Flight plan: 14 practical steps towards commercial aviation biofuels now
SUSTAINABILITY PRIORITIES
14. Incorporate sustainability standards and advance certification. Ensuring sustainable production of biofuels is critical to the integrity of this industry and incorporating sustainability criteria and standards is the responsibility of all its participants, from feedstock providers and fuel producers, to airlines and governments. These criteria should be consistent with, and complementary to emerging internationally-recognized standards, such as those being developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials. Third-party certification also could help ensure that greenhouse gases, land use, water use, and other sustainability criteria are appropriately considered.
The Digest’s Take.
Sustainability remains a must-do. Good news that Dynamic Fuels, which has built 75 million gallons of capacity in Geismar, Louisiana — has become a certified facility by the Roundtable of Sustainable Biomaterials. Overall, sustainability is one area where industry has, broadly, ensured that it will go down the right path in a way that fosters, rather than frustrates, commercialization.
Notable milestones and novel ideas to date
RenewableJetFuels.org launched, looking at viability, sustainability. In 2011, the Carbon War Room and Elsevier unveiled RenewableJetFuels.org, the world’s first platform for analyzing the efforts made by the renewable sector’s leading companies in the aviation industry. Currently in beta testing, the team is collecting data to be used to compare technical performance, economic viability, carbon footprint, and overall sustainability of renewable jet fuel supply chain companies.
In March, the Roundtable of Sustainable Biofuels’ Assembly of Delegates agreed to include an optional add-on certificate to RSB certification identifying biofuels that pose a low risk to creating ILUC. The vote by the different chambers agreed 18 to 3 in favor of including the LIIB methodology developed by Ecofys as an “extra credit.” The vote was held in light of RSB’s desire to respond to the ILUC debate that is currently going on in Europe. RSB is one of more than a dozen voluntary schemes recognized by the European Commission certifying compliance with the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive.
In February, Dynamic Fuels has earned RSB sustainability certification. The RSB certification encompasses Dynamic Fuels’ Geismar, Louisiana plant, located near Baton Rouge, where it utilizes its technology to turn animal byproducts such as beef tallow and pork and chicken fat into renewable diesel.
The Bottom Line.
14 practical steps. We see the hold-up primarily in affordable feedstock, which represents up to 80 percent of the cost. If feedstock were half the price, most of the rest of the challenges would melt away. We continue to highlight the SuperRIN for financing and the Strategic Feedstock Reserve for affordable sugars and oils.
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