Flight on Biofuels: Green Jet Fuel is Here, but It’s Not Profitable

Sustainable fuel or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a relatively new type of jet fuel for aircraft that many are currently excited about as it promises an average reduction in carbon emissions of 80 percent, but it seems that airlines are not fully embracing it, for which there are justified reasons.

As a result, there is little likelihood that your next flight will be powered, at least partially, by some type of biofuel made from, say, used cooking oil or agricultural waste. These are indeed some of the ingredients suitable for biofuel production according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Other resources that can be used include corn grains, oilseeds, algae, fats and oils, agricultural residues, forest residues, wood waste, or wet waste such as manure or sludge from wastewater.

The first commercial flights using SAF began in 2011, and since then, this new fuel has become a key element that should enable the sustainability of air traffic. The aviation industry has promised that by 2050, its global carbon emissions will be halved compared to those in 2005. The hope is that a decade after that, there will be a complete absence of emissions.

This is, we would say, a very ambitious plan, according to which biofuel should contribute to a reduction in emissions between 50 and 75 percent. However, in 2019, before the pandemic began, biofuels accounted for only 0.1 percent of the total jet fuel used worldwide, according to data from the World Economic Forum.

Why It Is Not Used

SAF or biofuel is a drop-in fuel, meaning it can be used in existing aircraft with little or no modifications. Aircraft modification is minimal, and there should not be significant barriers to begin fueling them with fuel derived from various waste.

– This is very beneficial for the aviation industry because there is no need to invest in new infrastructure or new aircraft, and it is also great for airports because they can use the same infrastructure for storage and fuel – from that perspective, SAF is an excellent new fuel – explains Andreas Schafer, a professor of energy and transport at the University of London.

In its attempt to become more sustainable, aviation is also looking at next-generation technologies such as hydrogen flight and electric propulsion, but such methods require transformative changes that are still many years away. As Boeing’s CEO David Calhoun said, SAF is ‘the only answer from now until 2050.’

SAF has a low carbon footprint because it is made from waste products, where carbon has already been emitted, or from plants that use CO₂ for growth. However, the problem arises when it comes to price, as it is currently much more expensive to produce such fuel than conventional jet fuel, even when oil prices are high.

– There is currently no real business reason to invest in biofuels because airlines have no incentive to use these ‘new fuels’ other than reducing emissions, and that is not their top priority in the world – explains Schafer, adding that this is a luxury they cannot or do not want to afford today.

Low Footprint

To bring prices down, production needs to be significantly increased, and new types of SAF need to be offered to the market because today most of this fuel comes in the form of biofuel produced from waste fats such as used cooking oil or from oilseeds specifically grown on degraded land. However, there are currently not enough of these raw materials to supply the industry.

In the near future, more expensive biofuel could be produced from agricultural waste products, such as stems or husks of plants and wood processing residues, as well as from non-edible plants that are specifically grown like miscanthus, similar to bamboo, but also from algae. Even household waste that often goes to landfills has the potential to be converted into SAF, some researchers say.

Others suggest that in the near future, another type of biofuel called power to liquid could be produced. This method uses renewable energy to extract hydrogen from water and then mixes it with CO₂ taken directly from the air. The result is a synthetic liquid fuel that is carbon neutral and comes in potentially limitless quantities – enough to meet the demand of the entire aviation industry.

According to a cost analysis conducted by Schafer and his team, the current SAF made from waste oils costs at least 50 percent more than conventional jet fuel, and this new SAF has even four times the price of jet fuel, so better times and lower costs are awaited to bring these new SAFs into operation. To reduce costs, it is necessary to expand the production of currently cheap biofuels and then continue investing in the production of expensive biofuels, Schafer believes.

– We need to build several thousand production facilities. And that’s not all, because you need infrastructure for producing renewable energy with which the energy would then be converted into liquid. And that is a colossal job. Half of the electricity produced globally today would be needed for the aviation sector by 2050. So, the scale is enormous, and we better start as soon as possible – he notes.

Challenging Future

The first commercial flight that used a mixture of biofuel and conventional jet fuel was operated by the Dutch airline KLM in 2011, but test flights date back to 2008. Since then, many major airlines have used SAF in commercial flights, including SAS, Lufthansa, Qantas, Alaska, and United: according to IATA, since 2016, more than 370,000 flights have been launched with SAF in the fuel mix. Aircraft and engine manufacturers are also conducting tests, signaling global interest.

In March 2022, for example, an Airbus A380 flew for three hours powered by one of its Rolls-Royce engines entirely on SAF made from cooking oil and other waste fats. However, progress has slowed due to the pandemic. The industry’s goal before COVID-19 was to reach a usage of biofuels of two percent by 2025, and given that only 0.1 percent of biofuels were in use at the beginning of 2019, that goal has become quite questionable.
– We are certainly falling behind the 2025 goal, and I think it is unlikely that we will achieve it naturally – says Glenn McDonald, an aviation analyst at Aerodynamic Advisory, suggesting that external intervention is needed to make SAF more attractive, either through subsidies or making it cheaper or through carbon taxes, which make traditional jet fuel more expensive.

It does not help that aviation is a global and fragmented industry with rules and regulations that vary from one country to another. Progress is likely to be uneven: Norway, for example, has mandated since 2020 that 0.5 percent of jet fuel used in the country must be SAF, a share that must grow to 30 percent by 2030.

Yet, according to McDonald, there are encouraging signs.

– Airlines are starting to take this more seriously as they see a change in consumer preferences, especially among younger travelers, and they know they will have to meet these goals to be part of a sustainable industry in the 2050s of the 21st century – he explains.

He adds that the aviation industry does not want to become the new tobacco industry, whose business model is not aligned with public policy and consumer attitudes. For passengers, the transition to SAF could be completely unnoticed as the change in fuel does not affect any visible aspect of the flight. However, as airlines feel greater pressure to use SAF before its price aligns with conventional jet fuel, which, according to the World Economic Forum, will not happen before 2030, Schafer believes that part of the costs could be passed on to passengers, resulting in a price increase of 15 percent, which is certainly not insignificant, given that ticket prices are not low even now.

EU Commitments

Given that the EU likes to be first when anything green or anything bio is mentioned, it has jumped into the first wagon with SAFs. In April of this year, the EU reached an agreement to set binding targets for airlines in Europe to increase the use of sustainable aviation fuels, in an attempt to kickstart the green fuel market and begin reducing the carbon footprint of the aviation sector.

The proposal aims to increase both the demand and supply of sustainable aviation fuels that have net-zero CO₂ emissions or lower CO₂ emissions than fossil kerosene. According to the agreement, fuel suppliers must ensure that two percent of the fuel available at EU airports is SAF by 2025, by 2030 SAF must account for six percent, 20 percent by 2035, and 70 percent by 2050. Some European airlines, such as Air France, have stated that they have already set their more ambitious targets for using SAF even before the EU regulations.

Others have warned that the agreement could disrupt market competition, as the SAF targets would apply to airlines flying from European hubs but not to long-haul carriers flying from other locations. Nevertheless, the EU has decided that airports should receive around two billion euros to help them transition to SAF.

However, we cannot conclude the text without the greens and their comments, so we will briefly say that Greenpeace transport activist in the EU Thomas Gelin stated that airlines use SAFs as a smokescreen and that the fact is that the only sustainable aviation is ‘less aviation.’