Below is a transcription of the webinar, “DOE’s Progress Toward Meeting the Goals of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge,” presented by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office in February 2023. Watch the recording.
[Begin presentation]
Erik Ringle, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar: DOE's Progress Toward Meeting the Goals of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge. I'm Erik Ringle from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And before we get started, I'd like to cover some housekeeping items so you know how you can participate in the event today.
You'll be in listen-only mode during the webinar. You can select audio connection options to listen through your computer audio or dial in through your phone. For the best connection we recommend calling in through a phone line. You may submit questions for our panel today using the Q&A panel. If you are currently in full-screen view, click the question mark icon located in the floating toolbar at the lower right side of your screen. That will open the Q&A panel. If you're in split screen mode that Q&A panel is already open and is also located at the lower right side of your screen. To submit your question, simply select "All panelists" in the Q&A dropdown menu, type in your question or comments and press "Enter" on the keyboard. You may send in those questions at any time during the presentations. We will collect these and, time permitting, address them during the Q&A session at the end.
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All right. With that, I'll now turn things over to Sara Leonard to introduce our topic and panelists. Take it away, Sara.
Sara Leonard, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Thanks, Erik. And I went ahead and posted those links that you just mentioned in the chat already. I'm Sara Leonard with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Thank you all for joining today's webinar. Here on this slide is a glimpse of today's agenda, and I will also be continuing to post some links in the chat that correspond with the presentations for your reference. Next slide.
First, a shoutout to our Bioenergy Communicators Working Group, also known as BioComms, which make these webinars possible. This group is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office, also known as BETO. The BioComms Working Group includes bioenergy communicators, laboratory relationship managers, and education and workforce development professionals from the national labs and the BETO program who gather once a month to strategize on how to effectively communicate and promote BETO-funded research to the public. BioComms working group also provides the public the opportunity to learn about current and emerging bioenergy technologies, projects, and partnerships through monthly webinars, which brings us to today's webinar. Next slide.
Today we have six speakers joining us who will each provide important updates on the progress of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge goals. And before we begin, I'll go ahead and introduce each speaker in the order they will present today.
- Dr. Valerie Sarisky-Reed is the Director of DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office, also known as BETO. In this role she manages efforts to improve performance, lower costs, and accelerate market entry of bioenergy technologies.
- Zia Haq is a Senior Analyst with BETO who works on biofuels for the aviation and marine sectors. He provides strategic support to BETO's analysis and sustainability activities.
- Dr. Art Wiselogel is a Senior ORISE Fellow who provides support to the Renewable Carbon Resource Program under BETO. He's an expert in biological and thermochemical biomass-to-liquid-fuels conversion technologies, biomass thermal and power technologies, biomass production, and biomass handling systems.
- Dr. Ian Rowe is a Technology Manager with the Conversion, Research, and Development Program in the Bioenergy Technologies Office where he manages work on biochemical conversion of biomass, waste, and CO2-to-fuels end products.
- Dr. Mark Shmorhun is a Technology Manager with BETO. Mark collaborates with biotechnology companies and national laboratories to develop and mature mid-stage biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower research and development with an emphasis on chemical process development, plant engineering, design, construction, and operation.
- And last but not least, Sheila Dillard is the Communications and Stakeholder Lead for BETO. Sheila manages BETO's traditional and digital media, the BETO and Bioenergy Review Board Initiative website, STEM and workforce development initiatives, media inquiries, executive and stakeholder engagement, along with program and product development, all of which support BETO's mission.
And one last thing before we hand things over to Director Reed: We have also allocated 15 minutes at the end of today's presentations for questions from the audience, so we will start with any questions that were sent to us in advance of today's webinar and then, as Erik mentioned earlier, we'll take questions through that Q&A box at the bottom right corner of your screen.
On to you, Director Reed.
Dr. Valerie Sarisky-Reed, Bioenergy Technologies Office Director
Great. Thank you very much. So, just about – can I have the first slide, please? Thank you.
Just about a year and a half ago the White House announced the US Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge. This was significant for a number of reasons. First, it brought attention to the need to reduce emissions in aviation and the importance that the sustainable aviation fuel would play. As the third largest CO2-emitting mode of transportation, reductions here are necessary to hit the goals of the administration, and aviation is a hard-to-electrify mode, so it made alternative technologies unlikely.
The SAF Grand Challenge then also brought together several agencies with capabilities and authorities in this area so that we could join forces and drive toward a common goal in the production of sustainable aviation fuel. The agencies are the Department of Energy, USDA, and the Department of Transportation.
And lastly, the SAF Grand Challenge helped connect the efforts of government with the efforts of industry in order to help establish that market pull that would be needed if we were to be successful.
Once the challenge was issued, the federal agencies came together to draft a roadmap to meet the goals. And the goals are very aggressive. I mean, we're talking three billion gallons in just seven years. Hitting this goal will really help ensure that the path to a net-zero carbon aviation sector is possible, and we'll be able to look towards the future where we can provide for 100 percent of the US aviation fuel need. Next slide, please.
