SAF takes-off to the next level – United’s bold SAF commitment, Boeing, Etihad Airways, World Energy’s 50/50 blend, Gevo’s SAF in Seattle
It’s Winter Solstice today and in the Earth’s Northern hemisphere, it’s when we experience the longest period of night all year. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you’ll recall when Dumbledore said, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” Or maybe you are more of an Aristotle admirer: “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” Both good quotes to remember in 2020. Either way, as the darkness seems to surround us, let’s look to the light, the hope, the future, starting with incredible news right now. No, not the Covid-19 vaccine ‘shots in the arms’, but SAF in the planes.
In today’s Digest, United Airlines ambitious goal by investing in sustainable fuels and new tech – NOT buying carbon offsets – to reduce GHG emissions by 100% by 2050, Gevo’s SAF delivered for the Pacific Northwest region, Boeing, Etihad and World Energy using 50/50 blend on a test flight, and more.
United’s bold SAF commitment
Let’s start with Illinois-based United Airlines who pledged 100% GHG emissions reduction by 2050 by making industry-leading investments in new technology and sustainable fuels – not from buying carbon offsets, which is how several other airlines meet their GHG reduction goals.
United is expected to make a multimillion-dollar investment in revolutionary atmospheric carbon capture technology that is expected to capture and store millions of metric tons of CO2 per year.
United, which in 2018 became the first U.S. airline to commit to reducing its GHG emissions by 50% by 2050, will advance towards carbon neutrality by committing to a multimillion-dollar investment in revolutionary atmospheric carbon capture technology known as Direct Air Capture – rather than indirect measures like carbon-offsetting – in addition to continuing to invest in the development and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). With this unprecedented announcement, United becomes the first airline in the world to announce a commitment to invest in Direct Air Capture technology.
“As the leader of one of the world’s largest airlines, I recognize our responsibility in contributing to fight climate change, as well as our responsibility to solve it,” said Scott Kirby, United’s chief executive officer. “These game-changing technologies will significantly reduce our emissions, and measurably reduce the speed of climate change – because buying carbon offsets alone is just not enough. Perhaps most importantly, we’re not just doing it to meet our own sustainability goal; we’re doing it to drive the positive change our entire industry requires so that every airline can eventually join us and do the same.”
Investment in Direct Air Capture Technology
Rather than simply taking a conventional approach to decarbonization by relying solely on the purchase of carbon offsets, United intends to make a multimillion-dollar investment in 1PointFive, Inc., a partnership between Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a subsidiary of Occidental, and Rusheen Capital Management. 1PointFive’s mission is to curb the rise in global temperatures by physically removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air using Direct Air Capture technology licensed from Carbon Engineering.
Direct Air Capture technology is one of the few proven ways to physically correct for aircraft emissions, and can scale to capture millions and potentially billions of metric tons of CO2 per year. The captured CO2 will then be permanently, safely and securely stored deep underground by Occidental, a process certified by independent third parties. The commitment – the first to be announced in the aviation industry – will help 1PointFive build the first industrial-sized Direct Air Capture plant in the United States. A single plant is expected to capture and permanently sequester one million tons of CO2 each year, the equivalent of the work of 40 million trees, but covering a land area about 3,000 times smaller.
Investments in Sustainable Aviation Fuel
With up to 80% less lifecycle carbon emissions than conventional jet fuel, sustainable aviation fuel is the fastest and most effective way United is reducing its emissions. Among all airlines globally, United holds more than 50% of all publicly announced future purchase commitments to using SAF and has the longest history of using SAF of any U.S. airline. Last year, United renewed its contract with Boston-based World Energy, agreeing to purchase up to 10 million gallons of cost-competitive SAF. United has used this SAF to help sustainably power every flight departing its Los Angeles hub since 2016.
Check out “Municipal Solid Waste to Jet Fuel: The Digest’s 2020 Multi-Slide Guide to Fulcrum” here.
Since 2016, United has used the most SAF of any airline globally and has flown:
- 26 million passengers on flights powered with a SAF blend
- 44 billion passenger-miles on flights powered with a SAF blend
- 215,000 flights powered with a SAF blend
United’s commitment to becoming carbon-neutral by 2050 represents yet another leadership position the airline has taken to reduce its impact on the environment. United’s significant environmental achievements include:
- Becoming the first airline globally to incorporate SAF in regular operationson a continuous basis, marking a significant milestone in the industry by moving beyond test programs and demonstrations to the everyday use of low-carbon fuel in ongoing operations
- In 2019, we committed $40 milliontoward an investment initiative focused on accelerating the development of SAF and other decarbonization technologies
- Operating the Flight for the Planetin 2019, which represented the most-eco-friendly commercial flight of its kind in the history of commercial aviation
- Becoming the first airline to fly with Boeing’s Split Scimitar winglets, which reduce fuel consumption by an additional 2% versus standard winglets; United is the largest Scimitar winglet operator today, with nearly 400 aircraft equipped with these winglets
- Becoming the first U.S. airline to repurpose items from the carrier’s international premium cabin amenity kits and partnering with Clean the Worldto donate hygiene products to those in critical need
- Eliminatingnon-recyclable plastic stirring sticks and cocktail picks on aircraft and replacing them with a more environmentally friendly product made of 100% bamboo
- Continuing to replace its eligible ground equipment with cleaner, electrically powered alternatives, with nearly 45% of the fleet converted to date
Check out the January 2020 slide guide “Two Airlines Working Towards Sustainable Aviation Fuel: The Digest’s 2020 Multi-Slide Guide to Alaska Airlines and United Airlines’s Aviation Biofuels” here.
