The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) released a summary report following its Deploying Purpose-Grown Energy Crops for Synthetic Aviation Fuel (SAF) workshop held June 6-7, 2023, in Kansas City, Missouri.
February 6, 2024
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) released a summary report following its Deploying Purpose-Grown Energy Crops for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) workshop held June 6-7, 2023, in Kansas City, Missouri.
The BETO-hosted workshop brought together a wide range of stakeholders from industry, governmental organizations, DOE national laboratories, and academia, among others, to address a potential future research strategy related to the large-scale cultivation of purpose-grown energy crops that can provide feedstocks for biofuels and bioproducts production.
The workshop participants provided input on information gaps preventing the deployment of purpose-grown energy crops, strategies to overcome these gaps, innovative solutions for long-term sustainable success, and ways to expand stakeholder networks. Their input is vital to helping achieve DOE’s SAF Grand Challenge goals of supplying 100% of projected domestic aviation jet fuel by 2050 and advancing the DOE goal to tackle the climate crisis by building a renewable energy bioeconomy.
Across the four feedstock breakout groups, algae, herbaceous energy crops, overwintering/ secondary energy crops, and short-rotation wood energy crops, the top knowledge gaps identified were:
- Funding in long-term, large-scale demonstrations,
- Need for preprocessing and downstream logistics information, and
- Consistent carbon accounting.
Key results from this workshop will help guide future research needs and a research development and demonstration strategic direction in feedstock innovation. Learn more about the workshop and download the full workshop report.