- You can see how light and
fluffy this material is. - [Narrator] Trash, sorted, shredded, and piled into heaps. But when United Airlines
looks at this garbage, it sees jet fuel, or more specifically, sustainable aviation fuel known as SAF, which many see as the key
to decarbonizing aviation. But there's a supply problem. Producers made about 15.8
million gallons of SAF last year in the US, major US airlines, used about 17.5 billion
gallons of jet fuel. - We don't have the solution commercially available at scale to really make a difference right now, but we do know what that solution is, and it's sustainable aviation fuel. - [Narrator] So airlines
and the government are now pumping money into
the low-carbon fuel sector, investing millions in projects
like SAF produce from trash to get this nascent
industry off the ground. But will it take off?
(jet roaring) The aviation industry alone accounted for more than 2%
of global emissions in 2021, and its share of the
pie is expected to grow. Unlike the auto industry, which is moving away from
fossil fuels to battery power, commercial jets still
need liquid fuel to fly. - If you look at our
greenhouse gas footprint as an airline, a commercial airline, 98% of the emissions that we create and put into the atmosphere, are from the use of fuel. - [Narrator] SAF is what's
called a drop-in solution because it can drop in in
place of petroleum fuel. It doesn't require new
infrastructure or even new planes. The SAF on the market today, can cut emissions by up to 80% compared to conventional jet fuel. In Sparks, Nevada, Fulcrum BioEnergy is working on a fuel
with a bigger promise. - We produce a fuel product that has zero net impact on carbon emissions. - [Narrator] It starts with trash, about 350,000 tons of it each year. After sorting out things
like rocks and metals, the leftover garbage is made into that confetti-like material. - There's paper, there's wrappings, there's plastic shredding. - [Narrator] It's the
feedstock for Fulcrum's fuel. - All of this material, what you're seeing in this warehouse here, will convert into about a
hundred thousand gallons of transportation fuel. - [Narrator] But getting from
this to fuel isn't simple. - Creating that feedstock is
the first part of the process. The next stage of the
process is what you see here, taking that feedstock with the white conveyors
going up to the top of this first gasification tower, beginning the process of transforming that feedstock into usable gases. It's a three-stage gasification process. What you're looking at
here is the first stage. - [Narrator] The process
creates carbon monoxide and hydrogen molecules, known as syngas, which is then cleaned and sent through this
Fischer-Tropsch System. - But here, those gases
are actually converted into a liquid transportation fuel that can be sold to refineries or ultimately, will be,
you know, modifying, and we're upgrading into jet fuel. - [Narrator] Fulcrum opened this facility, its first commercial-scale plant last year and it says it will
produce 11 million gallons of its synthetic crude oil
product here by next year. United, Cathay Pacific,
Japan Airlines, and others, have already signed offtake
agreements with Fulcrum that can see the company delivered 290 million
gallons of its fuel annually. - It really is all about supply. I mean, let's call it what it is. There's not a lack of
demand for low-carbon SAF. - [Narrator] Which is why
outside of Fulcrum's Nevada plant 25 SAF production refineries are now planned or open in the US alone. United is already pumping
a blend of jet fuel and SAF onto its flights here, out of Los Angeles, as well as San Francisco,
and Amsterdam Airports. In 2022, it used 3 million gallons of SAF. This year it expects,
that to hit 10 million, but United has a goal of
net zero emissions by 2050. - Overall, I need 4
billion gallons of fuel. So if we're talking about
10 million gallons of SAF, it is far less than 0.1%
of my total fuel supply, which is really where we get
to the crux of the issue. How do we generate more production? How do we create more supply so that it's not less
than 0.1% of my fuel? - [Narrator] Earlier this year, the airline launched a
more than $100 million fund to invest in startups looking for new ways to
produce SAF from feedstocks, including alcohol, forest
waste, and of course, trash. It even enlisted Oscar the Grouch to draw attention to the effort. - Trash like this could be used for good? - If SAF is gonna make
its way into the market on a more broad-based, a more commonly used approach, it's gonna have to be
new feedstock sources that unleash larger volumes. - [Narrator] The SAF being pumped today, relies on used cooking oil and
animal fats as its feedstock. - Vegetable oils, fats,
waste oils, greases, are also used for fuels for the on-road transportation sector. So the same feedstocks are used for biodiesel
and renewable diesel. So there's competition. - [Narrator] About 6 million
metric tons of used cooking oil and 27 million metric tons of animal fats are traded globally every year, which would cover only around
5% of jet fuel consumption. - There is not enough used cooking oil in the world to fuel
aviation, that is true. But when you start looking at the second-generation around trash, around residue from the
forest, from ethanol, we have 17 billion gallons
of ethanol in the US alone. There is plenty of feedstock there. It's a question of how
do you get the feedstock to the right production location so that you can actually create
sustainable aviation fuels with a low carbon footprint? - [Narrator] At least 30 airlines, have promised to use SAF, usually for 10% of their
fuel consumption by 2030, and the Biden Administration
has set a goal of scaling US SAF production to 3 billion gallons per year by then too. SAP global projections show the country won't quite hit that, but it will scale to more
than 2 billion gallons a year by the target date. - We certainly see the framework, and we'd certainly see the
corporate community taking steps in order to increase
domestic SAF production. And so even if mandates are not being met, progress is certainly being made. - [Narrator] Then,
there's the issue of cost. SAF is typically two to
four times more expensive than regular fuel. - Airlines have tight margins, and customers are always
looking for the best price, and it's uncertain how much
tolerance consumers have for increased prices by using biofuels. - [Narrator] The Inflation Reduction Act set aside about $300 million for low-emissions aviation technologies, plus $500 million for biofuels. It also established two
separate tax credits for SAF to help bring its cost per gallon closer to conventional fuel. - The IRA was a
game-changer, a game-changer. It actually puts sustainable
aviation fuels on the map. This was really a signal to
the market, to producers, that the government is
committed to building a market for sustainable aviation fuels, and it is backing this as the pathway to decarbonize aviation. - [Narrator] And while experts say more incentives are also needed, the industry is now flying
with some wind at its back. - SAF is having a moment, and that moment is gonna
continue for a very long time.