Boeing, Etihad Airways and World Energy not far behind
Next in the news, we’ve got United Arab Emirates-based Etihad Airways concluding testing on Boeing’s 2020 ecoDemonstrator programme last week with a cross-country flight using a 50/50 blend of sustainable and traditional jet fuel. Flying from Seattle to Boeing’s manufacturing site in South Carolina, Etihad’s newest 787-10 Dreamliner used the maximum sustainable fuel blend permitted for commercial aviation.
Mohammad Al Bulooki, Etihad Aviation Group Chief Operating Officer, said: “Together with Boeing and the national airline’s sustainable aviation fuel partners World Energy and EPIC, Etihad used 50,000 gallons of a 50/50 blend of sustainable aviation fuel on the final flight of our ecoDemonstrator 787-10 flight tests. This is a monumental step forward for the sector to prove the viability of producing a 50/50 blend of sustainable aviation fuel [SAF] at a high volume, an important moment for the industry.”
Al Bulooki added: “This is a prime example of industry collaboration towards sustainable aviation and innovation. Etihad’s collaboration with Boeing in the ecoDemonstrator programme has been a unique opportunity to lead the aviation industry’s drive for a sustainable future.”
Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator programme takes promising technologies out of the lab and tests them in the air to accelerate innovation. This year’s program evaluated four projects to reduce emissions and noise and enhance the safety and health of passengers and crew. All of the 787-10 test flights used a blend of traditional jet fuel and sustainable fuel produced from inedible agricultural wastes to minimize emissions, with the final flight operating at the maximum 50/50 commercial blend.
“Sustainable aviation fuels are proven and work in airplanes flying today and those that will fly tomorrow, but there’s a very limited supply,” said Sheila Remes, vice president of strategy at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “World Energy is making commercial-scale volumes of sustainable fuel at competitive prices, leveraging government low-carbon incentives to accelerate production and use in an industry that relies on liquid fuels.”
The fuel from World Energy and supplied to Boeing by EPIC Fuels has been certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials to reduce carbon emissions by more than 75% over the fuel’s life cycle.
“We congratulate Boeing and Etihad for their industry leadership in helping push the technical and sustainability boundaries of SAF,” said Bryan Sherbacow, chief commercial officer at World Energy. “This 50/50 blend demonstrates the maximum achievable greenhouse gas reduction commercially available today for aviation fuel.”
The partnership between Boeing and Etihad Airways represents a longstanding collaboration to make flying more sustainable. The two companies were among the founding partners that created the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium in 2010. Based at Khalifa University near Abu Dhabi, the pilot project for a unique desert ecosystem produces sustainable fuel from plants that grow in the desert, irrigated by coastal seawater. Etihad used the initial batch of fuel from the pilot project in January 2019 on a passenger flight from Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam.
In January 2020, Etihad took delivery of its signature green 787-10 using a fuel mix comprising 30% SAF produced by World Energy.
Boeing has been a leader in industry efforts to develop sustainable aviation fuel since before the first test flight on a commercial airliner in 2008. Along with others in the industry, the company worked to gain certification of sustainable fuel for commercial use in 2011 and collaborates around the world to create regional production roadmaps.
For more than a decade, World Energy and EPIC Fuels have produced and supplied SAF to Boeing for flight testing. Boeing offers airlines the option of using sustainable fuel for their airplane delivery flights. The first of these occurred in 2012 with an Etihad 777-300ER delivery flight from Everett, Washington, to Abu Dhabi.
Gevo’s SAF for Pacific Northwest Region
Last but not least, we have Colorado-based Gevo which supplied SAF to further support carbon neutrality goals in the aviation industry this past week. Gevo’s customer and global fuel supplier, Avfuel Corporation, delivered SAF to Leading Edge Jet Center, a provider of business aviation services throughout the Pacific Northwest, to deliver a demonstrative load of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to the fixed-base operator’s (FBO) Seattle facility.
The delivery marks the first load of sustainable aviation fuel for an FBO at the King County International Airport – Boeing Field (BFI) for resale to its customers, as well as Avfuel’s entry to SAF deliveries in Washington state.
“I want to congratulate Avfuel and Leading Edge Jet Center for making progress towards a cleaner future,” stated Patrick Gruber, Chief Executive Officer of Gevo. “We look forward to growing our business relationship and helping to educate aircraft operators and owners that products exist that burn cleaner and reduce carbon emission.”
Bottom Line
These three SAF news items show us that even in darkness, there is light. SAF is moving the right direction with increasing efforts to get it in the planes. Much like we need the COVID-19 vaccine to get actual “shots in the arms” to get our world to a better place, we also need SAF in the engines to make more sustainable aviation happen.
Category: Top Stories
