The most recent IPCC report paints a stark picture of our changing climate and the urgency of action to reduce emissions in every sector of the economy. While light-duty road transport can decarbonize through electrification, aviation will continue to require energy dense liquid fuels for the foreseeable future. If we are to decarbonize aviation, it must be through low-carbon fuels that can be made from abundant, sustainable sources that do not increase pressure on land or food. The Fuel via Low Carbon Integrated Technology from Ethanol (FLITE) consortium (LanzaTech, SkyNRG, E4tech, RSB, and Fraunhofer) proposes to expand the supply of low carbon jet fuel in Europe by designing, building, and demonstrating an innovative ethanol-based Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ) technology in an ATJ Advanced Production Unit (ATJ-APU). The ATJ-APU will produce jet blendstocks from non-food/non-feed ethanol with over 70% GHG reductions relative to conventional jet. The Project will demonstrate >1000 hours of operations and production of >30,000 metric tonnes of Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and supports the European Advanced Biofuel Flightpath objectives of getting SAFs to the market faster and using 2 million tonnes of aviation biofuels by 2020. Ethanol is the ideal SAF feedstock as it can be produced from diverse and abundant resources, including residues from agriculture, forestry, and industry – and even from municipal waste. More low carbon ethanol technologies are being developed in Europe and elsewhere, while at the same time greater electric vehicle penetration reduces ethanol demand. Ethanol-based SAF offers an opportunity to divert sustainable carbon from road transport – which can be electrified – to aviation, which cannot. This strategy will expand the ethanol market and meet aviation’s low carbon fuel needs. The diversity of ethanol sources offers the potential to produce cost-competitive SAF, accelerating uptake by commercial airlines and paving the way for implementation.

Decarbonising & reducing aviation dependence on fossil fuel requires biofuels. BIO4A will produce at least kt of sustainable biojet for its use in aviation at commercial scale for accelerating its deployment within the aviation sector, increasing their attractiveness and contributing to the achievement of the EU targets. BIO4A targets HEFA pathway from wastes, aiming to move the full value chain from TLR 6 to 7. BIO4A will demonstrate the full value chain, enabling a production capacity of 2-300 kt/y of biojet in a First Of A Kind new biorefinery in France. The fuel will be distributed using the existing infrastructures and conventional aircraft fuelling systems for commercial flights. Special attention will be directed to the supply of sustainable feedstock, focusing on waste streams (UCO). In parallel, long-term R&D work will address marginal land in EU MED (low ILUC biofuels). Relevant environmental (inc. GHG and energy balance), economic and social data (inc. health and safety issues, impacts and benefits) will be assessed against targets. Since the current main barrier to the commercial production of biojet is the price gap, BIO4A will explicitly address performance and cost targets vs. relevant key performance indicators. The final goal is to prove the business case, identifying potential issues of public acceptance, market or regulatory risks and barriers (feedstock, technological, business, process) along the entire value chain, taking advantage of previous projects and proposing potential mitigation solutions. Offtake agreements have been signed with KLM and Airfrance. Additional off-take agreements could also be signed to open the participation to more airlines. Regulatory framework is also limiting today the development of the sector and an additional goal is recommendations to policies makers. The proposal will be defined at EU/National level, involving the major sector stakeholders and opening with a profitable dialogue with Member States and the EC.

HIGFLY will develop the next generation of technologies for the production of advanced bio jet fuels from abundant and sustainable biomass feedstocks. In a nutshell, HIGFLY: 1. Utilises abundant and sustainable feedstocks (e.g. second-generation biomass and macroalgae), focusing on feedstock flexibility and synergies across the bioenergy sector. 2. Develops innovative, highly-efficient and scalable reactor and separation technologies to produce advanced bio jet fuels in a resource, energy and cost-effective manner. 3. Develops new and robust catalytic materials and sustainable solvents for the renewable energy sector. 4. Advances the knowledge of its innovative technologies by evaluation of the entire value chain (from feedstock(s) to bio jet fuel) to demonstrate the environmental, social and techno-economic performance of HIGFLY technologies and the prospect of regulatory compliance of HIGFLY’s bio jet fuel. HIGFLY will develop and demonstrate in a step-wise approach and under industrially relevant conditions (at TRL3-4) innovative and highly efficient conversion technologies and integrative approaches to valorise abundant and sustainable feedstocks in a resource-, energy- and cost-effective manner. This has the unique potential to increase the total share of advanced biofuels in the EU jet fuel market. In this way, HIGFLY addresses EU priorities for decarbonizing the transport sector through the key actions of the EU SET Plan, specifically: i) by sustaining technological leadership through development of highly performant renewable technologies and their integration in the EU energy system; ii) by reducing the cost of key technologies through maximizing resource and energy efficiency; and iii) by strengthening market uptake through intensive early-stage cooperation between key end-users, policy advisors and technology developers. The HIGFLY consortium combines experts along the entire value chain, from research to end users, to accelerate market uptake.