Airlines are finding it difficult to move away from traditional energy sources. China wants to do something about it.
China is chasing a new opportunity. Bloomberg recently reported that the Asian giant is moving to lead the transition of airlines to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
SAF are aviation fuels produced from more sustainable sources, such as cooking oil, animal fat, agricultural waste, and other organic materials, which reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
Why China? Because it has the raw materials and abundant renewable energy to accelerate the development of SAF. And it’s making investments and regulatory changes to transform aviation, just as it's done with solar power and electric cars.
Why have SAF not been successful? SAF are expensive to produce and can't—and shouldn’t—compete with food production, which would result in a shortage of raw materials. They also lack solid political support, which slows their development compared to other renewable energy projects.
One notable failure is Fulcrum BioEnergy, a U.S. startup dedicated to aviation biofuels. It failed even with the support of BP, a British multinational oil and gas company, and airlines like Cathay Pacific and United Airlines.
All eyes on China. Despite the difficulties, Cathay, Hong Kong’s leading airline, still aims for SAF to account for 10% of its fuel consumption by 2030. Cathay CEO Ronald Lam believes that China will make this possible.
Cathay is working with China’s state-owned State Power Investment Corp (SPIC) to produce SAF. SPIC plans to have four plants in operation by 2026, with a production capacity of between 200,000 and 400,000 tons per year.
It’s a viable biofuel. COMAC, a Chinese state-owned commercial aircraft manufacturer, recently completed a test flight of its 168-passenger C919 aircraft using SAF from Sinopec, the country’s largest oil refiner.
Regulators are making moves. According to Reuters, the Civil Aviation Administration of China began issuing airworthiness certificates to SAF producers this year. It also opened the country’s first technical center dedicated to sustainable aviation fuel.
Located in Chengdu, the center aims to set standards and conduct product research. It has testing facilities for new products and plans to develop a certification system for sustainable fuels. The center isn't only focusing on the environmental benefits of producing SAF, but also on the strategic benefits.
The future. China will be ready when regulators impose new policies to introduce more sustainable aviation fuels. Biofuel companies have already invested more than $1 billion to build the first SAF plants, hoping the sector will boom.
If that doesn’t happen, China’s domestic consumption will justify the investment anyway. This country is the world’s second-largest aviation market and consumes about 11% of the world’s aviation fuel. China’s SAF consumption could grow from 0 to 2.5 million tons annually by 2030.
This article was written by Matías S. Zavia and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
View 0 comments