Jet planes and sugar cane: Qantas and Airbus get on board biofuel factory in Queensland

theguardian.com:

Qantas is banking on converting byproducts from north Queensland sugar cane into sustainable aviation fuel, as the air industry comes under increasing pressure to minimise its emissions.

On Thursday, Qantas announced that it and plane manufacturer Airbus will jointly invest $2m in a biofuel production facility that it hopes can produce up to 100m litres of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) a year when it opens in 2026. The Queensland government has also pledged $760,000 as part of an initial capital raising of $6m for the project.

The biofuel production facility is being developed by Jet Zero Australia in partnership with LanzaJet, a US company that has already produced SAF from carbon monoxide waste from a steel plant in China. This has been used in a blended form on commercial flights from the US.

LanzaJet’s process involves turning waste products into ethanol, which it then converts into the compound used for SAF.

Commercial aircraft are already using SAF – Airbus says all of its aircraft are capable of flying with an SAF blend of up to 50%. But experts believe ramping up production to the levels the aviation industry relies on is decades away, if possible at all.

Aviation accounts for slightly more than 2% of global CO2 emissions.

Qantas already uses a modest amount of SAF – 10m litres in 2023 – which it buys from overseas. It has committed to use 10% SAF in its overall fuel mix by 2030. The airline is expected to have to rely on offsets to achieve its commitment of net zero emissions by 2050.

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In Australia, Jet Zero is focusing on agricultural byproducts from the sugar cane industry in north Queensland, with plans to