A feasibility study jointly conducted by Air New Zealand and US-based waste-to-fuel developer LanzaJet has concluded that up to 25% of New Zealand’s domestic aviation fuel needs could be met using sustainable aviation fuel produced locally using woody waste residue as a feedstock. The SAF would be produced through a two-stage process, initially converting the wood to ethanol using the CirculAir carbon recycling technology developed by LanzaJet and its sibling, LanzaTech, then using LanzaJet’s alcohol-to-jet (AtJ) pathway to transform the ethanol to SAF. The airline’s Chief Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Officer, Kiri Hannifin, said the findings were “very positive for a country that is heavily reliant on long-haul aviation and trade and currently imports 100% of its jet fuel.” The NZ study result closely followed the announcement of a carbon-to-SAF partnership between LanzaTech and emerging Australian SAF producer Wagner Sustainable Fuels, and another in Japan between LanzaTech and the SEKISUI Chemical Company to convert municipal and industrial waste to ethanol then SAF.

The New Zealand study was co-funded by the airline and its majority shareholder, the New Zealand government, supported by Scion, a Crown research institute focused on forestry and wood products; fuel and infrastructure company Z Energy; and Wood Beca, a project engineering business specialising in oil, gas and wood, to explore opportunities for local production of non-fossil fuels for aviation.

Announcement of the report’s preliminary conclusions followed a contentious decision by the airline to scrap its 2030 carbon emissions reduction targets and withdraw from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), citing challenges to the availability of new, lower-emission aircraft types and alternative fuels, and support from governments and regulators for decarbonisation initiatives.

“Alternative jet fuel such as SAF is currently the only real tool available to address carbon emissions from long-haul aviation, so it’s crucial for connecting New Zealanders, tourists and exporters with the rest of the world,” said Hannifin.

“There is already significant international momentum and, in our view, New Zealand shouldn’t get left too far behind, or we risk seeing the flow of capital go elsewhere, or our valuable raw materials being swooped up by other markets for their own SAF.

“The right settings and regulatory environment will be important as New Zealand considers homegrown SAF because it’s the only way to secure the necessary global investment.”

LanzaJet CEO Jimmy Samartzis welcomed initial results from the feasibility study and said a second phase was now underway to investigate the potential for household and commercial waste to also be used as fuel feedstock.

“Building a new industry requires developing a broad ecosystem for SAF in New Zealand, anchored in technology and supported by policy, capital and demand to help attract funding and make it at a price airlines can afford,” said Samartzis.

CirculAir, the SAF production approach assessed in the study, combines the technologies of LanzaTech and LanzaJet to convert waste carbon into SAF.

“The process starts with LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology which, in this case, converts gasified forestry residues into ethanol. LanzaJet then converts that into SAF using its proprietary and industry-leading alcohol-to-jet (AtJ) technology,” explained Samartzis.

“Turning woody biomass into SAF is technically possible in New Zealand and with the right settings, is an industry that can get started fairly quickly. We look forward to completing additional analysis into what other feedstocks, such as municipal household and commercial waste, could be used to make domestic SAF production an even more attractive option.”  

Soon before the conclusions were announced from the first phase of the New Zealand study, LanzaTech and LanzaJet signed an agreement to test their CirculAir carbon-to-SAF technology at ‘The Project,’ the Brisbane SAF refinery of Wagner Sustainable Fuels.

The first stage of this process uses LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology to convert industrial emissions or municipal solid waste into ethanol, which is then transformed into drop-in SAF using LanzaJet’s AtJ technology.

The CirculAir platform is designed to unlock carbon from a multitude of waste-based resources, providing flexibility for feedstock conversion.

“The combination of LanzaJet’s leading SAF solution with the front end of LanzaTech’s proven and commercialised carbon recycling technology makes it possible to create a domestic SAF supply in Australia using local renewable waste sources, further supporting the country’s energy security while also working to protect its natural environment,” said LanzaJet’s Samartzis.

Matt Doyle, CEO of Wagner Sustainable Fuels, said the CirculAir partnership with LanzaTech and LanzaJet would advance his company’s Brisbane refinery and accelerate the development of a SAF industry in Australia, where multiple projects are now being scoped or progressing towards final investment decision.

“Together, these proven technologies can help us realise Australia’s first, fully integrated SAF production facility and provide a path to producing domestic fuel at scale,” he said.

The Wagner Project has also secured backing from both Boeing and the Queensland state government.

