Airline carrier Jet Blue has signed a momentum of understanding to take supply of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) developed by Aether Fuels.
The SAF supply agreement with JetBlue will take effect once the Aether Aurora fuel is commercially available. Aether’s Aurora technology will use diverse waste feedstocks.
The feedstock flexibility differentiator helps deploy the technology and contributes to the breakthrough economics required for sustainable liquid fuels, by converting various waste carbon feedstocks into jet fuel. The method assists in dealing with the supply constraints faced by many other SAF production processes dependent on a limited type of often-scarce or cost-constrained feedstocks.
The technology, an enhanced version of the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, combines innovations in chemistry (catalysts), equipment (reactors), and novel process flow schemes helping major process simplifications (intensification) when converting waste carbon streams, such as captured carbon dioxide, industrial waste gases, biogas and treated agricultural residues, into liquid hydrocarbons. It is an efficient process to deliver high yield and broad feedstock support at lower investment and operating costs.
“Scaling up production of SAF is the essential challenge to solve for the decarbonization of aviation,” said Sara Bogdan, Managing Director of Sustainability and ESG at JetBlue. “By enabling access to a much wider range of feedstocks than previously available, Aether Fuels’ technology shows incredible promise to help SAF reach the commercial scale needed for the industry transition to renewable fuels.”
Aether’s team of technologists, in partnership with GTI Energy, are constructing a 100 gallon-per-day (380 liters per day) pilot line building on the successful operation of an existing 1.5 gallon-per-day (6l/day) pilot line. Similarly, Aether is developing a pipeline of commercial-scale production facilities, which includes projects in the U.S. and Southeast Asia to produce SAF and other high-value sustainable liquid fuels in collaboration with selected strategic partners.
SAF is more costly than regular jet fuel but reduces carbon emissions significantly. Businesses which have invested in SAF supply include the San Francisco 49ers football franchise and United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Embraer and Delta.
