bad" ones before boarding in an age of information overload?

In general, there are three issues with using alternative fuels: social, environmental, and climate impact. For consumers to make an informed decision about the fuels they use, they need consider the following:

Does the manufacturing of this fuel affect the amount of food produced, raise food prices, or affect how readily available food is? (No)

Are people being taken advantage of in the manufacture of this fuel? (No)

Was the material used to make this fuel obtained from lands where the owners of the property had given their agreement and their land rights had been respected? (Yes)

Does the manufacturing of this fuel improve the local areas where it takes place? (Yes)

Does producing the fuel have a negative impact on ecosystems, especially forests, and biodiversity? Is the health of the soil maintained? (Yes)

Is the quality of surface and groundwater guaranteed? (Yes)

Does the manufacture of fuel add to air pollution? (No)

Does this fuel guarantee a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions when compared to a traditional one? (Yes)

What is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)?

A low-carbon substitute for the aviation sector is SAF.

These non-petroleum drop-in aviation fuels are typically made from trash, residues, and end-of-life goods, in addition to fossil waste. Sustainable aviation fuel is known as SAF. It is made from renewable feedstock's and has chemistry that is remarkably similar to that of conventional fossil jet fuel. Compared to the conventional jet fuel it replaces, using SAF reduces carbon emissions during the fuel's lifetime. Cooking oil and other non-palm waste oils from animals or plants are some examples of typical feedstock's, as are solid waste from homes and businesses such packaging, paper, textiles, and food scraps that would otherwise be disposed of in landfills or burned. Other potential sources include energy crops like fast-growing plants and algae, as well as forestry waste like waste wood.

Why is SAF important?

Jet fuel has a high energy density compared to its weight, which has made commercial flight possible. We are dependent on this type of fuel in aviation since there are now no other practical alternatives for swiftly moving large crowds of people over extremely great distances. Per economy ticket, a roundtrip journey from London to San Francisco emits around 1 ton of CO2e. SAF is one way we may minimize aviation's carbon emissions because the aviation industry is predicted to expand to serve over 8 billion passengers by the year 2050.

How much carbon does it save?

Depending on the sustainable feedstock utilized, the production process, and the supply chain to the airport, SAF offers a remarkable decrease in carbon emissions of up to 80% over the fuel's lifecycle compared to the conventional jet fuel it replaces.

Is it safe to use?

SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel up to 50%, and all quality checks are carried out as they would be for conventional jet fuel. The mixture is then given a new Jet A or Jet A-1 certification. No modifications to the fueling infrastructure or for an aircraft wishing to use SAF are necessary because it may be handled in the same manner as a conventional jet fuel.

Is SAF suitable for all aircraft?

Any aircraft certified for using the current specification of jet fuel can use SAF. 

How does the cost of SAF compare to traditional jet fuel?

Currently, SAF is more expensive than conventional fossil jet fuel. The existing accessibility of sustainable feedstock's and the ongoing advancement of innovative manufacturing technology are to blame for this. It is anticipated that as technology advances, customers would pay less for it since it will become more efficient. SAF may land immediately on current planes and infrastructure. Compared to the conventional jet fuel it replaces, it might result in a lifespan carbon reduction of up to 80%. The SAF will be crucial in helping the aviation sector reach its carbon reduction goals, but there are still many other ways we can cut carbon emissions. The development of future technologies, better operations, and more efficient aircraft design are just a few of the numerous potential for carbon reduction in the sector.

Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Decarbonizing the aviation industry is challenging. Liquid hydrocarbon fuel provides the energy-dense power source needed to propel a big aircraft over great distances. Electric flight's battery technology is advancing. Batteries would be too heavy for large airplanes to fly over long distances since they currently do not have an energy density that is even close to that of liquid fuel. A potential liquid fuel is hydrogen (H2), which burns only to produce water vapor and very little nitrous oxide. Moving to H2 as a fuel source involves a sizable number of infrastructural, production, storage, aircraft, and engine modification required problems. It might take decades before huge airplanes can travel great distances entirely on electricity or hydrogen.

Expanding the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) offers the best chance of significantly decreasing the sector's carbon footprint in the short and medium term. SAF is an alternative jet fuel with a lower life-cycle carbon intensity than traditional petroleum-based fuel that is produced from renewable biomass or waste-based feedstock. Oil seed plants and energy grasses, agricultural and forestry waste, organic municipal solid waste, fats, oils, and greases from culinary waste and meat production, algae, and industrial carbon monoxide waste gas can all be used as feedstock to create SAF.

