NEW YORK: Tech firm Honeywell International Inc is rolling out technology that could increase supplies of lower-carbon aviation fuel produced from ethanol.
This comes as the Biden administration calls for the aviation industry to reduce emissions.
Honeywell’s technology can increase production efficiency of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to lower costs. The airline sector is considered one of the most difficult to decarbonise as fuel cannot be easily replaced with other kinds of power.
Oil refiners have been trying to increase production of SAF to try to lower emissions.
“As demand for SAF has increased, we’ve been looking at different ways to make more SAF economically that people can adopt and adopt at large-scale and produce to displace significant fractions of the jet and diesel pools,” Kevin O’Neil, senior business leader for renewable fuels at Honeywell UOP, said.
The company says, depending on the type of ethanol feedstock used, that its technology can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% on a total lifecycle basis, compared with petroleum-based jet fuel. Ethanol is primarily made from corn in the United States.
SAF plants using Honeywell’s technology can be modularised offsite, enabling lower costs and faster and less labour-intensive installation, the company said in a statement.
Through this approach, producers can build new SAF capacity more than a year faster than traditional construction, Honeywell said. — Reuters
