Page 132 - CW E-Magazine (25-6-2024)

Point of View

of ethanol where a robust supply chain has been put in place), it has the feedstock resource base to rapidly scale SAF production.
But goading customers to shift to this higher cost alternative will require the policy support of government.

Feedstock availability
According to a study by McKinsey for the World Economic Forum (Deploying Sustainable Aviation Fuels at Scale in India, 2021),
four SAF feedstocks and production pathways are feasible in India:
 Hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), mostly from used cooking oil (UCO);
 Alcohol-to-jet (AtJ) using agricultural residues and surplus sugar streams such as cane molasses and syrup;
 Gasification/Fischer-Tropsch, using municipal solid waste (MSW) and agricultural residues; and
 PtL based on hydrogen technology and access to point sources of carbon in the chemical, steel and cement industries.

India is one the world’s largest consumers of edible oil (with annual consumption of ~25-mt annually), indicating that UCO has
significant potential as a feedstock even though it is commonly reused. Practical UCO collection – between 2-5 mt – is possible only
from large industrial users and poses challenges some of which can be overcome by harnessing digital tools for traceability. This route
can potentially enable production of about 2-mt of SAF from nine plants.

The existing infrastructure of sugar mills and ethanol plants can also be employed to produce isobutanol (IBA), an intermediate for
producing SAF. AtJ based on sugar streams could yield an annual SAF output of 1.5-mt. Combined, agricultural residues and MSW
could supply 11-mt of SAF per year. PtL is a particularly promising SAF production pathway that can benefit from India’s competitive
renewable electricity supply.

According to McKinsey’s analysis, using a combination of these technologies and feedstock, India could potentially produce up to
24-mt of SAF annually – far above the targeted amount of 360-kt.

On the technology front, there is fair capability, though the technologies have not been tested at scale. CSIR-Indian Institute of
Petroleum, a constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is India’s first deployer of indigenous
aviation biofuel technology in both civilian and military flights within the country.

Societal benefits
The benefits of wider adoption of SAF span guaranteed additional incomes for farmers and enhanced energy security, besides
environmental benefits in the form of catalysing improved waste management, and reduced air pollution (by providing an incentive to
avoid stubble burning).

McKinsey estimates the overall GDP impact in an Indian context to be around $2.8-bn annually, including a 10-15% increase in farmer
incomes from sale of agricultural residues. The shift could also create ~120,000 new green jobs across production plants, collection
systems and the related supply chains. Significant health benefits will come from reduced air pollution. Producing 360-kt of SAF could lead
to mitigation of 0.6-mt of CO emissions, which aligns with the government’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
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Producing SAF domestically will also add to the volume of jet fuel in the Indian market, displacing an equivalent volume of production
from imported oil, and enabling exports that could be of a value of about $220-mn annually.

SAF will be crucial
In 2009, the aviation industry committed through the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) to a reduction pathway to 50% of 2005
emissions by 2050. In 2020, ATAG reiterated that commitment and described a pathway towards achieving that goal. Traditional
approaches to curb aviation emissions, such as fleet renewal, efficiency improvement or intermodal integration, will not be sufficient
by themselves to reach the ATAG long-term 2050 CO reduction target at a national or international level. Fully zero-carbon solutions
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relying on renewable electricity sources, such as battery electric and green hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft, may not come to
market at scale before 2030 – or, more likely, decades later.

SAF will hence be crucial in enabling the aviation industry meet its emissions targets by 2050.
Ravi Raghavan

132 Chemical Weekly June 25, 2024

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