Power to Liquid (PtL), also known as e-SAF, is another kind of sustainable jet fuel. PtL is created by combining hydrogen, which can be separated from water (it is the "H" in H2O), with carbon that is either taken from the environment or removed from industrial waste gas. The cost of PtL, which is much more than the cost of other forms of SAF, and the lack of renewable electricity for the electrolysis are obstacles to the widespread adoption of this technology. The global industry trade group Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) forecasts PtL production of 42 to 57 percent of the total SAF by 2050 in its 2021 report Waypoint 2050, indicating a significant decline in high cost over the ensuing three decades.

Benefits of Sustainable Aviation Fuels

SAF is regarded as a "drop-in" fuel and is approved for use in mixtures up to 50% of conventional gasoline, requiring no modifications to aircraft engines or fueling infrastructure. Seven SAF production procedures (pathways) have currently been deemed safe for usage in blended form by civil jet aircraft. Plants absorb CO2 through photosynthesis as they grow, limiting the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere when SAF created from plant feedstock is used. This results in a cycle where plants take carbon from the air, turn it into SAF, which when burned releases the carbon back into the atmosphere. By employing carbon already present in the biosphere rather than the fossil carbon present in jet fuel derived from petroleum, SAF is therefore "defossilized".

In addition to recycling the carbon in the trash, using organic municipal solid waste as a feedstock for SAF lowers methane emissions, a strong greenhouse gas that may escape from landfills. When compared to traditional petroleum-based fuel, "neat" (unblended) SAF can emit up to 80% less CO2 over its entire lifecycle. Even with a 50% blend of conventional gasoline, there is still a significant 40% reduction in CO2 emissions.

SAF also produces fewer conventional pollutants, which lessens local concerns about air quality around airports. It produces fewer carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, Sulphur oxides, and particulates. The development of contrails is reduced when aircraft exhaust contains fewer particles. A major portion of aviation's climate change impact can be attributed to contrails and the cirrus clouds they produce. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) of the UN established SAF standards that include requirements to "achieve net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction on a life-cycle basis (compared to conventional fuel), contribute to local social and economic development," and avoid "competition with food and water" in order to ensure that SAF is in fact more sustainable than petroleum fuel.

The ATAG report claims that growing non-food plant feedstock's for SAF has the potential to make use of otherwise underutilized land, create jobs in rural areas, increase farmer income, and improve soil quality when grown as cover crops in between growing seasons for conventional crops.

Challenges of Sustainable Aviation Fuels

SAF is significantly more expensive than fossil-based fuel, typically costing at least four or five times more than conventional jet fuel. It was first approved for use in commercial aviation in 2011 (when combined with petroleum jet fuel).

The economies of scale for these sustainable fuels, which accounted up less than 0.1 percent of the 96 billion gallons of total global commercial aviation fuel usage in 2019, will be improved by increased production. Even while production of SAF increased significantly in the US in 2020 compared to 2019, it still only made up a small portion of the 18.3 billion gallons of jet fuel that scheduled US carriers used that year. Although constrained, production capacity is rising.

The feedstock's for SAF that are currently used the most are fats, oils, and greases (FOG), however they are scarce. In order to transition away from traditional jet fuel, a variety of feedstock's are needed. The coterminous United States may have access to more than one billion dry tonnes of biomass per year as a feedstock for bioenergy and chemical products, which is adequate to meet predicted domestic aviation fuel demand in the country.

For feedstock resources and manufacturing capacity, SAF competes with renewable diesel (RD), which is utilized in transportation. Due to favorable tax laws, RD is able to produce more profitably than SAF on a national level. The drive to promote more SAF production and use is gaining steam. The development of the sustainable aviation fuels sector is being supported by initiatives by the Biden-Harris Administration, legislation that has been proposed in Congress, corporate alliances with airlines, and an increasing number of purchase agreements and commitments by airlines to purchase and use SAF.

SAF Sustainability Index

SAFs can be produced through a variety of techniques, or paths, all of which have varying costs and sustainability levels.

Analyzing the sustainability and cost of each SAF production method, taking into account factors such the ability to reduce CO2 emissions, non-CO2 emissions, the availability of feedstock, and the use of land and water – gives a clear picture of the ecosystem.

Due to their lack of biological feedstock (just requiring access to atmospheric CO2, water, and renewable electricity as feedstock's), power-to-liquid fuels produced via the Fischer-Tropsch method clearly emerge as the most sustainable choice. Power-to-Liquid fuels are anticipated to become extremely cost-effective by 2030 as renewable energy costs continue to decline, even though HEFA fuels generated from waste oils are now the least cheapest.

