C&EN Jan 15 edition has article on green jet fuels. Producers can sell all they can make. Capacity is limited at present. Current production is 0.15% of global jet fuel demand.
Oil refiner Neste is largest with 1.3B liters/yr production in Finland and Singapore. A 1.8B L expansion in Netherlands is due 2024.
World Energy makes 270MM L/yr in Southern California. Expansion to 950MM L is due 2026.
Montana Renewables (also serving west coast) should have 227MM L available later in 2024 followed by an expansion to 870MM L. Great Falls, Montana. https://montanarenewables.com/
Iata thinks SAFglobal volume will triple to 1.9B L in 2024. Nice growth but too slow to reach net zero in 2050.
Nearly all existing SAF comes from vegetable oils or animal fats. SAF from fermentation ethanol or bio-methanol is under development by Gevo, LanzaJet, and Honeywell UOP. Processes from carbon oxides (methanolysis) are under development by āAir Company,ā Johnson Matthey, and Sasol.
Exporters in China and Malaysia are using virgin palm oil instead of recycled cooking fat to make sustainable aviation fuel, research from lobby group Transport & Environment (T&E) suggests. This means that rather than reducing CO2 emissions, the drive to adopt SAF may instead be driving deforestation.
SAF accounts for just 0.2% of total jet fuel use, although the British Government has ordered U.K. airlines to lift that proportion to 10% by the end of the decadeā¦
Malaysia is the worst offender, according to T&E, as campaigners cast doubt over the countryās claims that it exports three times more used cooking oil than it collects.
Iām not sure this is really a problem. Palm oil is a natural product. It is green. Deforestation is another problem. Ditto soybean oil. They say rapeseed (canola) is the most abundant in terms of oil per acre.
When you buy precooked frozen meat dishes, likely they have abundant animal fats. Those too can be used.
But note that biodiesel usually is blended into jet fuel or diesel fuel. It reduces carbon emissions but so far does not eliminate them.
More processing can give all green SAF. That from fermentation ethanol is probably most plentify but it will not be cheap.
Same old situation. Much can be done if you are willing to pay the price. How much are you willing to pay to solve this problem.
My main problem with these biofuel solutions is the amount of farmland that will be needed to provide a significant percentage of the needed fuels.
From the University of Nebraska, a bushel of soybeans can produce 1.5 gallons of biodiesel. The average soybean yield in the US is around 50 bushels per acre. Assuming one crop can be grown on a given field per year. From the EIA, the amount of jet fuel consumed in the US was 602.9 million barrels in 2023. At 42 gallons per barrelā¦
(1.5 gal/bu) x (50 bu/acre) = 75 gallons per acre
(602.9E6 bbl/yr) x (42 gal/bbl) = 25.3 billion gal/yr
(25.3 billion gal) x (1 acre/75 gal) = 337 million acres.
Note: Jet-A fuel is more similar to kerosene than diesel fuel, but assuming soybean oil can be converted into something that commercial jets could use, at a similar amount per bushelā¦
Letās say we only supply 25% of jet fuel from soybeans. 337 million acres divided by 4 is 84 million acres. It turns out, 84 million acres is about the same amount of land currently planted with soybeans this year in the US. Where do we find the farmland to grow another 4.1 billion bushels of soybeans per year? If you are familiar with Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, or other agricultural states, just about every acre of farmland already goes to growing either corn, soybeans, wheat or other grains. BTW, about 40% of the corn grown in those states goes to producing ethanol for mixing with gasoline. Most of the other 60% goes to feeding livestock, because people enjoy eating steaks, hamburgers, bacon, chicken, etc.
If we cut all food acres, all forage acres and all ethanol acres in the US from the 342MM crop acres to grow bio jet fuel, we could simply economize on the few MM acres remaining for food! Just leave out beef, pork, chicken, turkey, eggs, milk, etc.
