Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to the EU Energy Projects podcast, a podcast series from Enlighten France focusing on the clean energy transition for the European Union and the EU Commission funded energy projects that will help us achieve it. My name is Areti Daradimu. I am the editor of the EU Energy Projects podcast and your host.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: By current standards, european aviation emissions are projected to reach almost 200 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2040.
The impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases on the climate is well documented, and the need to reduce emissions from fossil fuels is a cornerstone of the energy transition.
Sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, made from renewable sources can significantly lower the aviation industrys carbon footprint.
The Take off project, funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 program, explores the development of a unique technology based on the conversion of CO2 from carbon capture and renewable hydrogen into SAF. This technology route aims to produce SAF at lower costs and higher energy efficiency compared to other power to liquid alternatives currently available.
I'm Ross Hastie, your host for today, and to talk about the evolution of aviation fuels, we're joined by Georgiana Stunn, a project manager for sustainable processes and energy systems at TnO. Georgiana, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Thank you for having me, Ross. I'm happy to have this discussion with you.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Let's start with just a a bit of background on aviation fuels. Can you explain the difference between normal jet a one aviation biofuels and power to x aviation fuels and how they compare in terms of energy efficiency and emissions?
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yes, sure. Looking at both aviation biofuels and power to liquid aviation fuels are under the umbrella of what we call sustainable aviation fuels, and we also refer to the power to liquid aviation fuels as efuels or renewable fuels of non biological origins, the latter being the official definitions from the EU. I will start with the definition between the sustainable aviation fuels, and then I will compare with the jet with the conventional aviation fuel, the jet a. So the main difference between the biofuels and the e fuels is represented by the feedstock and where the source of energy is coming from. For example, in biofuels, the feedstock is represented by the biomass, such as fat, oils, all seeds, or even forestry residues.
In the case of e fuels, we have renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen, which is further converted to hydrocarbons. This renewable hydrogen or green hydrogen is reacting with capture CO2. In the case of efuels, this is the main difference between the two types, and I will also want to mention a few technological parts for the biofuels themselves. There are the most common pathways which are actually also deployed at a larger scale are represented by HefA hydrotreated esters and facet acids. And in this specific process, especially the waste vegetable oils are refined through hydrotreating and hydroprocessing into the aviation hydrocarbons biofuels. And another very known technology is alcohol to Jethea in the biosphere in which this technology or these alcohols derived from the biomass such as corn. So different source in which process biomass is fermented to produce alcohols.
Mainly the small molecules of alcohol such as ethanol and butanol which are further processed towards aviation fuels range hydrocarbons when we look at technologies for fuels then we talk about Fischer traps which actually can be applied also to biofuels. But let's not make it more complicated. And here the hydrogen, the green hydrogen is reacting with the capture CO2 to produce the feed syn gas to the fischer trope reactor and further produce the liquid hydrocarbons. Now this is the introduction into the difference between the biofuels and power to x fuels as asked. And also in the sphere of e fuels, we have our developed technology in takeoff in which CO2 is converted to light olefins via direct or indirect route and the light olefins fueled further oligomerized towards jet fuel range hydrocarbons. Just to make a short note, the main advantage of targeting the jet fuel range of hydrocarbons chain is that the carbon and hydrogen efficiency is higher compared to Fischer tropes. In the Fischer tropes, the light hydrocarbons range is between c one and c 16, which is a quite wide range. And keeping in mind that for aviation jet we need between c eight c twelve range. So a lot of products are outside of that range. Very valuable at this moment. However, if we target specific aviation fuel, we look at more narrow range of hydrocarbons. The conventional jet fuel is coming from oil, from the ground and further processed, which is a very known process for decades and very efficient process, I would have to say, because industry had a lot of time to learn in the production of conventional jet fuel.