To help meet sustainability goals in the foreseeable future, the industry should take advantage of SAFs' availability before electric and hydrogen technologies. As hybrid-electric technologies start to enter the market in the medium term, they ought to be built to be SAF-compatible, giving the narrowbody/Middle-of-the-Market sector a double environmental benefit. SAFs, especially for widebody aircraft, are likely to continue to be the only workable solution for sustainable long-haul aviation in the future

How can we accelerate the growth of SAF?

Efficiency has always been a major force behind aviation advancement, making air travel and mobility essential aspects of contemporary life. In fact, today's aircraft are lighter and more aerodynamic than ever before, and our engines are at the leading edge of efficiency. We are enhancing the effectiveness of air traffic control, the way we fly our aircraft, and creating airport operations that have a lower negative environmental impact. However, we continue to use the same fuel for the great majority of flights. That is currently altering.

The desire for fuel and operational efficiency in aviation has assisted the sector in reducing emissions. To take things even farther, the aviation sector has started a journey that will bring carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is essential to supplying a cleaner source of energy to run the global fleet of airplanes and assist the billions of passengers who fly each year in reducing the environmental effect of their flights. According to the industry's Waypoint 2050 research, SAF will be responsible for between 53 and 71% of the emissions reductions required to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Although the sector is really committed to lowering carbon emissions, governments must also develop the proper legislation to hasten the expansion of SAF. A emphasis on research, development, and commercialization of enhanced production technologies and creative sustainable feedstock's is necessary for increasing production in order to reduce investment risks.

Cost reduction is the key to increasing SAF adoption and use. Long-term, that will necessitate spending on developing sustainable and scalable feedstock sources as well as investing in cutting-edge technologies to process feedstock's more effectively at larger scales. However, in the short run, governments and other stakeholders must provide temporary assistance through the use of policy incentives. To provide investors the assurance to make the significant expenditures necessary to increase supply, this support must be a part of a long-term framework

SAF IN ACTION

American Airlines and Yield10 Bioscience signed a Memorandum of Understanding in February 2023 to work together and create the value chain for camelina as a feedstock oil for sustainable aviation fuel. In accordance with the MoU, Yield10 and American intend to collaborate to support the development of the SAF value chain based on camelina oil with a view to securing offtake agreements for usage in the commercial airplane industry.

Japan's largest airline, All Nippon Airways, used sustainable aviation fuel generated from microalgae blended with conventional jet fuel to operate the first flight in the history of the world utilizing an ASTM approved fuel from microalgae. The route of the flight was from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Itami. It was the first flight in history to use SAF certified to meet the requirements of ASTM D7566 Annex7 jet fuel. Japan-based IHI Corporation created the SAF. Hyper Growth Botryococcus Braunii, a microalgae, is being developed by IHI.

A March 2022 flight operated by Fuji Dream Air charter company used sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) derived from algae and used cooking oil for the first time. 77 people boarded the special charter. In one hour, the flight made it from Mount Fiji-shizuoka International Airport to Nagoya-Komaki Airport. Together, Euglena and Fuji Dream Air have developed a technique for outdoor mass growing of microalgae. Euglena is a Tokyo-based startup. SUSTEO is a type of SAF made from Euglena and used cooking oil. SUSTEO emits CO2 during the combustion stage, much like fossil fuels do, but plants and eucalyptus both absorb CO2 through photosynthesis while they are developing, aiding in the transition to a carbon-neutral state.

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION

The first hydrogen-powered regional aircraft flight by Universal Hydrogen was completed successfully –

In March 2023, Universal Hydrogen Co. used hydrogen fuel cells to power a regional airplane carrying 40 people. The aircraft, known as Lightning McClean, took off from Grant County International Airport (KMWH) and flew for 15 minutes, ascending to 3500 MSL. This is the biggest hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft to date as well as the biggest aircraft to primarily fly on hydrogen. One of the aircraft's turbine engines was swapped out with a megawatt-class fuel cell-electric powertrain during its initial test flight. For the sake of the flight's safety, the other engine was left operating as usual.

The first all-electric passenger airplane, Alice, takes flight –

The world's first all-electric, nine-seat passenger aircraft, Alice, is being successfully operated by Israeli-founded business Eviation Aircraft. Grant County International Airport in Washington served as its departure point. On September 27, 2022, Alice completed its first flight, flying for eight minutes at a height of 3,500 feet. Alice is a zero-emission aircraft. With a 30-minute charging time, its technology is comparable to that of an electric vehicle or a cell phone. The nine-passenger Alice has a one- to two-hour flight time. Currently, Eviation wants to have Alice operational by 2027.

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