Aviation, which accounts for 3 per cent of CO2 emissions, is considered a hard-to-abate sector due to a lack of technologically mature alternatives to jet-fuelled engines. With electric and hydrogen aircraft still relatively limited, short- and medium-term decarbonisation efforts are focused on efficiency measures and lowering the carbon emissions of jet fuel by mixing conventional fuel with SAF. A 50:50 mix can generally be used without changing aircraft engines.
Shell plans to produce SAF at scale by 2025, in order to give airlines an opportunity to reduce their CO2 emissions this decade. It hopes to boost global output of SAF tenfold to reach two million tonnes by 2025.
Shell does not yet supply its own SAF, sourcing it from others such as Finland-based refiner Neste.
Shell said that SAF, produced from waste cooking oil, plants, and animal fats, could cut up to 80 per cent of aviation emissions. It said that it hopes SAF could make up 10 per cent...