Compared with fossil fuels, sustainable aviation fuel dramatically reduces climate-impacting CO₂ emissions over their lifecycle. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), such as biofuel, is a jet fuel based on oil crops or biomass, including camelina, jathropha, algae, animal oils, fats and various types of coal-based sources such as waste from industry, households, agriculture, forestry and paper mills.
What kind of SAF does SAS use?
SAS uses Hydrotreated Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA) biofuel. This is a renewable diesel fuel that can be produced from a wide array of vegetable oils and fats. SAS has strict criteria when it comes to SAF. Such as produced by raw materials that require as a small land area as possible and which does not affect the general availability of crops used in food production. SAS do not accept waste from palm oil production as a raw material.
Can SAF replace fossil jet fuel?
Certified SAF for use in commercial aviation are regulated under extremely rigid specifications. Using SAF dramatically reduces CO₂ emissions without needing to make significant changes to fuel supply systems or engines. The chemical and physical characteristics of SAF are identical to fossil jet fuel, which means the two can be mixed safely. At present, according to regulations for commercial aviation, SAF must be blended with fossil jet fuel with a maximum of 50 percent. At the moment, SAF is fueled at Stockholm and Oslo airports.
What's next?
There is limited access to SAF today. However, major investments in the development of SAF are made to assure that the production is expanding significantly. E.g. the collaboration between SAS and Swedish energy company Preem, add to that the joint development of synthetic SAF with SAS, Vattenfall, Shell and Lanzatech. In Denmark, SAS is a partner in the project Green Fuels for Denmark, headed by Ørsted. The project aims to produce electrofuel for aviation using wind power.
