Observations from CAAFI® - the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative
September 15, 2021
On Thursday, September 9, 2021, the U.S. government announced a SAF Grand Challenge. Goals identified include increased government engagement that will enable the U.S. domestic production of 3 billion gallons of SAF per year by 2030, and full replacement of petroleum-based jet fuel (approximately 35 billion gallons per year) by 2050. The Challenge is accompanied by a Memorandum of Understanding (attached below) between the U.S. Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Agriculture.
CAAFI appreciates the recognition by the government of the truly “grand challenge” associated with decarbonizing aviation (commercial, business, general, special use, and military), and how SAF will play a predominant role in enabling such to occur in a timely manner. We also value the recognition of the importance of the aviation sector in delivering significant jobs, gross domestic product (GDP), and trade, essential to the health of our economy, as well as providing a means of safe, high-speed, efficient transport of people and goods.
While the aviation industry appreciates all the work that has been accomplished so far through academic, private, public, and joint efforts, CAAFI also recognizes the government’s acknowledgement that much work remains. SAF has been in development since 2006, and has been in commercial use since 2016, but SAF usage has remained very modest as a
result of insufficiently coordinated efforts to address risk, cost, competition with other renewable uses, and overall scale-up.
CAAFI leadership commits to working with the SAF Interagency Working Group (SAF IWG) that has been tasked with developing the SAF Grand Challenge Roadmap and Recommendations over the coming 6 months. We then look forward to participating in that roadmap’s execution. CAAFI believes this will accelerate the ramp-up of SAF production from a very broad range of sustainable feedstocks and conversion processes through supported research, development, demonstration, and deployment efforts, as well as implementation of enabling policy initiatives. CAAFI strongly believes that domestic SAF production can result in significant development of jobs and rural development, while providing other environmental services (e.g., improved air quality, enhanced waste management sustainability).
More information about the Challenge will be released in the coming days and weeks, including the scheduling of industry workshops to inform the SAF IWG roadmap development. The first of those workshops (outside government agency activities that have been ongoing for a couple months), occurs September 16th with various researchers. Please watch your email for announcements of other workshops through the 4th quarter. We’ll also be publishing updates via CAAFI’s Blog, The SAF Carafe, as well as on our homepage.
Our thanks go out to leadership within DOT, DOE, and USDA for recognizing the vital need to pursue a viable decarbonization strategy for the industry, and then working to actualize this challenge and pending effort across government and industry.
Following are some of the new corresponding producer announcements linked to the Grand Challenge roundtable discussion.
Alder Fuels is launched • Honeywell
• United • Alder Fuels
LanzaJet • Plans to produce 1 B gallons per year of SAF by 2030
Velocys
Gevo
Additional linkage to SAF production scale-up include items related to: World Energy, Fulcrum, BP, Virent, Honeywell, Shell, Neste, Marquis, Green Plains Inc., ADM, Prometheus, Aemetis, and members of the Renewable Fuels Association and members of Growth Energy.
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