Now when we compare these sustainable aviation fuels to the conventional aviation fuels, we do expect a reduction of emissions. When we mention emissions, we mainly refer to CO2 emissions between 30 and 100% depending on the feedstock. The 100% reduction scenario is applied especially to e fuels assuming, and this is a very important assumption and something that we are driving towards or striving towards assuming 100% renewable electricity in the production of the fuels, but also in its transportation and unlimited potential via direct air capture.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Very interesting. Sustainable aviation fuels are clearly the better way to go, but changing hard to abate industries is always going to be a challenge. What are the key challenges in scaling up the production and adoption of SAF on a global scale, and how do we address these challenges?
[00:06:54] Speaker C: Yes, so I always say we need to start where we are and to continue the efforts on different dimensions, different planes. So part of it, of course, the developments in the technology developments, policy implications and behavioral change of the population, among other efforts we need to make to scale up this production. To start with, there are multiple things to do and of course I will not be able to cover them all here, and there are so many articles out there. But for the scaling up of the production of sustainable aviation fuel, you need to consider all the or multiple production pathways, as mentioned in my previous statement. So we keep with the biofuels, we keep with the e fuels, we look at different sources and we strive towards green electricity and green hydrogen production, of course.
And the production for the biofuels is unfortunately to be considered only for the medium term because of its feedstock use. So using biomass, biomass is limited and it's also competing with other industries.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: You need a lot of farms to produce all of that biomass. Correct.
[00:08:06] Speaker C: And a lot of waste oil. How much waste oil can you have? And looking at the prognosis of increasing in the demand in the aviation fuel and the targets from refuel Eudez, the regulation will come back to we don't have sufficient to cover these demands. So in the long term, the transition towards renewable fuels of non biological origin is foreseen due to the limitation and competition in the feedstock of biofuels, as mentioned. So long term e fuels hold a larger CO2 emission reduction potential than their counterparts and rely on biobust feedstock. Then if we look at really the main challenge next to the feedstock and technological developments, the main challenge still remains the high cost per ton of SAF comparing to the conventional jet fuel in the short and medium term. And this I refer maybe to 20 years, let's say, will be very challenging to be competitive with a conventional jet fuel without proper governmental support and of course global policies and this high cost. And we saw along the time since we started the project and since this discussion started on the sustainable aviation fuel and where we are now in 2024, the prices of electricity and of course impact directly the cost of esafs. And this is we see that there is a lot of willingness to build the plants to produce safs. However, many companies are facing the risk of the impossibility of selling their product, basically because of this high costs. So long term off takers agreements are crucial for the technology development and the production scale up of the technologies.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: You mentioned government policies there, and we know for any large infrastructure changes, we need government buy in. We've heard a lot about airports as energy hubs, but talk to us about the role of government policies, incentives, international regulations, and how they play a role in accelerating their transition to SAF in the aviation industry.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: Yeah, so definitely to reach the emission reduction targets at both EU but also the global level, the aviation industry in the medium term will need to rely on the sustainable aviation fuels. So these fuels allow the aviation industry to continue working while abating its climate impact. So we set this trade, we need the sustainable aviation fuel. Now, looking at the government policies, they play a huge role in driving the transition towards sustainable aviation fuel. Because without clear targets and certainties for investors, the transition towards the sofs will not happen.
You cannot produce a product that no one will buy, isn't it? So having these policies with clear objective sends a clear market signal, and this enables the development and uptake of the sofs. For example, EU has now fixed targets in its refuel EU aviation regulation that mandates the minimum amount of sufs to be used, which provides a clear horizon on objectives for the industry. This was a really big accomplishment in the sustainable aviation fuel sector. And I will be a bit more specific. The regulation mandates that the minimum quantity of SAF in all EU airports by 2035 and 2050 should be 2% and 70% respectively. So 70% to 2050. This is a very ambitious goal. And especially what is also very important to mention that this from this 70% target in 2050, the minimum sub target for ESAF is 35%. So the deployment and scale up and production is to ramp up very fast. To comply with this target, EU also offers financial support to match the differences in prices between safs, which are more expensive of course, at the moment, and fossil kerosene. By investing €20 million in SAFS allowances under EU ETS, and also by financing projects under the umbrella of Horizon 2020 program and such as take off, but also other programs from Eudez EU European Union is not the only actor having a major role in fostering the adoption of the sustainable aviation fuels.