Okay. So, failure here really is not an option. We hear more and more about how critical it is that we reduce CO2 emissions across our entire economy. To be successful we are following a couple of key principles. The industry has the will, but it needs to be able to make good business decisions and make a business case for the funding it's going to place here, depending upon strong policies that will support the production and the use of sustainable aviation fuels. Technical, supply chain and other key barriers still need to be overcome, and a lot of this will be described in the presentations today about the roadmap.
This all needs to be accomplished, then, in a time frame that will enable industry to build and purchase fuels that will help meet their own goals and provide the customers with safe and clean air travel. Next slide, please.
I can't overstate the importance of policies enough when it comes to the production of sustainable aviation fuel. This past August, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law. It was within this legislation that tax credits supporting the fast expansion of SAF were included. In the first two years – that is, 2023 and 2024 – section 13203 provides an incentive designed specifically to support sustainable aviation fuel. Historically, this fuel has not received incentives as other fuels have, and so it was necessary in order to create an even playing field for SAF to have this first two-year incentive.
The tax credit rewards increasing CO2 reductions beyond the minimum of 50 percent. They are allowing for an additional one cent per gallon for every percentage point improvement in greenhouse gas performance. And these credits are also stackable with other incentives, which will enable the final cost of the fuel to be very competitive with existing fossil-based fuels. The airlines want to be able to provide this fuel, but they also do not want significant increases in the cost of ticket prices. Now, after 2024 the tax credit broadens to a clean fuel production credit that will support multiple fuels coming from biomass, including renewable diesel. Next slide, please.
All right. I'm going to quickly turn my attention to describing the Bioenergy Technologies Office. The office is made up of really outstanding subject matter experts that support the key areas that are going to be necessary to produce not just sustainable aviation fuels but other biofuels and biochemicals. Our feedstock experts lead the national labs, universities, and industry in research from very early to later stage, and they're looking to increase the number of biomass-derived feedstocks that will be available for fuels and chemical production. We work with wastes such as MSW, agricultural residues, and woody residues. And we're looking towards dedicated energy crops such as switchgrass, poplar trees, and algae.
This diversity of feedstock really means we need to have more than one conversion process. Our experts within our conversion technologies area are looking to both thermochemical and biochemical processes that will allow us to maximize fuel and chemical production with the lowest cost possible, enabling a suite of technologies that can be scaled up to industrial scale.
Scaling is incredibly important. The competitive funding coming from our systems development and integration team is helping to reduce the risk of these first-of-a-kind technologies so that industry will then be willing to fund and commercialize. This team also explores market barriers, including workforce and other things that will be needed to really ensure a strong, reliable industry. And of course, scientific rigor is provided across our entire portfolio, but our data modeling and analysis team really ensures that we're investigating all the potential impacts of these technologies, both good and bad, and providing that data to industry and policymakers so they can make strong business decisions that will drive funding.
I'm going to end there. I thank you for your attention and I hope you enjoy this webinar.
Sara Leonard
Up next, we have Zia Haq.
Zia Haq, Bioenergy Technologies Office Senior Analyst
Great. Thank you, Sara. And I appreciate your time and attention to this very important topic. We have been talking about the SAF Grand Challenge roadmap, as Valerie mentioned. The roadmap is available on the Web, and we will provide a link to you for that so that you can download it and take a look at it yourself. It is a pretty extensive document and – thank you Sara – and it has very ambitious goals, as Valerie mentioned, including a goal of a minimum 50 percent reduction in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and 2 volumetric goals, a 3 billion gallon goal by 2030 and a 35 billion gallon, 36 billion gallon goal by 2050. So, we know that – we recognize that these are ambitious targets, and we hope that we will be able to catalyze the growth of the industry to be able to meet them with the actions that we will undertake over the next few years. So, next slide, please.
So, the roadmap is really a plan of action across the federal agencies. As Valerie mentioned, there were several agencies that were very directly involved. There were many others that were involved in the discussions leading up to the roadmap. And the key agencies, of course, were USDA and FAA under the leadership of the Department of Transportation, but we had many other agencies who participated in the creation of the roadmap.
And of course, we want to work with stakeholders to build the SAF supply chain. The federal government is not going to build biorefinery facilities at a commercial scale, but we want to see the technology development proceed up to and before the commercial scale so that the private sector can take it and move it forward into the commercial scale. So, really, de-risking technology, supply chains, and reducing barriers are the key roles that the federal government will play, and that's what's outlined in the roadmap. Next slide, please.
So, as I mentioned before, there were multiple federal agencies that were involved, but we really want to work in close coordination with our stakeholders, and so we are working with key organizations such as CAFE and FAA and NASA and Department of Defense and so forth to try to get the word out and to get stakeholder involvement to pursue the activities under the roadmap. We have in the roadmap several recommendations on research areas, and we have also solicited feedback from industry and various stakeholder groups in preparation of the roadmap. So, this is so the roadmap really reflects what we heard during several listening sessions that we held with industry and academia and national labs.
