China ramps up use of UCO as biofuel for airplanes

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional jet fuel and fits into the country’s green strategy. Planes in China are already flying on SAF: 12 flights from four airports have joined the first phase of the program. The second phase will begin next year, involving more airlines and increasing the number of flights.

Yao Junchen, vice president of the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that “clean aviation fuel can be blended with traditional fossil fuels without requiring any changes to the design of airplanes or engines. This makes it the best choice for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which is why the whole world is focusing on this area. We believe that this industry has enormous potential and we are determined to play a significant role in its development. We are advocating the creation of an international green aviation organization to lead the overall effort to reduce emissions in the aviation industry.”

For now, however, biofuels are still an expensive solution: their price is 3-5 times higher than the cost of traditional petroleum-based aviation fuel due to insufficient scale of production. But the trends for spreading the introduction of biofuels in aviation are obvious – in the European Union from next year environmentally friendly jet fuel will account for 2% of the total consumption, but it is planned to grow.

Today the production capacity of fuel from waste oil in China is about 350 thousand tons per year. There are plans to increase this figure tenfold in the coming years. In August, a policy goal was unveiled to bring the share of clean aviation fuel in the SAF blend within 2% by 2025 and increase it to 15% by 2030. To meet the 2% SAF mandate, China will need 2.5 million tons of SAF, which requires more than 3 million tons of UCO as feedstock.

Tags: China