Of course, the national governments, they play a huge role as well, especially when it comes to mobilizing funds at a local level. While member state of EU must abide with the refuel EU aviation regulation, the member states can go further comparing to the mandate forum EU and then they can provide financial support for the development of some, for example by incentivizing their production or setting more ambitious target at national level because less ambitious targets are not permitted under the EU law.
Maybe one quick thing to mention also on the international regulators which also play a role. One very clear example is the international civil aviation organization which is working to harmonize south standards globally, ensuring there is consistency in fuels across national borders. These standards are essential to enable global aviation's transition to sofs only taking in consideration the EU skies.
Tens of thousands of planes take off and land every day. So we need a clear and common frameworks and it's a necessity to ensure that such an important industry can continue to function while becoming more sustainable. So standards at global level.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Did you know that enlit has another podcast? The Energy Transitions podcast is a broad ranging bi weekly podcast about the people accelerating the energy transition in Europe and beyond. You can find it on Spotify, Apple or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: So there's clearly a lot of work to be done to reach these very ambitious targets. Let's go back to the takeoff project itself and what are its objectives and how can it help in this evolution?
[00:14:36] Speaker C: Yeah, so takeoff project is a research and development project funded by EU under Horizon 2020 program. As you also presented at the beginning of this discussion, in which ten european partners are working together in advancing the technologies in the production of sustainable aviation. I want to take the moment to introduce the partners. We are working together with CNRS University of Lille working closely or. Yeah, sorry.
The project partners are CNRS University of Lille focusing on the development of the catalyst, bifunctional catalyst for the CO2 conversion to light olefins. We are working together with Mitsubishi in in Germany. They are developing and building a pilot for the production of methanol and demetiletera, which is an intermediate in the production of sustainable aviation fuel. And this is done using green hydrogen delivered by Asaika Sai, another project partner in this consortium, and using capture CO2 which is delivered by our other partner RWE in Germany at the power plant.
CO2, which we are using in takeoff actually is capture CO2 at the power plant in Germany.
Another partner we have to the project is RWTH Aachen University working closely on the emissions as a numerical and also a lot of modeling and experimental work. Sky energy dutch company working closely to help us in identifying if the fuel that we are producing through these technologies is within the range and properties needed for being classified or certified as aviation fuel. Then of course the southern Denmark University SDU working extensively on the lifecycle assessment, techno economical assessment of the takeoff technologies and CO2 value Europe on supporting us for communication dissemination and exploitation. And of course, I need to mention research institute of the Netherlands. We are also coordinating this project.
I mentioned already when presenting the partners a bit about the technologies. Maybe just to come back to your initial question about the objectives themselves. So the objective of takeoff is basically to develop and demonstrate the technology needed for the production of the next generation renewable fuel. For the aviation sector, we are looking at two lines we call indirect line and direct line. I will not go into many details, however, we are using capture CO2 and green hydrogen to produce light olefins. These light olefins can be produced directly in a bifunctional catalyst and the reactor concept, or indirectly via an intermediate being, methanol and demetila. There, litholefins are further converted into true oligomerization process towards radiation fuel range. And in the project we do a lot of research on reactor concept, process development, catalyst development, all these for improving efficiency. Of course, we want to target really the range of the aviation fuel and reducing the costs and of course reducing emissions as much as possible. Lowering of the aromatic content and the emissions of sulfur species in the fuels will result to the lower engine ion emissions. So no particulate matter, so no solid particles when burning the fuel. And also because we don't have sulfur in the feedstock, in the components themselves, we are not going to have sulfur at the end when the fuel is burned. That's another advantage comparing to conventional aviation fuel. For example.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Let's go back to the advancement of SAF technology and how it's evolving over the next five to ten years. What are the key breakthroughs that are needed to achieve net zero aviation?