So, we really hope that the roadmap identified opportunities for public-private partnerships to implement actions going forward. And we will highlight in this presentation some federal government actions, or DOE actions, that we're taking to implement the roadmap.
And finally, we'll talk about communications and the SAF Grand Challenge website. We have a website right now, but we are working to upgrade that and hopefully we'll be able to talk more about that later. Next slide, please.
So, as I mentioned before, in the roadmap there are six action areas, and these are at a very high level the list of those action areas: feedstock, conversions, supply chain, policy, end use, and communicating progress. That's at the very highest level. And below that level there are 26 workstreams, and then below that level there are 139 activities. So, it's a fairly detailed roadmap. It really has a lot of good information and insights in it for those who want to get a little bit more than just at the surface level. It has a fair amount of good, detailed information. So, please do take a look at it. And of course, if you have any comments or questions or concerns about the roadmap, we would be happy to talk to you about that as well. Next slide, please.
And with that, I'll turn it back to Sara.
Sara Leonard
Thanks, Zia. Next up, we have Dr. Art Wiselogel.
Dr. Art Wiselogel, ORISE Fellow
Thanks, Sara. The feedstock innovation action area was written and developed by team members from BETO and USDA. It was reviewed and edited by experts from FAA and nongovernmental stakeholders. The objective of this action area is to support and conduct R&D on sustainable feedstock supply system innovations across a range of SAF-relevant feedstocks and identify opportunities for optimization to reduce cost, reduce technology uncertainty and risk, increase yield and sustainability, and optimize SAF precursors. The feedstock innovation action area is divided into six workstreams that cover the challenges of supplying enough SAF feedstock to meet both near-term and long-term goals in the Grand Challenge. Next slide, please.
The amount of SAF required to meet the 2050 goal of 35 billion gallons a year is so large that not one type of biomass resource is capable of providing enough feedstock to meet the demand. It is going to take a variety of biomass and waste resources to make the desired amount of jet fuel. In addition, not all conversion technologies can use all biomass and waste-derived feedstocks, so it is important to make sure that biomass and waste resource development and mobilization align with the conversion technology feedstock needs. It is estimated to produce 35 billion gallons of SAF it will take 645 million tons of biomass and waste.
BETO thinks that meeting this demand is possible. Previously funded resource assessment work shows that up to a billion tons a year of biomass is potentially available. I'd like to quickly talk about this graphic here. The third bar on the right shows estimated liquid fuel needs for 2050. The projection box shows how much of that need is expected to be hard-to-electrify transportation applications, and this includes SAF. The far-right green bar shows potential renewable fuel production that can be produced from different types of biomass and waste resources. Next slide, please.
The current conversion technologies used to make SAF require fats, oils, and greases. It is possible to meet the 2030 goal of 30 billion gallons with this feedstock alone, but it's highly probable that other technologies will be commercialized before the 2030 target date. These technologies will most likely require starch and sugars that can be used to make alcohol that then can be converted into SAF. These feedstock types come from today's commodity crops and do not require an increase in crop production to meet the projected total domestic SAF demand.
Midterm resources will come from MSW, forest residues left over from commercial tree harvest or timber and paper, and agricultural residues. Technologies that use woody biomass and waste materials have been developed and they're being improved to make them more economically viable. Conversion technologies that use herbaceous materials like cornstalks are farther down the technology development timeline. Feedstocks developed from purpose-grown crops like algae, switchgrass, and fast-growing trees are expected to part of the last phase of development of the SAF production capabilities. The technologies that will use these purpose-grown crops as a feedstock will already have been commercialized and are the same ones that use fats, oils, and greases and forest and ag residues. The reason these feedstock types are so far out on the SAF timeline is that it will take time to develop them as commercial crops that are available on a large scale and at reasonable prices. Next slide, please.
BETO has been supporting work on biomass and waste resources for many years. Since commodity crop production is under the purview of USDA, BETO has focused on waste, forest and ag residues, algae, and purpose-grown biomass crops. Over the past 12 to 15 years the focus has been on forest and ag residues, with waste resources being added about 5 years ago. The exception to this is algae. BETO has had a strong algae development program for a long time. In the near future BETO has plans to add efforts in the development of purpose-grown biomass crops.
Past work BETO has been involved with include developing methods to more quickly and efficiently collect, handle, densify ag and forest residues in the field and forest, transportation and storage strategies necessary to have biomass and waste ready for preprocessing, and understanding the preprocessing that is required to turn biomass and waste into ready-to-use conversion technology feedstocks, and this includes some recent work using AI for waste resource separation to produce pure streams of material for preprocessing. Next slide, please.
