Airline industry's dirty secret: Clean jet fuel failures
In 2019, Scott Kirby, the chief executive of United Airlines, hailed its new contract with green jet fuel producer World Energy as an example for the aviation industry to follow in its drive to cut emissions. Six years later, that collaboration is dead.
Boston-based World Energy was one of the first companies in the world to produce commercial quantities of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a type of renewable fuel made from sources such as used cooking oil, agricultural residues and other waste.
Its Paramount refinery near downtown Los Angeles had been a rare success story, supplying millions of gallons of SAF a year to airlines such as United Airlines and fellow US carrier JetBlue Airways. The plant, which began operations in 2016, was central to the carriers' pledges to help the airline industry switch to a blend of 10 percent SAF by the end of this decade.
But the refinery quietly ceased operations in April. And World Energy's plans for a second plant in Houston have stalled amid a lack of commitment from the industry, according to Chief Executive Gene Gebolys.
'Some airlines were engaged in a pretty disingenuous effort to put out press releases' overstating their commitment to SAF projects, Gebolys said, without naming any companies. 'People sometimes said too much in the past and did too little.'
Still, Gebolys acknowledged that some airlines have made a genuine effort to support SAF producers, while governments also needed to step up with stronger incentives to drive progress.
The termination of United's fuel purchase contract with World Energy - and the closure of the Paramount refinery - have not previously been reported.
United Airlines said it ended its relationship with World Energy 'a few years ago', without providing a reason. A JetBlue spokesperson said World Energy has been a 'valued partner' since 2020 and it will continue working with the company.
World Energy's struggles mirror the plight of dozens of clean fuel startups, according to a Reuters review of the sector. Nearly 20 years after the first commercial flight powered partly by biofuels made the short hop from London to Amsterdam, Reuters found that the airline industry's plans to go green before regulators start penalizing them are little more than a pipe dream.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), a global body that represents 340 airlines, forecasts SAF will account for 0.7 percent of total jet fuel this year, up from 0.3 percent in 2024. Air passenger traffic, meanwhile, is expected to rise 6 percent this year, IATA says. IATA has set a goal of net zero emissions by 2050, a target that would require airlines to ramp up SAF use to 118 billion gallons annually, a more than 300-fold increase from current production.
Airline industry leaders point to a wave of new SAF initiatives they say will spark a boom similar to the rapid rise of electric vehicles and solar energy. However, the aviation sector has yet to publish a comprehensive roadmap or a transparent database of upcoming SAF projects that would allow regulators and the public to assess the credibility of these projections.
To scrutinize the industry's claims, Reuters built its own database of airline SAF initiatives - offering the most comprehensive view yet of the sector's faltering green progress and revealing that the industry has no clear pathway to hitting net zero targets.
While airlines have announced 165 SAF projects over the past 12 years, only 36 have materialized, Reuters found. Among those, Reuters uncovered problems at three of the largest - including World Energy - that exemplify the systemic challenges plaguing the SAF sector.
Of the remaining projects, 23 have been abandoned, 27 are delayed or on indefinite hold, 31 have yet to produce any fuel, and 4 are SAF credit deals, where no physical fuel is delivered. For the other 44 projects, Reuters was unable to find any public updates since their initial announcements.
If all the pending projects announced by airlines reached their maximum potential, it would only add 12 billion gallons of SAF production, the Reuters analysis found. That's about 10 percent of what's needed to hit the net zero target. Airlines pin the problems on the oil industry, saying it isn't producing enough fuel.
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