Sustainable air fuel can play a big role in reducing the carbon emissions for the Indian aviation industry, but its production at scale is marred with challenges of production and policy
Two Swiss pilots Robin Wenger and Matthias Niederhauser are flying around the world to create a discourse around green aviation, particularly sustainable air fuel (SAF). On January 25, the duo landed their aircraft, Diamond DA50 RG, at Noida Greenfield International Airport to inaugurate Aerodrome Reference Point (ARP). The airport, which is under construction in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh, is being touted as India’s first net-zero emission airport.
At COP26 in Glasgow held in 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had committed to achieving net-zero emissions for India by 2070. Even the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which was adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 2016, will become mandatory by 2027. All airlines and aircraft operators will have to offset any growth in CO2 emissions above 2020 levels. Sustainable air fuel will indeed play a key role in meeting this target. As compared to normal jet fuel used in aircraft, green aviation fuels can reduce carbon emissions by up to 80 per cent.
Sustainable Aviation
The aviation sector in India has taken some steps in this direction. Last year IndiGo signed an agreement with the CSIR-IIP in leading the deployment of sustainable aviation fuel in India and globally. The CSIR-IIP, Dehradun, is one of the leading agencies engaged in the research and production of sustainable air fuel in the country. The Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) is a major constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR).
The airlines had stated in a press release, “Under this partnership, IndiGo and CSIR-IIP will enter into specific arrangements for projects for SAF based on techno-commercial feasibility and Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) value creation.” It added that it “desires to be an anchor partner to such Institutes and oil refining companies in the future to address the core issue of carbon emissions and take a lead in demonstrating its commitment towards sustainable and responsible growth”.
Sustainable air fuel produced by CSIR-IIP technology has now been formally approved and certified for use on the Indian Air Force aircraft. In the commercial space, SpiceJet operated India’s first flight powered by biofuel in 2018.
While Sustainable air fuel holds out the promise of a greener planet, its production and cost remain sore points. Vinamra Longani, head of operations, Sarin & Co, a law firm specialising in aircraft leasing and finance reasons, “SAF has the potential to provide a lifecycle carbon reduction of up to 80 per cent compared to the traditional jet fuel it replaces. While it is, without doubt, the most feasible option to decarbonise the aviation industry, it is significantly more expensive than aviation turbine fuel. Until the Government of India incentivises the production, distribution, and use of SAF in India, its large scale use by Indian airlines may not become a reality anytime soon.”
In December 2021, civil aviation minister V.K. Singh, while responding to a question in Parliament, had revealed that carbon dioxide (Co2) emissions by Indian scheduled domestic flights rose to 12,307,000 tonnes during 2018 from 6,135,000 tonnes in 2012. Of course, the numbers declined during the pandemic and will swell again post-pandemic.
Global Coalitions
Given India’s persistence with sustainable air fuel, things can change for the better. According to World Economic Forum’s “Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition Report 2021”, “India is particularly well-positioned to have a significant impact in the area. Of more than 80 private- and public-sector organizations that make up the Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition, around 20 are from India.”
The Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition is an initiative to facilitate the reduction of carbon emissions in the aviation sector. The report stated that India not only is projected to go from its current position as the world’s eighth-largest aviation market to third place by 2025, it also generates abundant amounts of agricultural residues—farming byproducts, such as husks and chaff, used cooking oil, and other solid waste—which is used to produce sustainable air fuel.
The International Air Transport Association, the trade association of airlines across the globe, has opined, “Biofuels can be used directly in existing aircraft, which are designed to run on 50 per cent blends of kerosene. They have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 per cent compared to kerosene over their entire life cycle but SAF accounts for less than 0.1 per cent of aviation fuel being used currently.”
Inadequate Production Infrastructure
In India, the availability of feedstock is not a problem. According to Saleem Akhtar Faroouqi, a scientist working on research and development of sustainable air fuel at the IIP, establishing the supply chain of non-edible oils poses the real challenge. “Indian jet fuel consumption is approximately 20,000 tonnes per month. With a 10 per cent blending of SAF with 90 per cent Jet A1 (a commonly used fuel in commercial aviation), the demand for SAF would be approximately 2,000 tonnes per month,” he said.
Faroouqi feels that it will be hard to meet that kind of demand if the current situation persists. “Right from cultivation, aggregation, transportation, manufacturing in plants and then blending it with jet fuel, everything needs to be streamlined. We also do not have any plants that make SAF,” he said.
The CSIR-IIP has a pilot plant in Dehradun where it produces 30 liters of sustainable air fuel, which is approved by the American Society for Testing and Materials, per day primarily for the Indian Air Force for continuous flight tests. The maiden biofuel flight in the country by SpiceJet was also fuelled by the CSIR-IIP production facility. To date, the pilot plant has produced approximately 9,500 liters of sustainable fuel from non-edible oils or waste from the edible oil industry, such as palm stearin, palm fatty acid distillates, used cooking oil, jatropha, karanja and algae oil.
The CSIR-IIP also procures its feed from Chhattisgarh Biofuel Development Authority and other sources like Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s repurpose used cooking oil. The IIP is now collaborating with an Indian refinery, and an Indian engineering company to set up a new sustainable air fuel plant.
“It can encourage others to set up SAF plants, but the government would need to do a bit of hand-holding,” Farooqui adds.