BETO is also working to understand greenhouse gas emissions involved in the process of getting raw biomass or waste material from where it is produced to the form of a feedstock ready to go into a reactor throat. And finally, development of algae as a feedstock resource. And we've done previous work on screening plant species for the development into purpose-grown biomass crops. Thank you for your attention today and I'll hand it back over to Sara.
Sara Leonard
And next up we have Dr. Ian Rowe.
Dr. Ian Rowe, Bioenergy Technologies Office Technology Manager
Thanks, Sara. Next slide.
Similar to my colleague Art, the action area he described, the conversion technology innovation action area is also an action area that was written collaboratively amongst the relevant federal offices and it's aimed at supporting and conducting R&D all the way from the fundamental scale – fundamental area through the applied pilot scale, on unit operations and the integration thereof, from the receipt of biomass at the refinery gate all the way through to a finished fuel for technology improvements and carbon intensity reductions. This effort includes processes that are already commercial, such as the HEFA process or nearing commercialization, like alcohol-to-jet, and it also considers work that will be read for commercialization beyond 2030 but needs to be developed now to meet our 2050 goals.
Within this action area there are five relevant workstreams. We have the reduce emissions, diversify, and scale current fermentation-based fuel industry; develop options to increase production and reduce carbon intensity of existing ASTM-qualified pathways; developing biointermediates and pathways for compatibility with existing capital assets; reducing risk during scale-up and operations; and developing innovative unit operations and pathways. Next slide, please.
So, to meet the technology – the conversion technology aims of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge the federal government has funded R&D to hasten the commercialization of several near-term pathways. On the graph you see here on the left you'll see a graph – you'll see a technoeconomic assessment of three different near-term SAF pathways: alcohol-to-jet, Fischer-Tropsch, and the HEFA process, with the y-axis representing the total MFSP and each of the different color slices within the bars representing a different contribution to the total minimum fuel selling price, including things like the cost of raw materials, the cost of the feedstock, and the cost of operating the different unit operations in the conversion pathway.
The conversion R&D across the government really boils down to trying to improve the individual technologies associated with each of these individual pieces to drive down the overall cost and expedite commercial adoption. So, these are near-term. If we can go to the next slide, please?
In addition to those near-term, standalone technologies, the conversion innovation action areas also aims at more arguably midterm technologies that can leverage existing infrastructure. So, you can think of this as technologies that can leverage bio-oil or biocrude, which can be generated from pyrolysis of biomass, or hydrothermal liquefaction of wet waste, which could feed into existing petroleum refinery infrastructure, which there's plenty of across the country. Or you can think of technologies that can leverage the cellulosic biomass we have out there and converting it to cellulosic sugars, which can feed into the existing biorefinery infrastructure we have and can go to either making alcohols like they do today, which can be upgraded to jet fuel, or fermentation processes changed to make different fuels and/or products, all of which can contribute to our sustainable aviation fuel needs. Next slide, please.
Lastly, I wanted to highlight some emerging SAF technologies. The action area is also exploring these more long-term pathways that use less conventional methods and feedstocks, such as carbon dioxide utilization, as highlighted here. Such pathways like this need research into leveraging low-cost renewable electricity to convert lower energy feedstocks into intermediates. So, for example here, you have carbon dioxide that would go through some kind of electrochemical conversion into an intermediate such as syngas, methanol, or alcohol and could be upgraded. While generally at low technology readiness level today, generating these intermediates could then leverage much of the technologies highlighted in previous slides and those pathways which are closer to commercialization today, all showing that all of the R&D we use today can help enable both near-term and long-term sustainable aviation fuel goals. Thank you.
Sara Leonard
And next up we have Dr. Mark Shmorhun.
Dr. Mark Shmorhun, Bioenergy Technologies Office Technology Manager
Thank you, Sara. Next slide, please.
It's my privilege on behalf of many contributors, a whole cast of characters, to introduce the supply chain action area of the SAF Grand Challenge. As you've heard from Art and Ian, there are multiple potential combinations of feedstocks and conversion pathways that will lead us to the production of SAF. And so, with supply chains we're not introducing the need for the development of robust supply chains that integrate the elements of biomass supply, feedstock logistics, the conversion technologies, the distribution of fuel, through the end use of fuel. So, the development of these complex supply chains is really necessary to ensure that de-risked and scaled conversion technology utilizing specific feedstocks are supported with appropriate logistics, infrastructure, and most important perhaps, the public-private partnerships that are going to be necessary to bring these technologies to market and bring the fuel to the airports and grow the supply of SAF.
So, toward that end, the SAF Grand Challenge working group defined several supply chain workstreams. The first, the development and support of stakeholder coalitions. This is everything from the feedstock producers through the airports, the local governments, and agencies, permitting groups, you name it. Those groups need to come together. They need to collaborate and develop these coalitions to stand up these projects and get fuel to the airports.
