French entrepreneur uses plant sugar for sustainable aviation fuel

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is aviation fuel made from renewable resources such as recycled cooking oil. Nearly 500,000 flights have used this fuel mixed with regular petroleum-based kerosene. Almost all of it was done in Europe.

Now the French say they have produced a second generation of this fuel made from plant sugars.

Global Bioenergies co-founder and CEO Marc Delcourt stood near a small unit adjacent to a beet sugar factory. “This is the unit we built this year,” he said.

The facility uses bacteria to turn sugar into hydrocarbons, or fuel.

In the Champagne region of France, sugar beets are grown as well as grapes. many of them. Napoleon ordered the mass cultivation of sugar beets when the British naval blockade cut off sugar supplies from the Caribbean. Nearly 200 years later, France is still Europe’s largest sugar beet producer.

“Whatever it is, there’s a process that transforms the sugar. It can be sugar from sugar beets, sugar cane, starch, sugar from corn or wheat, or even from agricultural leftovers,” Delcort said. Agricultural leftovers such as straw and forestry leftovers such as lumber chips.

As plants grow, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping limit the effects of climate change, Delcourt explained. But will this new fuel made from plants help?

Now, a plane with only tanks of this new aviation fuel made a test flight from Germany to France and arrived safely.

The market opportunity is significant, according to John Plaza, CEO of the US division of SkyNRG, a Dutch company moving to SAF production.

“We anticipate huge demand with both policies. [European Union] and the United States, and the goal of the aviation industry [carbon] We will be net zero by 2050,” said Plaza.

Global Bioenergys said it plans to build a factory to produce 30,000 tons of aviation fuel from wood waste in 2027.