Forest and agricultural residues, as well as intermediate crops, could be transformed into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), but competition for organic feedstock across various renewable fuel sectors is also growing, delegates heard at the Argus Biofuels Conference in London today.
SAF producers are targeting technologies that can process multiple materials and biomass residues could provide hundreds of millions, if not billions, of tonnes of feedstock, UK-based technology firm Nova Pangaea chief commercial officer Jonathan Wood said.
That said, building supply chains to aggregate, move and process that biomass efficiently remains a challenge, he added.
Biofuel manufacturers typically look to secure long-term feedstock agreements, ideally with regional suppliers, to save on logistics, Switzerland-based aviation fuel supplier iFuel director Grazvydas Bajoras said.
And competition for feedstock by makers of renewable diesel, marine fuels and other industries is heating up, delegates said.
SAF producers may struggle to secure sustainable and traceable feedstocks at competitive prices, and compete against SAF imported from Asia with different cost structures, Bajoras said.
Supplies of waste oils and fats — currently the most common SAF feedstocks — may not grow as quickly as demand for aviation fuel, so the market may also need output from alternative technologies to reduce long-term dependence on a limited type of raw material, Bajoras said.
Nova Pangaea has preliminarily agreed to build a forestry biomass-fed ethanol production plant to supply domestic producer NorSAF's planned 100,000 t/yr SAF project at Latvia's Liepaja port and has completed endurance trials at its wood waste-derived SAF demonstration plant in Teesside, northeast England. But the firm does not exclude expanding its feedstock consumption to agricultural biomass in the longer term, it told Argus.
