Boeing bets on Canadian green jet fuel technologies
Aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing has invested almost $17.5 million with a trio of Canadian sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) pioneers aiming to accelerate development of technologies that could help convert the country's lumber waste and CO 2 emissions into low-carbon jet fuels.
Boeing will invest $10 million in a joint venture between Quebec companies Bioenergie AECN and Alder Renewables to advance a project that will turn sawmill by-products into biocrude for SAF, and $7.5 million in a pilot plant being built in BC by Dimensional Energy that can capture CO 2 directly from industrial facility emissions and transforms it into green synthetic fuel.
The volumes of SAF produced by the pilot projects will be relatively small: a total of 50 million gallons a year compared to the almost 100,000 million gallons currently burned annually by passenger airlines, according to Statista, a data portal. But the potential could be 'very significant" if stepped-up to commercial levels, said Boeing Canada CEO Al Meinzinger, speaking to Canada's National Observer.
'We are a global company and committed to supporting Canada's objective of being net-zero by 2050. These projects are clearly addressing a need articulated by government and industry,' he said, noting that the two SAF projects are part of Boeing's strategic $280 million investment in clean technology projects in Canada.
'Enormous latent energy sources'
Chris Lohman, Boeing Canada's head of sustainability, added: 'These two projects were selected because of the enormous latent energy sources in Canada that they have the potential to unlock: sawmill waste residue that in years gone by went into the pulp and paper industry but is now looking for new uses and end-products, and CO 2 that comes from heavy-emitting industry.'
'We are a global company and committed to supporting Canada's objective of being net-zero by 2050. These sustainable aviation fuel projects are clearly addressing a need articulated by government and industry," said Boeing Canada CEO Al Meinzinger.
Canada Transport's climate action plan targets 10 per cent of aviation fuel being replaced by SAF by 2030 to decarbonize a sector that globally accounts for over two per cent of all CO2 emissions, according to the Air Transport Action Group, a lobbyist. SAFs can produce 80 per cent lower emissions than conventional jet kerosene.
'SAF is a very complicated nut to crack and each concept has its own unique challenges so it is important Boeing support companies to move these technologies down the field,' said Lohman.
SAFs — which can be generated from a range of industrial and commercial feedstocks as well as captured carbon — have the potential to make up 65 per cent of the emissions reduction needed by the aviation sector to reach net-zero in 2050, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association, an industry trade body.
Technology 'valley of death'
The SAF generated by the two projects backed by Boeing will first be trialled in 16 P-8A Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance military aircraft ordered from Boeing by the Canadian government in November 2023, but Meinzinger said it was targeting future use in commercial airliners.
'These projects are aimed at the broadest possible market. We want to help these technologies traverse the 'valley of death' [between innovative concepts to commercial production] and get over the key engineering challenges so that they can get to economic scale,' he said.
Bioenergie AECN and Alder Renewables' project, called Projet Avance, points to Canada's 'unique opportunity' with SAF, said Lohman, given the 'vast, ready-made biomass resource' that can be found in the forested regions across the country 'not just to create a useful low-carbon fuel for use in Canada but also one that is exportable.'
The Dimension Energy project, which will capture CO 2 straight off a flue stack at a Lafarge cement facility in Richmond, BC, he added, is 'highly replicable anywhere you have greenhouse gases being generated by heavy industry.'
The Canadian Council for Sustainable Aviation Fuels — made up of 60 airlines operating in the country — laid out a roadmap in 2023 aiming to have 265 million gallons of SAF being produced domestically by 2030 and by 2035 enough to meet 25 per cent of total demand. This could reduce emissions by 15-20 per cent for aircraft departures from Canada.
Meinzinger believes Canada is 'not going to get anywhere' in its energy transition without moving away from its historical focus on energy-intensive fossil fuel-based products and services: 'The world is energy-hungry but, in the long term, also sustainability-hungry.'
Lohman added that Canada 'needs to make more of what we need here with what we've got,' adding that SAF is 'at the intersection of this reality.'
SAF technologies, he said, can 'disentangle' Canada from its dependence on petroleum for jet fuel by using biomass and CO 2 to build more sustainable industries.
'This investment in new industries will bring enormous rewards if it bridges the gap between innovative technology and commercial products – jobs, economic development, expanded export markets,' he said.
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