Many people may not have thought that the gutter oil that has been "discarded" by people can be turned into fuel to drive aircraft to fly. Recently, a number of airlines have announced that they willActively explore the application of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
SAF is made from waste animal and vegetable fats and fats, oilseeds, used cooking oil, municipal solid waste, and agricultural and forestry waste. Compared to traditional petroleum-based fuels, SAF can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 85% over its entire life cycle.
Research data shows that the carbon emissions of aircraft aviation fuel combustion account for 79% of the total carbon emissions of civil aviation, and reducing aviation fuel carbon emissions has become a key issue for carbon emission reduction in the civil aviation industry. The development of SAF is seen as the most potential emission reduction measure for the civil aviation industry to achieve its net-zero carbon emissions target. In 2023, the European Parliament approved the European Clean Fuels Act aviation regulations, which require at least 2% of the fuel used by aircraft taking off and landing at EU airports to be "green fuel" by 2025, and this proportion will increase to 70% by 2050. At present, IATA, the European Union, the United States and China have all set short, medium and long-term SAF application targets and aviation carbon emission reduction targets.
International Air Transport Association (IATA)** global production of sustainable aviation fuel will exceed 600 million litres in 2023, double the production in 2022. In 2024, although its production will increase to 187.5 billion litres, but still far from meeting the needs of the aviation industry. To achieve the target of reducing CO2 emissions by 5% by 2030, the world needs to produce around 17.5 billion litres of sustainable aviation fuel. By 2050, 65% of carbon reductions in the aviation industry will be achieved through the use of SAF.
For example, the European Union requires that the mandatory blending ratio of SAF be increased from 2% to 70% by 2050. The United States has proposed that all aviation fuel will come from SAF by 2050. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries have also formulated plans for the use of SAF, and put forward the basic goal of reaching more than 30% of the use of SAF by 2050.
China actively promotes the application of SAF. The "14th Five-Year Plan" for the green development of civil aviation proposes to strive for SAF consumption to reach more than 20,000 tons in 2025. Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China jointly issued the "Green Aviation Manufacturing Industry Development Outline (2023-2035)", which proposes that by 2025, domestic civil aircraft using SAF will be demonstratively applied.
There are three main types of raw materials for the production of SAF: esters, cellulose and gases. Among them, ester raw materials include waste oil, oil-based biomass and seaweed, cellulose raw materials include agricultural and forestry wastes and municipal solid waste, and gaseous raw materials include industrial waste gases, carbon dioxide and green hydrogen captured from the air. The representative production process of ester raw materials is HEFA production process, which is the most mature SAF production process in the world.
SAF and petroleum-based aviation fuel are identical in composition, performance and function, and the use of SAF requires little additional modification to existing aircraft and aviation infrastructure. This is one of the major advantages of SAF application, which is why countries attach great importance to the development and application of SAF.
Currently,In China, only the industrialization of HEFA production process is relatively mature, while the production of SAF of cellulose and gas raw materials is still in the research stageThe relevant process technology is not yet mature, and there is still a long distance from industrialization, so it is difficult to put it into the civil aviation market in the short term.
At present, SAF has achieved normalization in 69 foreign airports and reached the level of batch ** in 40 airports. In terms of flights, there have been 520,000 flights using SAF for commercial flights worldwide.
The industry believes that under the condition that no breakthrough has been made in SAF production technologyAt this stage, China's SAF industry urgently needs national support. Under the guidance of the Leading Group for Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality in Civil Aviation, the China Air Transport Association and its members have carried out research on the promotion process of the commercial application of domestic SAF. The results of the study show that the cost difference between applying SAF and market mechanisms to offset the same amount of CO2 is nearly 20 times.
The industry saidSAF is an inevitable means for the civil aviation industry to achieve carbon neutrality, and the world is committed to promoting the use of SAF. The development of SAF in China should strengthen the top-level design, accelerate the reserve of new technologies, rely on scientific research institutes and universities to carry out research on SAF multi-raw materials and multi-process in line with China's national conditions, expand China's SAF process, and promote the development of SAF from simplification to diversification.
A joint working mechanism should be formed to clarify the policies of SAF's industrial support, taxation, finance and promotion and use. At the same time, we will establish an industrial chain coordination mechanism to allow stakeholders to participate more in the construction of SAF's industrial chain. In addition, it is necessary to learn from the advanced experience of foreign countries to build a business model for domestic SAF.
SAF is the key to the implementation of the "dual carbon" goal in the civil aviation industry, and the top-level design should be strengthened from the national strategic level, the strategic positioning of SAF should be further clarified, and the medium and long-term development plan of SAF should be studied and promulgated, so as to accelerate the development of the whole chain of the SAF industry. The industry suggests that an aviation green energy industry alliance should be gradually formed at the national level to systematically promote the development of China's SAF industry chain from technology, market, policy and other aspects, so as to better serve the deep decarbonization of the civil aviation industry.