The adoption of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is accelerating, and industry giants are already making these deployments

Against the backdrop of slowing world economic growth and lagging behind the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the 6th China International Import Expo (CIIE) has become an accelerator for sustainable development in an intensive and open display and collision of innovative solutions. Among them, international logistics and transportation, as "major carbon emitters", have gained more carbon reduction solutions with the help of the Expo, and the application process of sustainable aviation fuel has attracted much attention.

The "bigwigs" of the aviation industry showed off their plans

At this year's CIIE, Honeywell featured Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). In an interview with the media, Xu Jun, president of Honeywell Aerospace Asia Pacific, said that Honeywell's SAF process is suitable for a wide range of renewable feedstocks, including gutter oil, algal oil, waste fat, non-edible vegetable oil, ethanol and electronic methanol, and the resulting SAF can directly replace traditional fuels without changing aircraft technology or fuel infrastructure.

To date, Honeywell has licensed more than 40 Ecofining process units for the production of SAF. In China, they and Sichuan Jinshang Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. are building a local sustainable aviation fuel industry base with an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons. When completed, the project is expected to be one of the largest SAF projects in western China, serving more Chinese airlines. The process produces SAF that reduces carbon emissions by up to 80% compared to petroleum-based fuels.

At the aerospace group, they are also advancing the development and production testing of sustainable aviation fuel for auxiliary power units (APUs) and engines, Xu said. Recently, Embraer successfully tested a Honeywell turbofan engine on an aircraft using 100% sustainable aviation fuel. This is the first time that a Honeywell business jet engine has been tested with 100% sustainable aviation fuel.

Unlike previous editions, GE Aerospace this year presented a concept model of the Revolutionary Innovation Verification Program for Sustainable Engines (RISE), which plans to validate a number of revolutionary innovations to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions by more than 20% for the most efficient single-aisle engine in service, and achieve 100% compatibility with alternative energy sources such as sustainable aviation fuel and hydrogen. The RISE project is expected to be officially operational around 2035, supporting the aviation industry's commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Xiang Weiming, GE Vice President, President of GE China, and President of GE Aerospace Greater China, told Yicai that they will try their best to improve the fuel efficiency, reliability, and service of engine products to help airlines reduce costs and increase efficiency. In terms of sustainability, LEAP, for example, has reduced carbon emissions by 15% and improved fuel efficiency by 15% compared to the previous generation engine, and has reduced carbon emissions by more than 20 million tons for customers since it entered service in 2016.

As a supporting event of the Expo, at the 6th IASC International Aviation Value Chain Leaders Summit, the "bigwigs" of the aviation industry focused on the discussion of sustainable fuels, echoing the "greenery" at the Expo.

Alexis GONZALEZ CHIAPPE, head of procurement at Airbus China, said at the summit that they delivered SAF-ready aircraft in 2016, "one-third of the aircraft in service today are still older generation aircraft, so every year we are continuously improving model delivery from a sustainability perspective, with the ultimate goal of achieving SAF."

Wang Huang, senior vice president of Rolls-Royce Civil Aviation and head of customer business in Greater China, said that by the end of this year, they want all engines in production to be 100% SAF-ready, by 2025 to ensure that 75% of the world's R&D is invested in net-zero technology, and by 2030, all new products can achieve net-zero.

Freight forwarding giants expand procurement

As a global freight forwarding giant, Dexun, which has participated in the CIIE for six consecutive years, has also launched a number of solutions such as battery logistics, aircraft engine logistics, and semiconductor product logistics this year.

Song Bin, vice president of sales and marketing of Dexun Greater China, told Yicai that in 2022, the global carbon dioxide emissions generated by the use of fossil fuels hit a record high of 36.6 billion tons, of which 8% were related to cargo transportation, and 11% were generated by logistics operation sites. As a large-scale international logistics service company, Dexun plays a role as a lever and link in the transformation of low-carbon business and operating models, and can help enterprises achieve carbon neutrality in their logistics activities at multiple levels such as carbon emission visibility, carbon avoidance and carbon emission reduction, and carbon offsetting.

Song Bin said that in 2022, Dexun purchased about 7% of the global SAF production that year, and plans to further expand the purchase volume in 2023. They pledged to deploy a supply of 43.5 million litres of SABIOFUEL and 125,000 litres of SAF. This supply is enough for the Boeing 777 freighter to transport 50,000 tons of cargo between London, England, and Dallas, USA. In November 2021, Tecson became the first air freight logistics provider to offer its customers the option to purchase SAF by shipment lot. This add-on service is available on all Tecsion's air freight quoting platforms and channels, allowing customers to opt for carbon-neutral shipping via online or offline quotes.

Speaking at the summit, Wang Huan, director of business development at bp Aviation China, said that SAF is a key way to help the industry reduce its life-cycle carbon emissions in the short to medium term. They have been involved in the refueling of SAF flights since 2008 and have now achieved the supply of SAF at more than 30 airports around the world, "We supply SAF through refineries in Germany and Spain, with a total investment plan of five refineries with a total investment of US$1 billion, and it is expected that by 2030, these five refineries will be able to supply 100,000 barrels of biofuel per day." In a few weeks' time, they will also refuel the world's first transatlantic flight with 100% sustainable aviation fuel. Under the agreement with DHL, bp and Neste will jointly supply more than 211 million gallons of SAF over the next five years.

"SAF has almost the same properties as kerosene, the fuel used in conventional jet engines. Based on current jet fuel prices, the cost of sustainable aviation fuel is about double that of regular jet fuel, which will increase operating costs in the short term. Song Bin pointed out that once the demand for sustainable aviation fuel rises, more energy companies will inevitably devote themselves to related fields, driving the increase of production capacity and supply, thus forming a virtuous circle of ecology.