Earlier this year, LanzaJet also signed a licensing agreement with Jet Zero Australia, which is developing an AtJ SAF plant in Townsville, North Queensland, and will use agricultural biomass including sugar cane waste as a feedstock for the fuel.

Jet Zero, whose investors include Qantas, Airbus and Japanese petroleum group Idemitsu Kosan, plans to produce up to 102 million litres of SAF and 10 million litres of renewable diesel per year. It is targeting production from 2027. 

LanzaTech has also partnered with Japan’s SEKISUI Chemical Company to jointly develop a platform which transforms syngas from municipal and industrial solid waste into ethanol, and then into products including sustainable aviation fuel.

Under a master licence agreement, SEKISUI plans to build multiple facilities across Japan, with the first expected to produce 10 to 12 kilotons of ethanol annually for use not only in SAF but also chemicals and materials including packaging and apparel. The deal extends a decade-long partnership between the two companies to divert garbage away from landfill or incineration for recycling as product feedstock.

Japan is active in recycling and decarbonisation and is one of the leading climate action markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Among its initiatives, it has mandated that by 2030 SAF will make up 10% of all fuel used by its domestic airlines and departing international carriers.

The expanded partnership between LanzaTech and SEKISUI follows the successful operation of a pilot plant established in 2017 in Yorii-machi, Saitama, and the completion in 2022 of a demonstration plant in Kuji City, Iwate, with annual capacity to convert approximately 400 tons of municipal solid waste to ethanol for further processing.

Each year, said the companies in their announcement, Japan generates some 56 million tons of combustible waste, which ordinarily would be sent to landfill facilities, “emitting methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide,” or incinerated for power generation, emitting embedded carbon into the atmosphere.

Using the LanzaTech technology, unsorted combustible waste is gasified, then converted into ethanol through the use of a microbial catalyst and gas fermentation technology which requires no chemical catalysts, heat or pressure.

“We are pleased to expand our collaboration with longstanding partner LanzaTech, whose waste-to-ethanol technology is converting municipal solid waste into a valuable resource and providing an innovative solution to ending our reliance on fresh fossil fuels,” said Futoshi Kamiwaki, SEKISUI Representative Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer.

LanzaTech CEO Dr Jennifer Holmgren said the extended agreement also progressed her company’s vision for a circular carbon economy.

“We are grateful to SEKISUI for their commitment to scaling carbon recycling across Japan,” said Holmgren, “and for being at the forefront of developing a global blueprint for other countries and businesses to follow on how to access and utilise the carbon locked in local garbage.

“Our continued collaboration with SEKISUI is setting the groundwork for providing municipalities with a platform that reduces waste, captures carbon, generates valuable feedstocks and, importantly, creates jobs.

Photo: Air New Zealand

Tony Harrington

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Air New Zealand is seeking partnerships with emerging providers of sustainable aviation fuel as part of an expanding programme to reduce its flight emissions through industrial collaboration. Having previously linked with established SAF producers and both aircraft and powertrain manufacturers the airline now wants SAF innovators and start-ups as potential suppliers of low-carbon fuel, which it expects will comprise about 20% of its requirements by 2030. Air New Zealand’s search for SAF partners follows the recent release of a study by Ara Ake, New Zealand’s Future Energy Centre, which examines the merits and disbenefits of future fuels and propulsion systems in reducing domestic aviation emissions. The study concluded that only SAF and green hydrogen could effectively decarbonise New Zealand’s internal flights but the volume of resources needed to produce cleaner fuels might short-change other sectors of the economy. Meanwhile, Australian startup Jet Zero Australia has just secured additional funding to produce SAF from sugar cane waste in Queensland.

Kiri Hannifin, Air New Zealand’s Chief Sustainability Officer, says the airline plays a critical role in connecting its remote homeland to other nations, but must do so more sustainably and quickly. Underpinning its search for innovative new SAF partners it has issued an Opportunity Statement, which provides an overview of its needs based on fleet, network and its sustainability targets and criteria.

“A stable supply of SAF is critical to our ability to reduce carbon emissions,” said Hannifin. “That’s why we’ve taken this novel approach, asking emerging SAF producers from around the world to connect with us and respond to the Opportunity Statement.”

Air New Zealand expects SAF to meet about 20% of its aircraft fuel requirements by 2030, in tandem with “a long term and strategic regulatory package” for which it has long advocated in its Flight NZ0 decarbonisation plan.