[00:19:05] Speaker C: Yeah, 510 years seem a lot. However, it's not in the technology development implementation at industrial scale in this period. The focus really needs to be on scaling up investments in facilities for the known technologies, investments in developing further the technologies, continued development to seize opportunity for lowering the cost and increase the efficiency and really close collaboration between governments and the aviation sector stakeholders.
When looking beyond, so towards 2050 and beyond 2050, when we really think about net zero emissions in aviation, the direct air capture technology needs to be very mature and efficient and deployed at industrial scale and proper CO2 transportation infrastructure needs to be developed currently. That's of course a challenge in this time in 2024, because CO2 capture from air technology is still at its infancy, so need to rely more on to capture from the industrial sources, which is a very good solution for the medium term, then what else we need to do, of course, is the renewable electricity capacity needs to be increased. So we need electricity, green electricity for this process and we need green electricity for all the other industries to reach net zero. The same for the green hydrogen production and it's development of the technology. So the capacity needs to increase. The investment needs to go into hydrogen, green hydrogen production, but also in its infrastructure development, connecting a bit with hydrogen production as 2020 to 2024. Of course, we have the challenges of the critical materials and used in the production of the electrolyzers by 2030, 2040 different targets. We need to find efficient way to build these systems, to use as little critical materials as possible, and to make sure we have very good recycling technologies in place not to deplete this planetary natural resources.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Let's talk a little bit about the implications of all of this. We've mentioned that SAF is more expensive than traditional jet fuel, and we've mentioned that there are some very ambitious timelines to achieve net zero goals. What are the economic implications for airlines and consumers as the industry shifts towards SAF? Do you foresee SAF becoming more cost competitive with traditional jet fuel in the near future?
[00:22:03] Speaker C: Of course, it's not easy to predict the future, especially when we are in the period of very high electricity and hydrogen prices. So from biological sources can become cost competitive with traditional jet fuel in the near future. And at this moment, most of the industrial facility are built using this spot technology.
However, safs from biological sources are not representing the long term solution.
Efuels they cannot become cost competitive with the traditional jet fuel due to their high electricity prices at this moment. Of course, personally, I don't think that should be a showstopper. We cannot even expect the e fuels to compete with the conventional jet fuels. And there should be other mechanism in place to support the industry in the adoption of esops. So in order to really start moving the wheels, we should accept higher prices, we should continue investing, we should continue developing the technologies, and then in 1020 years the prices will also reduce.
So shifting towards saFs, as stated in the refuel EU aviation regulations, of course has implications for airlines and consumers at this moment. First of all, there is not sufficient staff for all the airlines to comply with the targets. And next to this, there should be alignment between the airlines on the increase of cost towards the consumers. So I also do expect increase of cost towards the consumers, which we maybe don't talk sufficiently. However, this is also not a bad thing per se. It's something that it comes with development, education, understanding why the prices are increasing and all the prices need to increase at the same time. So if the industry is moving in the direction the consumers I expect will follow. However, if the consumer is put in the situation to choose between paying for a SAF or conventional jet, I expect the consumer will still choose the conventional jet if the price is two or three times lower. Basically, in order for the consumer to take the heat, I think the airlines need to move at the same time in the same direction in the adoption of safs.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: It sounds like in many other parts of the energy transition, the key question here is the price of green energy, correct? Georgiana, thank you very much for your insights and for joining the podcast. I invite listeners to also check out the EU project Zone on Inlet World, which has two excellent articles from the take off project about their technology and their ambitions. Thanks for joining us.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: You've been listening to the EU Energy Projects podcast, a podcast brought to you by Enlit and friends. You can find us on Spotify, Apple and the Enlit World website. Just hit subscribe and you can access our other episodes too. I'm Areti Daradimo. Thank you for joining us.