Modeling and simulation tools, we believe, will play a significant role. These tools span the supply chain elements, and they can also support the various stakeholder entities that are across these supply chains in supporting them and helping them make decisions and smart decisions about funding in technology, et cetera.
Demonstration of SAF supply chains is essential. As Art mentioned, you've got to demonstrate that you can grow crops at scale sufficient to feed a facility to manufacture 100 million gallons of aviation fuel per year, or you need to demonstrate that a specific pathway or process technology is capable of being engineered and reproduced and essentially multiple facilities, cut and paste, to produce SAF fuel. So, the demonstration of these supply chains is essentially critical.
And then, finally, the funding in the supply chain infrastructure itself. Next slide, please.
So, these successful supply chain elements, they really – we integrate across many things. It's a very wide-ranging action area, and what I'm going to do in the interest of time is really focus on a subset of the demonstration workstream, which is where BETO has a rich history of funding in de-risking technology pathways. So, on this slide – it's a little busy, but if you'll bear with me, what we show is maturing technology readiness levels from R&D on the left all the way through commercial scale, and it shows the increasing funding and capacities and sort of stakeholder engagement as technologies mature.
So, BETO funding across this from R&D through demonstration scale and our job, our role is to help technology maturation across the spectrum through both funding opportunity announcements that are competitively awarded and support at our national lab complex. So, in particular, what I'd like to talk a little bit about is the funding of demonstration-scale projects. At demonstration scale you're really for the first time fully integrating and proving the operability, the engineering robustness of technologies so that they can be taken to the next scale to the 100 million or 200 million gallon per year production facility where you have economies of scale, and you can have confidence that these technologies are going to work. And essentially, these demo-scale projects get us through that valley of death, that so-called valley of death where the technology risk is very high and the money, the sources of financing for these projects is scarce. And this is where BETO can play a role, by funding in those demonstration-scale facilities. Next slide, please, Sara.
So, pleased to announce – we announced a few years ago in fiscal year '23 BETO stood up a number of pilot- and demonstration-scale projects. We awarded $118 million in competitively awarded projects to accelerate domestic biofuel production. These projects will boost production in biofuels for consumer and freight and air transport in America, supporting the president's emissions reduction and climate agenda. These projects include both – pre-pilot-, pilot-, and demonstration-scale that will scale up existing biomass-to-fuel technologies and eventually hopefully lead to the production of millions of gallons of low-cost or low-carbon fuel. The funded projects align with the renewable fuel goals in the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, which is a multi-agency framework for reducing emissions and securing America's energy independence. These awards range anywhere from $0.5 million to $80 million. Most receive $2 million.
And on the next slide, please, I'd like to highlight just a few of them. These are the pilot-and demonstration-scale projects that we've funded. And from top to bottom, we have LanzaTech, that will be scaling up woody biomass gasification with their gas fermentation technology to produce ethanol, which can then be converted to sustainable aviation fuel; microbio engineering, which converts wastewater treatment solids through hydrothermal liquefaction into a biocrude, which can be further upgraded to fuels, either renewable diesel or jet; Alder Fuels, with fast pyrolysis technology of woody biomass – again, producing a biocrude material; and then finally AVAPCO LLC, based in Thomaston, Georgia, which will be using woody biomass via a process to make cellulosic ethanol, which will then be converted to jet.
So, with that, I hope I've made the case regarding the need for the development of these robust supply chains spanning from feedstocks to end use. And in the coming months BETO in partnership with our other federal agencies and you our stakeholders will be defining specific further actions under these supply chain workstreams that require further development. So, thank you and I'll hand it back to Sara.
Sara Leonard
Thank you. And we welcome Zia back for the next two sections.
Zia Haq
Great. Thank you, Sara. If you could go to the next slide? Thank you.
So, end use is a critical need for the use of sustainable aviation fuels by the commercial aviation sector. And this relates to certification and qualification of new fuels and blend characteristics of these fuels – in other words, how they behave once they're blended with conventional petroleum-based fuels. And then, basically enabling the use of 100 percent SAF right now, as you all know, there are seven pathways that are approved by ASTM for blend limits up to 50 percent. They range from 10 percent to 50 percent. And so, we are exploring ways to see if we can go beyond 50 percent, up to 100 percent with different types of SAF.
And then, we really want to look at the performance and production advantages of different types of SAF, and we want to explore the issues and challenges associated with integrating SAF into the existing fuel distribution infrastructure at different airports. So, this is the scope of work that is outlined under the enabling end use area of the roadmap. So, if you could go to the next slide?
So, within this area we at DOE have a fairly modest amount of work that has been looking at the different issues associated with SAF end use at our national labs, and this is really focused at the TRL more at the fundamental science and computational tools and data collection for the aviation industry to be able to design and optimize the next generation of fuels, in addition to the ones that you already heard about, but potentially other types of fuels that could perform – have a better performance characteristic and lower greenhouse gas emissions. So, we are working of course very closely with our colleagues in FAA, NASA, and other agencies to focus on this area. Next slide, please.
