The business aviation industry has done a good job in signaling its receptivity for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), according to Kennedy Ricci, president of industry sustainability solutions provider 4Air.
“It speaks well to the initial interest of people out there that we’ve been able to meet what is currently available for supply,” he told AIN at NBAA-BACE 2023. “We’ve seen the demand catch up to supply availability, so we’re waiting for some of the plant expansions to be completed and for some of the new producers to start.”
Federal incentives such as the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Credit—better known as the blender’s tax credit and created as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act—are playing a role in spurring industry growth.
“It’s definitely helping with the new producers to kind of give some certainty that there is going to be better support for SAF specifically,” said Ricci. “We haven’t seen as much impact to the end operator, but [it's giving] a little more benefit to people willing to put future production out there."
The recent expansion of state-based incentivization programs has seen SAF availability spill over from California—which has been a hotbed of SAF production and distribution—into other states. According to 4Air’s SAF availability map on its website, regular supplies of the fuel can be found at certain FBOs in five U.S. states: California, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, and Texas. But due to legislative changes in the works, that could soon change, according to Ricci.
“The biggest thing we are seeing positively is low-carbon fuel standard programs and other SAF incentive programs on the East Coast specifically,” he said. “New York and New Jersey were working on one, I think the first version failed but that’s coming back through. Massachusetts just emerged as another one, and obviously, we have the recent one in Minnesota.”
Those measures combined with the under-development production sites in the Upper Midwest and the Southeast could finally see the expansion of SAF's footprint to airports in the Northeast. “In the Southeast certain types of SAF producers will be able to get into the pipelines that go up into the East Coast, so those production facilities down there might be able to get some fuel to the Northeast."
Not all SAFs are the same, with several different production pathways approved for use by ASTM, the governing body on fuel certification. Those differing pathways will play a role in the availability of SAF for business aviation and its cost, according to Ricci.
“There is a lot of feedstock availability out there, it speaks to the need to have a lot of different feedstock sources though, different supply chains, different pathways because no single feedstock is going to be able to supply everything that we need,” he noted, adding the commercial airlines with their massive offtake agreements will be likely able to control a lot of the lower-cost feedstocks.
“We’ll see probably the lower-cost fuel going to the airlines, and business aviation will be left with a bit more of the higher-cost SAF. There’s a significant amount of feedstock out there, it’s just how much you are willing to pay and it’s really about the competition with other industries as well.”
4Air continues to educate business aviation operators on how they can use SAF without direct access to the actual fuel via the book-and-claim process. It is a method by which operators can purchase SAF and receive the accompanying environmental benefits, while the fuel is dispensed at a different location into a different aircraft.
“I think within the industry people are starting to see the benefits of accessing fuel that’s either where they are, or getting better-priced fuel because it is staying closer to production,” said Ricci. “It’s keeping the production incentives in the state, so that type of transaction I think is getting more accepted.”
While most SAF fuel is approved for use at up to 50 percent blends with conventional jet fuel, tests are being conducted by many engine manufacturers in conjunction with airframers on the use of neat (100 percent) SAF, and the ASTM is said to be looking at two approval pathways for certification of the unblended fuel once production supplies permit it.
“You have one approach that would be a drop-in 100 percent SAF," said Ricci. “ASTM looked at using two synthetic blending components to meet the aromatic requirements so they take synthetic aromatics and blend them with a synthetic jet fuel.
“The other would be a non-drop-in 100 percent SAF standard. Obviously, that is a little less favorable because now you have a separate fuel so that is separate fueling infrastructure, separate tanks, separate trucks.”
The durability and longevity of today’s aircraft is another factor weighing against the latter, according to Ricci. “The aircraft we have flying today will still be flying in 2050,” he explained. “We can’t make a new fuel standard that is not going to help those aircraft also decarbonize because they will still be around in 25 years.”