BA bets on sustainable aviation fuel with Lanzajet deal
More news flowing in the sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) space (now I realize it is the third post in a row about this topic and it was by no means preplanned!)
British Airways is partnering and investing in Lanzajet, the sustainable aviation fuel spin-off of US energy firm Lanzatech.
It is interesting how the three main airline groups are getting directly involved in sustainable aviation fuel projects. Earlier this week we explained in the podcast how Lufthansa Group is backing Swiss synthetic fuel startup Synhelion and how, in The Netherlands, KLM is actively working in this field through SkyNRG and also through new ventures such as Synkero.
British Airways’ diversified approach to sustainable aviation fuel
In the case of BA, this initiative is being channeled through its Hangar51 innovation arm, which is also supporting hydrogen-based projects such as ZeroAvia.
The Lanzajet initiative will see BA becoming an investor in Lanzatech’s refinery in Freedom Pines Fuels, Georgia, and starting to source fuel from there already in 2022. In fact, the time-frame of the project seem really short, particularly when considering the facility still needs to be built. For reference BA’s other SAF project, with a company called Velocys, aims to start producing in Humberside, in the UK, by 2025, while the Synkero project in the Netherlands has a time horizon of 2027.
The Georgia refinery will produce SAF from sustainable ethanol (this means it needs to come from sustainable sources, for example, not causing deforestation or outcompeting food crops, in this case it is going to be agriculture residues) through LanzaJet™ proprietary “Alcohol to Jet” (AtJ) Process. Apparently, if things go well, a second plant with the same technology may be built in the UK.
This is also another difference with the BA-Velocys project in England, since that one relies on household and commercial waste to produce SAF.
And this is in part the beauty of this type of technologies, that there are different paths to obtain fuel that lowers the carbon footprint.