So, I'll just mention very briefly some of the work that is going on in our national labs, and this has to do with tools and data to look at how a combination of different types of SAF blends behave in an engine. And the graph on the lower lefthand side is the thrust requirement, the pressure and temperature condition that a fuel sees in different stages of the flight path. So, at takeoff it's a very high performance area, and then at cruise the conditions become more stable. So, the fuel has to behave differently in takeoff conditions versus cruise conditions. So, we are looking at – we are interested to look at how different types of SAF blends will behave at these different conditions so that we can optimize the performance of the SAF blends.
And the diagram on the right shows basically sort of a fluid dynamic – computational fluid dynamic picture of how these fuels will burn and combust in a different type of – in a jet engine. So, these are the tools that we have in our national lab system that will allow us to better characterize SAF and fuel performance as we develop new types of SAF fuels. But I will say again that we are working very closely, as I mentioned before, with our colleagues in FAA and NASA and other government agencies as well as in the private sector, because we recognize that a fair amount of this type of work, end use work is going on in the private sector as well as academia. So, we definitely don't want to duplicate efforts or get into some proprietary areas that we don't need to be in. So, this is very close – being coordinated very closely with other agencies and other entities in this area. Next slide, please.
So, one of the key things that we are also interested in in the long term is the environmental impacts of SAF use. So, as you may know, there are many emissions – impacts associated with the current use of jet fuels in and around airports, and they affect communities that live around there. So, in addition to noise there are emission impacts. And so, what we really want to do is to try to understand what happens if you introduce SAF and you have certain improved environmental characteristics, and how will that impact the communities that are surrounding the airports? So, again, these are activities that are in, I would say, a very modest level of funding, and we will – we are exploring and having discussions with our partners to see what role, if any, DOE can play in this area going forward. Next slide, please.
Okay. I'll talk a little bit about the policy and valuation analysis area as well. So, next slide.
So, as Valerie mentioned before, policy is really critical to improving the cost characteristics of SAF and encouraging the industry to use – to continue to use and to grow the use of SAF in the coming years with a goal towards reducing emissions. So, three main areas, main workstreams here: improved environmental models and data; conduct technoeconomic analysis, and inform SAF policy development. So, the policy area in the roadmap is not a policy advocacy piece. That's not what we do. The intent is to provide data and analysis to support policymakers so that they can make the right decision in terms of which policies to choose. So, that's the emphasis of the policy and valuation area of the roadmap. So, if you could go to the next slide?
So, one of the things that we have – one of the key areas that we recognized early on was the need for better understanding of life cycle analysis. And to that end, we have formed a life cycle analysis working group, and this group has been helping the treasury and IRS to better understand and appreciate the technical difficulties and analytical needs associated with life cycle analysis. So, we are working in an advisory capacity to Treasury – ultimately, Treasury is and IRS are the responsible agencies who will be administrating the Inflation Reduction Act provisions, but this life cycle analysis working group is – which is multi-agency, as you can see there, is a technical background that Treasury can use to try to understand all of the issues associated with life cycle analysis. So, this has been – this group has been meeting regularly and we have been working on several products that Treasury can use to help guide their rulemaking process. Next slide, please.
So, Ian mentioned technoeconomic analysis. This is something that we do on a very regular basis. We have a number of publications that we have provided on the Web, and these are very detailed Aspen process simulation-based technoeconomic analyses looking at an nth plant cost of production. So, in other words, once we get beyond the pioneer plant risks and redundancies associated with – cost redundancies that are needed for pioneer plants, once we get to the nth plant structure, what does that look like? And so, you see here in addition to what Ian showed two options for alcohol-to-jet technologies that look at what that nth plant cost structure could look like. And this really helps, as Ian mentioned, us to determine areas where research and development needs to take place to bring those costs down so that the fuel can become cost-competitive.
So, this is – we have a number of different pathways that we have published reports on, and they are available on our website, on the BETO website, and we will be continuing to develop further iterations as we develop new pathways. Next slide, please.
So, I won't go into this in a lot of detail, but we do have – in addition to technoeconomic analysis, we have a number of different models that BETO has funded, and we have a model-mapping library that is available on the website. And again, if you have any questions about how all these models relate to each other, please do get in contact with one of us and we'll be happy to walk you through these. I just – I won't go into any detail here, but just – other than to say that we do have – oh, thank you, Sara, for that, for the link to the model map – we do have technoeconomic analysis models, we have life cycle analysis models, and we have resource assessment models. And so, we have attempted to put all this together in one Web page so that you can have access to them, and you can see how they relate to each other. So, I think that that's all I'll say about that.