The SAF Consortium, a lobby group whose members include Air New Zealand, Z Energy, Scion, LanzaTech and LanzaJet, has argued a local SAF industry could deliver 50% of New Zealand’s aviation fuel demand by 2050, supported by domestically-sourced feedstock, with the balance of SAF imported. It has proposed SAF blending mandates, beginning at 2.5% in 2025 and increasing to 50% in 2050, for both domestic and international flights, and called for government policies including tax credits and grants that prioritise production of SAF over biofuels for road transport.

The national airline says it wants to secure short, medium and long term SAF offtake deals, not only to meet its own needs but also to help drive up demand for the fuels and help mitigate production risks for SAF producers, their investors and financiers.

“Air New Zealand is an ideal airline partner for SAF innovators and producers,” added Hannifin. “We have a mature understanding of SAF, a clear roadmap to meet our targets and the volumes of SAF we need to align with current production capabilities. This Opportunity Statement shares our vision and allows current and future SAF producers to recognise both the opportunity and Air New Zealand’s ambition to become a customer as soon as possible.”

Paralleling Air New Zealand’s global invitation to new SAF producers, Ara Ake, New Zealand’s Future Energy Centre, recently concluded a study of future fuels and propulsion systems to help reduce the country’s domestic aviation emissions. It identified strong technical capabilities for battery-electric, green hydrogen and SAF propulsion, but flagged both enormous production costs and a significant drain on national electricity supplies as major impediments.

The report, led by Ara Ake’s Research and Insights Manager, Dr Jono Barnard, calculated that around 200,000 domestic flights operated each year in New Zealand, roughly 22 per hour, and highlighted a high reliance on aviation because of limited surface transport options outside major cities or provincial centres on the South Pacific nation’s two major islands.    

“Approximately 16 million passengers board these flights to travel a total distance over 80 million kilometres, and flight remains to be among the only options to quickly travel in New Zealand, both intra and inter-island,” said the report. “As a result, New Zealand has among the largest per capita domestic aviation emissions in the world and as easier-to-abate sectors of the economy are decarbonised, domestic aviation’s relative portion of national gross emissions will likely increase.”

Ara Ake concluded that while battery-electric, green hydrogen and SAF power could theoretically deliver significant reductions in domestic flight emissions, only SAF and green hydrogen, or a combination of both, could support all of New Zealand’s internal flights, and even then the large volume of resources required to produce cleaner aviation fuels would deprive other sectors.

The report calculated the average emissions reductions offered by various SAF production pathways, with the current most common, hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) at 63%, Fischer-Tropsch biomass conversion at 77%, alcohol-to-jet (AtJ) at 51% and e-SAF, produced with green hydrogen, the most efficient at 85%.

“With e-SAF, in theory there are few constraints on the supply side to produce the required hydrogen and carbon,” explained Ara Ake. “However, the production process is expensive and highly energy-intensive, requiring more than twice the electricity than if domestic aviation was decarbonised with liquid hydrogen and approximately 10 times more than SAF produced using waste biomass.”

In neighbouring north Queensland, Australia, startup renewable energy group Jet Zero Australia has just secured A$29 million ($19m) in additional capital to progress construction of an alcohol-to-jet SAF plant which is targeting annual production of 102 million litres of SAF and 11 million litres of renewable diesel by early 2027. US AtJ producer LanzaJet is also a partner in the project, while the Queensland state government provided a A$760,000 grant to fund a feasibility study of the project.

Investors in the latest funding round included Japanese oil company Idemitsu Kosan, to support not only the Australian development but also the Japanese government’s mandate that by 2030, SAF must comprise 10% of all aviation fuel uplifted in that country. The commitment is the first by Idemitsu in a SAF project outside Japan.

The capital raising was also supported by Airbus and Qantas, both existing investors in the development, called Project Ulysses after a South Pacific butterfly species.

Qantas Group Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Parker said producing SAF onshore had the potential to create 18,000 jobs and generate A$13 billion in economic benefits annually by 2040, in addition to increasing Australia’s domestic fuel security.

Jet Zero Australia has also entered a 50-50 joint venture with Singapore-based Apeiron AgroCommodities, one of Asia’s largest collectors of used cooking oil, to develop low-intensity feedstocks in Australia to help meet growing demand for renewable fuels.

