The Comment that Silenced the Crowd: Heard on the Floor at ABLC 2022

The din of 700 people dealmaking could not drown out the dialogue heard on the ABLC 2022 floor, which went something like this.

Buyer: You sit here, friend.

Colleague: All right.

Buyer: (to Seller) Morning!

Seller: Morning!

Buyer: Well, what’ve you got?

Seller: There’s meat without the cow, milk without the cow, renewable diesel,  and SAF. Leather without  the cow and SAF. Corn oil, SAF, CO2, hand sanitizer and SAF, SAF, ethanol, SAF, eggs without the chicken and SAF. SAF, butanediol, hydrogen and SAF. SAF, ethyl acetate, SAF SAF, fish without the fins and SAF. SAF, SAF, SAF, silk without the spider, SAF, SAF, SAF and SAF.

Policymakers: (Singing) SAF, SAF, SAF, SAF, lovely SAF, wonderful SAF!

Colleague: But I don’t like SAF!

Buyer: Now, friend, don’t make a fuss, I’ll have your SAF. I love it, I’m having SAF, SAF, SAF, SAF, renewable gasoline and SAF!

Seller: Renewable gasoline is off.

Buyer: Could I have SAF instead of renewable gasoline, then?

Seller: You mean SAF, SAF, SAF, SAF, SAF, and SAF? (But it is too late and the Policymakers drown out her words)

Policymakers: SAF, SAF, SAF, SAF Lovely SAF! Wonderful SAAAAF! 

I might have missed all the references to sustainable aviation fuels in this recap, but you get the idea. Apologies to Monty Python.

The deal making moment

As ABLC was closing, the little birds were circling with news that DHL was signing massive SAF offtake agreements with Neste and BP — the largest in history, taken as a whole, with a combined volume of more than 211 million gallons.  Half is with Neste, half Air BP.

In its Sustainability Roadmap, Deutsche Post DHL Group has committed to using 30 percent of SAF blending for all air transport by 2030. bp will provide SAF produced from waste oils. Such SAF from wastes and residues can provide greenhouse gas emission reductions of up to 80 percent over its lifecycle compared with the conventional jet fuel it replaces, thereby reducing DHL’s carbon footprint. DHL Express transports more than 480 million urgent documents and packages annually across its global network of 220 countries and territories.

Air bp commented that these deals, together with the previously announced SAF introduction in the DHL network in San Francisco (SFO), East Midlands (EMA) and Amsterdam (AMS), will exceed 50 percent of DHL Express’ target to reach 10 percent SAF blending for all air transport by 2026.

Neste and DHL have been working together since 2020 making Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel available for DHL’s operations. In 2020, DHL Express became the first cargo operator to use Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel on flights departing from San Francisco International Airport and Amsterdam Airport. In 2021 DHL and Neste extended that cooperation to provide Neste’s SAF for DHL Express’ hub at the UK’s East Midlands airport.

DHL Express and Neste have announced a significant step towards decarbonizing aviation logistics by expanding their existing cooperation with a new strategic collaboration. In the next five years, Neste will supply DHL with approximately 320,000 tons (400 million liters) of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel. The agreement is Neste’s largest for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to date and one of the largest SAF agreements in the aviation industry.

With the ongoing expansion of Neste’s Singapore refinery and modification to its Rotterdam refinery, Neste will have an annual production capacity for sustainable aviation fuel of 1.5 million tons (approx. 1,875 billion liters) by the end of 2023.

The Comment that Silenced ABLC

It was offstage, the biggest moment for R&D during ABLC week, as about 25 speakers and delegates huddled in the Palm Court Room for a half-hour of comparing notes prior to the opening session of ABLC Friday, the Industry Horizons Forum.

As we went around the room, the producers were clear, the shortage of affordable feedstock was a terrible weakness and liability for the industry. They have a point, making $5 fuel from a $6 feedstock is a no-go.

It was left for me to ask, didn’t the Billion Ton Study project that there was a billion tons of biomass, available for sustainable fuels and not currently in use for other applications, at something like $70 a ton? That’s miles cheaper than the 50 cents per pound (or higher) that some of the producers were making reference to. Where was the disconnect, I asked? Did I have the volumes wrong?

BETO director Valerie Reed stepped in to help. The Billion Ton study, she explained, had several scenarios, and the available volume depended on the price. There was indeed, she explained, one scenario based on $70 per ton or so and which pointed to a billion tons of available biomass, in the United States. 

I didn’t have to ask again. Topsoe’s Mikala Grubb stepped in.

“What we have is a solids to liquids conversion problem.”

The room went quiet, quiet like a church. “750 delegates negotiating in a small hotel but you can hear a watch ticking,” that silence.

What she was describing was the problem that the available and affordable billion tons of biomass is in solid form, and technology is struggling to affordably and reliably liquefy it. 

So, the bioeconomy chases the feedstocks that are already in liquid or near-liquid form — for instance, plant oils, and waste fats and greases — and a bioeconomy and nation that wasn’t supposed to run out of affordable feedstock until something like 70 billion gallons of fuels had been manufactured is running short before a billion gallons of the new advanced fuels are being made each year. 

Lot of expertise in grinding corn — so, there’s much to build on. Forest Concept’s Crumbler technology. Gasification tech that takes biomass beyond the problems of liquids and into the gas phase where F-T and gas fermentation technologies rule. 

Is this, indeed, THE problem?

We went around the room. I asked John Plaza, CEO of SkyNRG Americas — is that the problem as you see it? He nodded. I asked several more, all agreed. And everyone looked hopefully towards the DOE leaders in the room. Here was something to work on, something at which DOE excels.

They’ve been on it, for some time. The Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium, based out of the Idaho National Laboratory, looks at this as a critical part of their mission. A consortium that needs a revolutionary infusion of attention and support, it seems. Here are some researchers that might welcome the investment:

Ed Wolfrum, the principal investigator of FCIC.. Beau Hoffman and Mark Elless, the DOE Technology managers. Amie Sluiter, the FCIC Project Manager. Jun Qu at Oak Ridge, Yidong XIe and Vicki Thompson at Idaho National Lab, Mark Elless and Beau Hoffman at BETO, Phil Laible at Argonne, Danny Carpenter and Bryan Donahue at NREL, Jim Collett and Steve Phillips at PNNL. 

We were reasonably shocked, given the huge turnout at ABLC and the urgency of the crisis, that no one from FCIC made it to Washington. It was like having a Rally for Youth and no youth on hand. Let’s hope to see all of them at ABLC when it reconvenes in San Francisco in October. It sounds like this crew will have much influence on the question of wherefrom and whenfrom the next surge of manufacturing capacity will appear.

So, what did we hear on the floor? Mikala Grubb nailed it, and silenced ABLC or, rather, galvanized it to action. Solid to liquid conversion, and until then we may mot have the sustainable, available, reliable, affordable feedstock— in acronym form, SARA — in the volume required.,

Monty Python might put it another way: SARA, SARA, SARA, SARA. Lovely SARA! Wonderful SARA!