And with that – no, I think there's one more, which is the GREET one. Yes. So, one of the key tools that we have been working on is the GREET life cycle analysis tool – thanks, Sara, for the Web – which is available at Argonne National Lab's website. And this tool has been used, as many of you may know, by the California Air Support, by the Environmental Protection Agency, and by of course SIA to derive carbon intensity numbers for a variety of different pathways. And right now, as you may know, in the Inflation Reduction Act there are several places where it is called out. The law says that GREET will be used for these kinds of assessments. So, the GREET tool is being used and will continue to be used very extensively in the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act.
And so, we are working with Argonne to make the tool more user-friendly, to provide additional data to this tool, and to make sure that it is updated and available with the latest available information and data that can be used widely by the general public to be able to allow to – to get transparent numbers for carbon intensities of different pathways. And with that, I think it'll turn it back to Sara.
Sara Leonard
Thanks. And last up, we have Sheila Dillard.
Sheila Dillard, Bioenergy Technologies Office Communications Lead
Hello. Thank you, Sara. We're going to talk about effective communications and transparency. Effective communication that transparently demonstrates the environmental, climate, and economic benefits of SAF is vital to building public trust and increasing support. For the SAF Grand Challenge to be successful, public awareness of SAF is one of the solutions to reduce net GHG emissions from aviation while also simultaneously funding in the US domestic economy will be important. We realize that developments in modeling and production, including feedstock sustainability, need to be regularly and effectively communicated to avoid providing outdated information. Therefore, coordination and transparent, accurate, and objective resources will be essential for public engagement and dialogue to build and maintain support. Most importantly, benefit and impact assessments that are made publicly available would be necessary to demonstrate the benefits are real, supported by data, and can be clearly understood. Communication activities will support workstreams across the other five areas. Next slide, please.
Stakeholder outreach and engagement will continue to be critical for building support and exchanging knowledge to achieve the 2030 goals. Some other items that we need to focus on are exchanging information about best practices, conduct benefits assessment impact analysis, communicate public benefits of the SAF Grand Challenge to address common concerns, misconceptions, and further build public trust. To get into a little bit more detail, DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office – as you know, known as BETO – along with USDA and FAA will hold consultation and listening sessions with the NGO agricultural and forestry communities to understand the needs and best practices to reduce life cycle GHG emissions from feedstock production and improved sustainability.
We will also hold a series of consultations with NGOs, feedstock producers, and other stakeholder groups to exchange data and information about best practices from agricultural and forest-derived feedstocks and minimize other environmental and social impacts. To do this, reports and other publications with data, lessons learned, and potential for reducing carbon intensities will be developed. We will disseminate best practices for key activities necessary for building the SAF industry.
What is the impact? The impact will be continued and expanded support and access to information. We will ensure approaches are environmentally and socially sustainable. We will also measure the progress of the SAF Grand Challenge. We will track the progress against the SAF Grand Challenge goals and publish information on progress and outcomes on a regular basis. The impact, once again, will be continued and expanded public support.
We will also communicate public benefits, which means we'll need to maintain public support through communications plans, which will include education on sustainability and jobs. The impact of that will be coordinated communications that include environmental, social, and economic benefits that address common concerns, misconceptions, and provide continued and expanded public support in order to access information. Next slide, please.
The exciting news is that we are developing a website for the SAF Grand Challenge. It says "Coming soon, 2023" but we are actually going to launch the website next week. The website will include an overview of the roadmap, links to programs supporting SAF. It will also include a repository for SAF Grand Challenge information, such as the MOU, fact sheets, announcements of events, and funding opportunities, in addition to progress reports.
Sara Leonard
All right. Thanks, Sheila. And we have time to answer a few questions from the audience, so I will proceed to ask a couple of those. And then, whoever from our presenters' panel wants to answer, they can just unmute themselves.
So, the first one: "Many of the organisms that produce the fuels of interest do so at low-titers. What is being done currently to increase those and to decrease the energy required to separate the fuel from the fermentation broth or aqueous phase?"
Dr. Ian Rowe
Yeah, I can take a swing, Sara. Thanks. Good question. And yeah, it's one of the things that plagues many biochemical conversions, the fact that many organisms that are engineered to produce products produce them at very low titer and the cost to separate them is too high. We have a lot of R&D on improving the microbial organisms at both the Bioenergy Technologies Office, the Office of Science here at DOE, as well as some – there's work at USDA and other agencies on doing the correct microbial engineering to improve those titers.
In addition, there's a lot of work going on in – here in the Bioenergy Technologies Office, in the Office of Science, our colleagues in the Advanced Manufacturing Office, and across other bodies of the federal government to look at the other end, the separations end. How would you then take a dilute product out of that broth and get it into a concentration that you can actually use and affordably recover it?
So, good question. It's something that we address and we have consortia dedicated to both of those very things.
Sara Leonard
Great. Thanks. Okay. Next question: "How does your program link to current international efforts – excuse me – how does your program link to current international efforts to mitigate climate change?"
Zia Haq
I can start on that. And certainly others, chime in.