Tony Harrington

Correspondent

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Just weeks after commissioning the world’s first refinery to convert ethanol to sustainable aviation fuel, US-based SAF producer LanzaJet and Jet Zero Australia, an emerging biofuels company, have announced a licence and engineering agreement to develop a similar plant in Australia, supported by Qantas, Airbus and the Queensland state government. Subject to a final investment decision, the proposed plant will be built near the coastal city of Townsville, in tropical northeast Queensland, and will use LanzaJet’s alcohol-to-jet technology to convert bioethanol into SAF. Designated as Project Ulysses, after a butterfly species found in the region, the facility will have capacity to produce up to 102 million litres of SAF per year by transforming agricultural waste, including sugar cane, from the region’s farms. Jet Zero’s CEO, Ed Mason, said the partners were targeting late 2026 to early 2027 to commence SAF production.

Qantas has long lobbied Australia’s federal and state governments to support the development of a local SAF industry, not just for environmental reasons but also to help ensure national fuel security and create new employment. It has also urged the national government to develop policy settings to enable SAF to be produced locally and has called for the introduction of blending mandates to help drive up demand as well as bring down prices.

The agreement between Jet Zero and LanzaJet followed a feasibility study in which the Queensland government invested A$760,000 ($491,000) as part of a strategy to attract SAF production to the state and to use local biomass waste for fuel feedstocks. Currently, large volumes of Australian fuel feedstocks flow out of the country to other markets for use in their SAF production programmes.

“North Queensland is in a unique position to provide feedstock for this project, while also being close to the industry partners that are already investing in our state,” said Steven Miles, the Premier of Queensland, who also identified jobs in facility construction, SAF production and the agriculture, aviation, defence and tourism sectors.  

His Minister for State Development and Infrastructure, Grace Grace, also flagged export opportunities through the project, which she said would help Queensland to become the leader of a domestic SAF industry.  

Although the federal government is not a partner in Project Ulysses, it is aiming by 2030 to reduce national carbon emissions by 43% compared to 2005, progressing to net zero emissions by 2050. Reducing flight emissions for civil aircraft and potentially also military craft will be a key focus of the government’s new Aviation White Paper, a broad-based strategy document which will be released this year to guide the industry’s development until 2050.

Jet Zero’s Ed Mason welcomed the LanzaJet agreement, which he said would enable the project to progress towards a final investment decision, while strengthening the partnership not just with the US producer, but also with Qantas and Airbus.

“We believe in building industry, protecting our climate and enabling energy and national security, and our work in Australia delivers that ambition,” added LanzaJet’s CEO, Jimmy Samartzis. “Doing leading edge work requires partnership, and we’re proud to join Jet Zero Australia, the Queensland government, Airbus and Qantas to position Australia as a leader in the region on sustainable aviation fuels, with direct impact in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enabling job creation and preserving Australia’s environment for generations to come.”

Qantas Group Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Parker said SAF was “the most significant tool airlines have to reduce their emissions, but it’s only available offshore with no local supply for airlines in Australia.” Australia’s largest airline group, he added, “is investing in technology like this Queensland biofuel refinery to help kickstart a local SAF industry so flights around Australia can be powered to produce lower emissions.”

The airline regularly uplifts SAF in London and has committed to other offtake deals including in the US through a joint purchasing deal brokered by the oneworld airline alliance, of which it is a member. As well, it has just started a major programme to upgrade its narrow and widebody fleets with new Airbus and Boeing jets and commenced retrofitting split scimitar winglets to 23 of its B737-800 jets to improve their fuel efficiency while reducing carbon and other emissions.

“Australia lacks production of sustainable aviation fuel,” added Stephen Forshaw, Airbus Chief Representative, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific. “The challenge to start production is urgent. If we don’t move soon, the opportunity to build a new fuels industry locally will disappear.

“However, we think Australia has every chance of becoming a sustainable fuels superpower, with the right support from government and industry. This is why we’re so supportive of Jet Zero’s mission to become Australia’s first home-grown producer of SAF, and equally of their partnership with LanzaJet that will enable production here.”

Photo: Qantas

Tony Harrington

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Production of sustainable aviation fuel in the Asia-Pacific region has been boosted by three new projects in which major airlines Qantas, Cathay Pacific and All Nippon Airways (ANA) are key partners. In Australia, Qantas, Airbus and the Queensland state government will invest in a new alcohol-to-jet production facility planned by bioenergy company Jet Zero Australia and US-based fuel technology group LanzaJet, using locally sourced agricultural feedstock including sugar cane. Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to partner with mainland China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) in the development of four new SAF plants using a pathway similar to power-to-liquids. And in Japan, ANA, the country’s largest airline, has agreed to introduce SAF blended locally by ITOCHU Corporation to help power domestic and international flights from Tokyo’s two major airports, Haneda and Narita. The initiatives support commitments by all three airlines that SAF will comprise 10% of their total jet fuel consumption by 2030.

