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December 4—RIYADH — While aircraft manufacturers and airlines have aimed to increase energy efficiency over the past decades, the move to find alternatives to fossil fuels has been a struggle.
While the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Organization push the industry to adopt sustainable aviation fuel, the goal may be beyond the reach of current technologies, noted the Riyadh-based King Abdullah Center for Petroleum Studies and Research.
SAF is a term used by the aviation industry to describe unconventional aviation fuel derived from fossil sources. It uses a variety of sustainable resources, including carbon captured from the air and green hydrogen mixed with traditional jet fuel “with no aircraft or infrastructure changes required,” according to Amsterdam-based SAF manufacturer SkyNRG.
It adds that these green fuels reduce emissions by 70 to 80 percent per flight.
Brian Moran, vice president of global sustainability policy and partnerships for Boeing, explained that SAF is made from different raw materials such as biomass residues, cooking oil or waste gases.
Various pathways have been created to convert recycled carbon by combining it with hydrogen to produce a new fuel, Moran told Arab News in an earlier interview.
He added: “It’s not one silver bullet, but sustainable aviation fuel and low-carbon fuels play a really vital role in the journey towards sustainable aviation fuels.” And that’s why we’re so invested there.
“Over the next 20 years, the world needs 43,000 new airplanes.” So it’s up to us to make sure we continue this decline in emissions reductions that we’ve been on.
High demand
IATA says the main challenge for SAF producers is meeting airline demand for alternative fuel.
In 2021, airlines ordered 14 billion liters of SAF, which “addresses the question of whether airlines will buy the product,” added Willie Walsh, director general of IATA, in an interview with CNBC.
The aviation sector has the second highest demand for energy in the transport industry after the road sector.
Reports indicate that airlines are slowly moving towards adopting SAF, including Qatar Airways and Emirates.
Qatar Airways said 10 percent of its flights will use the fuel by 2030, while Emirates signed a memorandum of understanding with US-based GE Aviation in November 2021 to test Emirates’ Boeing 777-300ER using 100 percent SAF by the end of the year. .
Pan-European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has announced that all of its aircraft are certified to fly with a mixture of up to 50 percent SAF mixed with kerosene. The goal is to have all of its aircraft capable of flying exclusively using SAF by 2030.
HIGHLIGHT
While the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Organization push the industry to adopt sustainable aviation fuel, the goal may be beyond the reach of current technologies, noted the Riyadh-based King Abdullah Center for Petroleum Studies and Research.
“I think quantity is the main issue right now. Governments should step up SAF production. The reality is that airlines have used every drop of sustainable fuel available to us in 2021,” Walsh said in an interview with the association. .
Although about 100 million liters of SAF were used last year, according to Walsh, “it is a very small amount compared to the total fuel required by the industry.”
Stock increase
Before 2021, only two companies were producing SAF commercially globally: Finland’s Neste and Boston-based World Energy, according to US Global Investors, a Texas-based investment adviser.
Other companies entering the field in 2021 and 2022 include Spain’s Repsol, France’s TotalEnergies, Britain’s BP, Phillips 66 and California-based Fulcrum BioEnergi.
Neste has a small annual capacity of 100,000 metric tons of SAF, but says it is on track to increase this capacity to 1.5 million tons by the end of 2023 at its facilities in Europe and Singapore.
On the other hand, World Energy plans to convert a refinery in Houston into a SAF plant, while Boeing is establishing a plant in Japan to begin SAF research and development.
In March, Riyadh-based Alfanar announced it had invested £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in a project in the UK to produce SAF from waste.
The Lighthouse Green Fuel project produces more than 180,000 metric tons per year in the UK, the company said in a statement.
Cost factor
The high cost of SAF will affect its usefulness compared to conventional jet fuel, according to KAPSARC. IATA estimates that SAF generally costs two to four times more than any jet fuel.
According to the Air Transport Action Group, this is happening in an industry where 1,478 airlines accounted for 2.1 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions and 12 per cent of transport sector emissions in 2019.
That year, the industry spent $186 billion on 95 billion gallons of fuel to transport passengers worldwide.
Fossil fuel consumption will remain a decisive factor for this sector for some time to come. Commercial aircraft, such as trains and heavy goods vehicles, cannot rely on electric motors because they do not provide the thrust these energy-hungry vehicles require.
IATA expects SAF production to reach 7.9 billion liters by 2025, which would meet only about 2 percent of the industry’s fuel needs. However, by 2050, the association says production will jump to 449 billion liters or 65 percent of the sector’s needs.
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(c) 2022 Arab News (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
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