The quest for no-carbon aviation

What will it take to drive down carbon emissions when flying from Aspen?

No doubt about it: Jet travel in and out of Aspen-Pitkin County Airport is the most glaring Achilles heel of the Aspen’s community effort to become a leader in emissions reduction. The local economy — not to mention local lifestyles — absolutely depend upon the easy air travel.

But can sustainable aviation fuel be developed that will substantially lower these emissions?

The Aspen Times reports that the Pitkin county commissioners this summer heard from Jennifer Holmgren about this potential alternative path. She’s the chief executive of LanzaTech, a publicly-traded biotech company that specializes in greenhouse gas-recycling technology. That includes developing fuel for airplanes that is derived from municipal landfills, agriculture waste and other sources. It does not draw directly from fossil fuels.

Buoyed by a $50 million investment from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, LanzaJet — a subsidiary of LanzaTech —expects to complete an alcohol-to-jet-fuel production facility in Georgia later in 2023. The goal for this 10-story biorefinery is production of 10 million gallons per year of what is called sustainable aviation fuel, now reduced to an acronym: SAF, as well as renewable diesel fuel.

This is after more than a decade of partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Lab.

The company also won a 2021 award from the Keeling Curve Prize. This is a creation of the Global Warming Mitigation Project, which the Aspen Times points out is funded by Jacquelyn Francis, who also is on the advisory board for the Aspen airport.

What did the LanzaTech CEO — who also has a doctorate in chemistry — want from Pitkin County?

“It’s about how do we get the incentives in place to build that capacity and get the technology down the cost curve, so that eventually it can stand on its own,” Holmgren told the commissioners.

LanzaTech has partnered with Marquis Sustainable Aviation Fuel on an ambition to build a plant southwest of Chicago with pipelines delivering fuel to that city’s Midway and O’Hare airports. That plant would employ carbon capture and sequestration technology. See story in GreenAir.

Holmgren, according to the Times account, also talked about how the Suncor refinery in Commerce City, which can manufacture jet fuel, could be a potential location for a sustainable aviation fuel. She stressed that partnership with regional airports to demonstrate demand would be necessary.

So how does Aspen help create demand for this new product? She described something called SAF certificates, also called book and claims. The Rocky Mountain Institute characterizes book and claims as turning the emissions benefits of using low-emissions fuels and materials into certificates that corporations can buy, transparently and credibly. This in turn allows scaling up of low-emissions fuel production.

Josie Taris, the Times reporter, dug deeper, asking what it would take for the local fuel supplier. The county manager, Jonathan Jones, said Atlantic Aviation, the fixed-base operator, is already committed to promoting sustainable aviation fuels. They offer it to every aircraft that fuels at about a 30-70 blend, the industry standard. That fuel arrives in Aspen via truck from California.

That might be an incremental step forward, but it’s not going nearly far enough.

Why support Big Pivots?

You need and value solid climate change reporting, and also the energy & water transitions in Colorado. Because you know that strong research underlies solid journalism, and research times take.

Plus, you want to help small media, and Big Pivots is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Big grants would be great, but they’re rare for small media. To survive, Big Pivots needs your support. Think about how big pivots occur. They start at the grassroots. That’s why you should support Big Pivots. Because Big Pivots has influence in Colorado, and Colorado matters in the national conversation.