I'll just say that there is a lot of interest internationally on SAF and on the roadmap. So, we've had several meetings with folks in Europe and elsewhere that have – and in Brazil and India that have expressed significant interest in this topic. We are working very closely with our colleagues in FAA and State Department and other agencies to address those questions.
I think that everybody is recognizing internationally that the aviation sector as well as other sectors such as marine and heavy-duty road transport are very difficult to reduce emissions in. And so, from the emissions reduction point of view, electrification is a very long-term option for those sectors. And so, really, they have to rely on some sort of a liquid high-energy density fuel for the foreseeable future.
And so, yes, there is a huge amount of international interest and probably opportunities, I would say, for collaboration with international organizations in terms of funding and developing new technologies, as well as in terms of demonstration of new technologies, both in the US and elsewhere. I think that's probably a good place to start. Valerie or others, do you want to add anything to that?
Dr. Valerie Sarisky-Reed
Well, I'll go ahead and jump in.
I think it was two weeks ago I was in the UK on a panel with EU and UK, SAF policy people discussing the differences between the entities and their policies. And of course, what was very noticeable was we all agree: SAF, sustainable aviation fuel is an absolutely necessary solution to the problem. Each entity, whether they were the EU, UK, or US, we all are going about it with the resources that we have, the best resources. So, in the US a lot of that is based on biomass, but in the EU they're very interested in, for example, power-to-liquids. So, regardless of where these fuels are going to come from, it is agreed that they're going to be absolutely necessary.
Now, EU and UK use a process in terms of growing the market. And in the US, as you saw in our presentation, we're using incentives through tax credits. So, there are a lot of things that we can do together that will help booster the overall global market because aviation is a global market. And you don't generally think of it like you do gasoline that's going to be used in the – produced and used in the US. This is something that's going to be needed on both sides of the pond, if you will, to make sure the flights that are coming and going are all sustainable.
So, there is a lot of reason for us to collaborate. A lot of our partners are looking at siting facilities in Europe because there is a demand for these technologies. And so, it is very fully integrated.
Sara Leonard
Great. Next question: "Have you looked into lowering production costs by coproducing other products and applying thermal management processes to utilize processed heat at every temperature level, thus minimizing waste heat?"
Dr. Ian Rowe
So, good question, especially on the thermal heat side. Yeah, a lot of what we do in the conversion technologies area is figuring out ways to do process integration at the sub-pilot-to-pilot-scale. And then, I feel like the appropriate handoff is to our scaleup partners then, either on the commercial side or our scaleup partners within the federal government, that then can fund pilot and beyond type work. So, that's the thermal management side. I don't know if you had anything to add, Zia?
Zia Haq
No, I think that's great. Mark, did you want to have anything to add? And then I'll just close it off and go to the next question.
Dr. Mark Shmorhun
I think that typically our plants that are designing pilot- or demonstration-scale facilities are using good engineering design principles and doing heat recovery and thermal integration wherever possible. We chase BTUs. And it may not be essential at demonstration-scale. These plants typically aren't profitable anyway. But you need to have that basis going into the commercial-scale facility.
Zia Haq
Yeah, thank you, Mark. So, I'll just add to that – I fully agree with Ian and Mark. I'll just add that in a lot of these processes there will be a combination of products, right? So, there will be a jet cut, there will be a renewable diesel cut, and a NAFTA cut. So, I think that by the nature of some of these conversion technologies there will have to be some way to utilize these other products. And I think, as you saw in the Inflation Reduction Act, that's not going to be a problem because there are incentives for the renewable diesel portion in addition to the jet portion beyond 2024.
So, we think that the option that people will deal with in terms of the mix of products could change based on the policies that are available there, but there's no question that people will try to maximize their profits based on what is available and will produce a variety of fuels in each process and coproducts. So, I think we'll end there, Sara. Go ahead. Next question.
Sara Leonard
Thanks. And Erik, if you want to just go to the next slide, I know that we had some questions about where to contact us with additional questions and comments. I just want to make sure that goes up since we're a bit over time. But I do want to ask just one final question here for our panelists. "Are you planning to announce more funding opportunities for laboratory-scale experiments?"
Dr. Valerie Sarisky-Reed
Well, I'll be happy to say that we have a strategy that covers both research and development as well as the demonstration projects that you heard about. And as long as our appropriations are able, we try to do a funding opportunity every year, recently releasing one in our renewable carbon area, which is the resource, the feedstock arena. And we do have intentions of coming out with additional conversion calls, proposals.
So, I would say yes. Please do keep your eyes open and know that we try to do this annually.
Sara Leonard
Thank you. So, again, now that we're about five minutes over I don't want to take up too much more of everyone's time. So, if you do have additional questions or we did not get to your question today, please feel free to e-mail us at eere_bioenergy@ee.doe.gov.
And I think that's it. Erik, anything else to add before we close out today?
Erik Ringle
That's it. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Have a great rest of your day.
[End of Presentation]