Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is a revolutionary fuel that is already helping to power the world’s airlines, and Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels, LLC is leading the charge to help grow further production of sustainable aviation fuel for the global aviation industry.
Investment is steadily increasing in SAF production companies, including Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels. This increased investment will complement the existing SAF developers to become producers to work more closely together with airlines to help create enough sustainable aviation fuel to meet demand in the coming decades. It will take decades to catch up.
Key Benefits of SAF
The use of SAF has been shown to have multiple benefits over traditional jet fuels:
The first benefit of sustainable aviation fuel is that it is sustainable. It can be made from almost any material. SAF can be created through technological processes involving the re-use of:
Woody biomass and forest floor debris
algae,
used cooking oil,
solid municipal waste — everything from lawn clippings to tree branches, used clothes, food scraps, and non-recyclable bottles
Secondly, SAF helps to reduce global carbon-based CO2 emissions by 80 percent. As a plant grows, the CO2 is pulled in from the atmosphere. But when CO2 is burned as jet fuel, the process releases the CO2 back into the air. Over the lifecycle of the plant, it equalizes the CO2 impact, giving it an almost neutral impact on the environment. This helps SAF to reduce aviation’s impact on climate change.
Next, SAF will improve the efficiency of airlines’ products and operations. Airlines will be able to leverage local economies’ workforce and support for the production of sustainable jet fuel.
Lastly, as SAF is a superior fuel source and has many advantages over traditional jet fuel, it will eventually boost aviation’s sustainability in environmental, possibly lower maintenance requirements on the jet engines and benefits social and economic aspects.
More SAF Volume Needed
The use of SAF in the airline industry is already underway. More than 250,000 flights have already used very small amounts of SAF And because SAF is similar to jet fuel derived from fossil fuel, it can be blended with regular jet fuel without any modifications for existing jet engines.
Therefore, to accomplish the goals of the aviation industry, much larger amounts of SAF must be produced in the coming years. Tens of millions of liters/gallons are being produced now, but that is only a fraction of the global demand for SAF. In the coming years, the industry will need billions of gallons/liters of sustainable aviation fuel.
To get there, we need governments to set SAF-friendly policies in place, producers to develop billions of gallons of SAF, and airlines to support the process.
At Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels, LLC, we are excited to be on the verge of some major milestones in the production of SAF. To meet the airlines’ needs, and to help them cut their emissions, Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels is flying forward with its development to deliver millions of gallons of renewable SAF… Stay tuned for exciting developments in the months ahead!
