BP has said that allowing catch-and-cover crops to be used as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production is key to meeting EU decarbonisation targets.
Catch-and-cover crops are grown for soil health, in single harvest areas with no triggering of demand for additional land. They are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. The European Commission last week proposed adding intermediate crops, such as catch-and-cover to Annex IX part B of the Renewable Energy Directive. Feedstocks listed in Annex IX can be used to produce SAF to meet targets under the EU-wide SAF mandate that is scheduled to come into effect in 2025.
"If we can get cover crops on 10pc of European arable land — which doesn't compete with agriculture — we can supply the European [SAF] mandates," said BP's executive vice president of strategy, sustainability and ventures Giulia Chierchia. "If we cannot do that, it is really hard to supply those mandates from a feedstock availability standpoint."
The ReFuelEU Aviation regulation establishes minimum SAF shares to be blended by aviation fuel suppliers and supplied at EU airports. SAF targets start at 2pc of aviation fuel from 2025, increasing every five years — to 6pc in 2030, 20pc in 2035, 34pc in 2040, 42pc in 2045 and 70pc in 2050.
Chierchia, speaking at a UN Cop 28 climate summit side-panel in Dubai, said waste-based hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) are around four times as expensive as jet fuel, while hydrogen-based, power-to-liquid fuels are around 8-10 times as expensive and will not be ready at scale before 2030.
"We will do power-to-liquid, it's just a case of timing," she said. "If we want to abate emissions from aviation, we need to focus on what is the lowest cost solution, which is bio-refineries… We love EU regulation because it ensures demand, which de-risks investments."
Other panellists urged greater investment in SAF, so the market could mature and prices would drop, allowing the aviation industry to decarbonise more quickly. International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) environment committee secretary Jane Hupe urged investors to "bring the money".
Reality-check
A managing director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development gave a reality-check to the panellists, saying "donors are not clamouring to reduce the cost of aviation for pretty obvious reasons."
"The SAF challenge is enormous and so we all have to start thinking about genuinely changing our business models," said EBRD managing director of climate strategy and delivery, Harry Boyd-Carpenter.
"There is huge demand across this whole [climate financing] area for concessional and donor capital, and there are so many competing priorities," he said. "We have to fund the ‘loss and damage fund', adaptation, nature, mitigation.
The reality is: aviation is not top of that pile… building a business model for the SAF industry based on concessional support will not fly," he said. "It has to come in the form of a genuine, commercial business model. It also leads — and its not an easy thing to talk about — to some demand destruction."
But Boyd-Carpenter also said the EBRD wants to continue funding the scale-up of SAF and the aviation sector, so long as these investments are "Paris-aligned", with a decarbonisation pathway consistent with maximum global warming of 1.5°C.
The EU is over-reliant on using "waste" biofuels in its plans to decarbonise the aviation, shipping and trucking sectors, while a shortfall in associated feedstock supply could risk missing emissions-reduction targets unless strategies change, the biofuels industry recently told Argus.
