Sustainable aviation fuel project takes flight

Virgin Atlantic recently announced that its VS16 flight from Orlando to London Gatwick, operated by a Boeing 747 aircraft, has completed the airline’s first commercial flight using a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made by recycling waste carbon gases. Fuelled by LanzaTech jet fuel, the flight in early October followed hot on the heels of a £410,000 UK government ‘Future Fuels for Flight and Freight’ grant to determine the feasibility of building a £40–50mn US gallon jet fuel plant in the UK.

Virgin claims there is an opportunity to produce up to 125mn gallons of jet fuel per year in the UK. Enough to fuel all Virgin Atlantic flights departing the UK, providing nearly 1 mn tonnes of CO₂ savings. 

The advanced ‘next generation’ fuel has been developed by LanzaTech, recycling waste industrial gases, like those produced from steel making and other heavy industrial processes. LanzaTech takes these waste, carbon-rich gases to make ethanol, which can be used for a range of low carbon products, including jet fuel. The innovative alcohol-to-jet process used to make the fuel in this flight was developed in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Lab and the US Department of Energy.

Virgin Atlantic is now calling on the UK government to commit to making the fuel a commercial reality in the UK. ‘Allowing access for new carbon capture and utilisation technologies like LanzaTech’s to incentives already given to earlier generations of biofuels and providing critical investor support will enable first plants to be swiftly built,’ the aviation company claims. Further warning that ‘without these key next steps this opportunity will no doubt be picked up elsewhere’.

Given such support, LanzaTech says it could have three UK plants running by 2025, producing up to 125mn g/y of sustainable fuel – enough to fly all Virgin Atlantic’s UK outbound flights (as a 50:50 mix) while bringing multiple benefits to the UK. These include saving nearly 1mn tonnes of life-cycle carbon, supporting a burgeoning bio-economy sector and thousands of clean growth jobs across the supply chain, enhanced fuel security, and providing important trade import and export potential.

Further, the LanzaTech approach is claimed to have huge scale-up potential. If the technology were rolled out worldwide to the world’s eligible steel mills (65% of all), this alone could produce enough fuel to meet around 20% of the current commercial global aviation fuel demand. In addition, the technology can be used to convert other wastes such as gases from oil refineries and residues from agricultural processes. The fuel is claimed to offer a sustainability profile with at least 70% life cycle carbon savings as well as no land, food or water competition issues and gold-standard sustainability certification, states the company. Furthermore, because it’s made from plentiful, affordable waste-streams, the fuel has a fighting chance at coming in at a price on a par with current fossil fuel prices.

For more on SAFs, see Petroleum Review’s forthcoming November 2018 issue.

Virgin Atlantic’s VS16 flight from Orlando to London Gatwick, operated by a Boeing 747 aircraft, has completed the airline’s first commercial flight using a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made by recycling waste carbon gases
Photo: Virgin Atlantic