HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — United Airlines is leading the charge in efforts to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere through Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF, an eco-friendly jet fuel alternative made from waste, a concept that has just begun to take flight, according to an airline official.
Turning waste or “feedstock” into fuel as an industry is still “in its infancy,” said Christine Landmeier, director of environmental sustainability operations in the environmental affairs department at United.
Responsible for overseeing environmental sustainability and compliance at the airline, Landmeier was a featured speaker Friday at the University of Guam 2023 Conference on Island Sustainability.Landmeier told participants that United is the only airline globally to commit to net-zero goals without offsets, and explained the airline’s path to decarbonization by 2050.
“United has made a commitment to reduce our greenhouse gases by 100% by 2050, without the use of traditional carbon offsets, and some people in the room, including Dr. Austin Shelton, might be saying, ‘Well, you’re not going to use carbon offsets.’ We will in the near term, but for the long term we’re actually trying to focus on reducing our emissions without carbon offsets,” Landmeier told the audience.
Christine Landmeier, director of environmental sustainability at United Airlines, spoke Friday, April 14, 2023, at the University of Guam 2023 Conference on Island Sustainability at the Hyatt Regency Guam in Tumon.
The aviation industry is “carbon-intensive,” with the use of conventional jet fuel. The almost 4 billion gallons of conventional jet fuel burned by United makes up 98% of the airline’s greenhouse gas footprint, Landmeier said.
“That equates to 42 metric tons of (greenhouse gas) emissions annually. The other 2% are for things like commuting, or employee commuting. Our energy use – electricity, natural gas – are ground, support equipment and our fleets across the globe. It’s a lot of emissions,” Landmeier said.
United plans to get to net zero through the use of sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, a key part in its decarbonization strategy, she said.
LAX
United is the first airline to fly on SAF on an ongoing basis, according to Landmeier, who added that the airline flies daily in and out of Los Angeles International Airport fueled by SAF. In fact, she said, there are SAF flights available to Guam via the LAX route.
SAF has essentially the same chemical composition as conventional jet fuel, she said. The fuel, she added, produces up to 85% less greenhouse gas emissions based on its life cycle compared to conventional jet fuel, and aircraft and airport infrastructure don’t need to be modified to burn SAF.Landmeier said the aviation industry would need to rely on refineries to process waste or feedstock into SAF, and those refineries would need to be relatively close to the feedstocks for there to be maximum decarbonization.
“The goal is to have your feedstocks close to where you’re generating the waste,” she said. “So I can see a future where you’re going to have refineries around the world where you’re drawing waste in a radius around where that refinery is. But this industry is in its infancy, it’s just getting started.”
According to the airline executive, there may be just a few refineries in the world producing the sustainable fuel.
“And that’s why we are making these investments to get the industry off the ground give them the capital they need to be able to design and build these facilities, and eventually they’ll start scaling up production, start making money and start expanding on their own,” Landmeier told The Guam Daily Post.
“The other is proximity to where you are using it, because if you have to transport it a long way from refining it to where you’re using it, that actually erodes the greenhouse gas emission reductions, because you have to account for the emissions it took to get it to where you are using it,” she continued.
That’s why United is currently using SAF only on flights in and out of the California hub.
“That refinery is near our LAX operations, so there isn’t a lot of transport for the fuel; that’s why we use it out of that location. But that there is an example, they took an existing refinery and retrofitted it. So you can think, ‘The world has sources of petroleum – how do we then build new refineries or convert existing refineries to be able to use renewable feedstocks instead of oil,’” she said.After Landmeier’s presentation at the CIS conference, the Post asked whether SAF could be an industry Guam can capture, and whether United has begun conversations to explore the industry’s potential with local leaders.
“Not yet in Guam. Right now we’ve been focusing on a couple of locations in the United States because it’s an industry in its infancy. But, as this industry grows, we are going to need to have refineries in locations all across the globe. We’re going to want feedstocks that are near those locations, so the transport of that material doesn’t burn more carbon and hurt the life cycle basis of your sustainable aviation fuel,” Landmeier told the Post.
Currently, Guam does not have a refinery, but does have a lot of trash. According to Landmeier, the island has options that can be explored in the SAF industry.
“You have fuel here, so whoever is refining your fuel and transporting it to Guam, you could either build a new refinery or convert old refineries to be able to accept these feedstocks and start producing sustainable aviation fuel. Why do we know that? The fuel we’re getting in LA was once a traditional refinery for oil-based petroleum. It’s now being converted to use renewable feedstock and create sustainable aviation fuel,” she said.
Not having a refinery on island doesn’t prevent Guam from accessing the possibilities of flying green, she said.
“If you’re unable to do that here on Guam, why can’t you do it in places where you are currently getting your fuel? So, in a minimum, there is a refinery in the region, fuel is being imported, so in places where you can’t for other reasons – like space restraints, ecological constraints, what have you – you can still do it in places in which you are getting fuel. Granted the transportation may lessen the greenhouse reduction in gases, but that is why we are also investing in direct carbon capture and sequestration. Even sustainable aviation fuel doesn’t get you to zero. It can get up to 85% reductions, so we have to have other solutions to then draw down carbon to be able to say we are carbon neutral or net zero, we met our 100% reduction targets,” Landmeier said.
‘There’s not enough of it’
Making the switch from conventional jet fuel to SAF isn’t important only to United Airlines, Landmeier said, it’s also key to the aviation industry as a whole, and she confirmed other airlines are on board with SAF.
“It’s so essential to us in being able to decarbonize, not just United but the entire aviation sector. We are looking at this more broadly than United Airlines; we want travel to be sustainable,” she said. “The big ones (airlines) absolutely, both international and domestic airlines are committed because they all have their own 2050 goals or sooner targets. They need to decarbonize and sustainable aviation fuel, we mutually agree, that is a very good way, one of the more effective ways to be able to decarbonize the aviation industry.”
In 2016, United started using the sustainable fuel at LAX on a daily basis, she said, but right now there isn’t enough SAF to fuel the entire industry.
“Right now there’s not enough of it. The refinery can only produce as much as it can and the other, it fights with renewable diesel. So it produces, because when you’re in a refinery, you actually – as you’re going through the refinery process, you are going to have jet fuel come out, some diesel fuel comes out, and diesel is also competitively priced and they want to fulfill the diesel market. So we need to make sure there’s enough refining capability that they’re not only producing renewable diesel. We need renewable jet fuel as well,” she said.
That’s why United aims to have renewable fuel producers across the globe, Landmeier said, to eliminate the need to barge or transport the fuel a very long distance.
“That is why we are investing in sustainable aviation fuel and other innovative technology, to decarb and scale it up because it’s supply and demand, no different from oil. And if we can get quantities to scale up and refining abilities to scale up, when the volumes increase prices will drop. What’s nice about it is if you have a feedstock or agricultural waste, things that are renewable, you have actually less spikes in the costs of feedstocks, unlike oil, which is not renewable and is not an indefinite supply,” she said.