The Australian collaboration centres on the construction by Jet Zero Australia of a new SAF plant in North Queensland using LanzaJet’s alcohol-to-jet technology to produce up to 100 million litres of sustainable fuel per year. The Qantas Group, Australia’s largest airline operator, together with Airbus, will jointly invest A$2 million ($1.34m) of an initial A$6 million ($4m) capital raising, to which the Queensland government will contribute a further A$760,000 ($500,700), with the balance to be provided by Australian and international institutional funds. Collectively, this capital will be used to undertake a detailed feasibility study, and early-stage development of the project, with construction expected to start in 2024.

Andrew Parker, Qantas Group’s Chief Sustainability Officer, said the project was part of a A$200 million joint commitment with Airbus to progress the development of a SAF production industry in Australia, and one of several projects the airline is looking to fund this year.

“Sustainable aviation fuel is critical to the decarbonisation of the aviation industry,” he said. “This investment will help kickstart an innovative project to turn agricultural by-products into sustainable aviation fuel and create a significant domestic biofuels refinery.”

Qantas is currently using SAF sourced overseas to power commercial flights from London and expects to add San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2025.

Airbus’ Executive VP Corporate Affairs and Sustainability, Julie Kitcher, said there was “a growing positive momentum around SAF, and now is the time to move from commitments to concrete actions. The selection of the first investment under our joint partnership with Qantas is an example of such action, with the potential to deliver SAF locally in Australia and to be a model for other locations around the world.”  

Queensland’s Deputy Premier, Steven Miles, said a rich supply of feedstock meant the state was well-positioned to become a key player in SAF development. “It’s exciting to think that Queensland could be producing the millions of litres of SAF needed to power flights across Australia and around the globe, creating more regional jobs in the process,” he said. 

In addition to deploying its alcohol-to-jet technology in the project, said LanzaJet CEO Jimmy Samartzis, “it is equally gratifying to know its impact in developing the domestic agricultural industry, providing a path for energy security, and enhancing the country’s national security posture and greater fuel independence.” LanzaJet said Australia was the second-biggest emitter of carbon per capita on domestic flights.

Ed Mason, CEO of JetZero Australia, which was established in 2021, welcomed the strong investment support for the new SAF plant, which will use surplus ethanol from agricultural and sugar cane by-products to create the new fuel, and acknowledged LanzaJet’s industry leadership in developing alcohol-to-jet fuel technology, with the mechanical completion of its Freedom Pines facility in the US state of Georgia expected later this year. “We are excited to work with them,” said Mason, “to help Australian businesses and government drive real reductions in aviation emissions.”   

In Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific signed an MoU to partner with State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), which plans to commission four SAF plants in mainland China between 2024 and 2026, each facility capable of producing 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of SAF per year. SPIC is one of China’s biggest state-owned energy companies and claims the world’s largest solar power installed capacity. The new SAF plants will use a process similar to power-to-liquids’ (PtL) in which renewable electricity is converted into liquid fuels.

“The signing of our cooperation pact is an important milestone in SPIC’s sustainable development pursuits and a significant contribution by a Chinese enterprise towards supporting sustainable development in the global aviation sector,” said the corporation’s chairman Qian Zhimin. “We hope both parties can build on our collaboration in the certification and purchase of SAF to further cooperate in areas pertaining to the industry supply chain, project development and securing the necessary policy support.”

Cathay Pacific Group CEO Ronald Lam said the partnership combined the corporation’s clean energy strengths and the airline’s expertise as an end user of SAF. “Under the MoU, Cathay Pacific will share international experience, and also feedback on the SAF certification process, value chain and overall market know-how to facilitate SPIC in the successful establishment of four plants in the Chinese mainland,” he reported.

In Japan, ANA will procure its first supplies of locally blended SAF for use on domestic and international flights from Tokyo’s Haneda and Narita airports. The SAF solution to be blended will be provided by renewable fuel producer Neste, and blended in Japan by ITOCHU Corporation, as part of a public-private partnership led by the Civil Aviation Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. 

Photo: Cathay Pacific