David Keat, who has an engineering background and has worked as a senior executive at Marsden Point, as well as formerly working as the CEO of an oil refinery in Malaysia, says it is highly unlikely that the research will deliver anything in terms of decarbonising aviation.

“It’s just greenwashing. It’s clearly an example of the airlines and the government needing to be seen to do something.

Last month, the government announced it was putting $765,000 towards two feasibility studies into local production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with Air New Zealand.

Tourism minister Peeni Henare said local production of SAF would be “game-changing” to decarbonise aviation, which creates about 60% of tourism’s carbon emissions in Aotearoa.

“Sustainable aviation fuel currently represents the most viable option for reducing carbon emissions from aviation. Investment in low-carbon technologies is a key action under the draft action plan and these studies could get us one step closer to a net-zero carbon tourism sector.”

Fulcrum BioEnergy, in partnership with Air BP, would deliver one study to investigate the use of non recyclables and other items that go into landfill as a feedstock.

LanzaTech and LanzaJet, in partnership with Z Energy, would produce the other study investigating the use of forestry residues as the feedstock and considering landfill waste as a supplementary feedstock.

Limited global supplies

Kiri Hannifin, Air New Zealand chief sustainability officer, said that sustainable aviation fuel was in very high demand globally but supplies were limited. “Commercially producing it locally would not only help lower the country’s emissions and create jobs, but also provide fuel security in New Zealand.”

However, industry expert Keat says that there are insurmountable reasons that supplies are limited, and likely to stay that way. “Fundamentally, the supplies of genuinely sustainable aviation fuel are a tiny fraction of the world’s aviation needs."

“The basic problem with biofuels is that they are made from plant material that almost always has an alternative use as food - if not for humans, then for animals”, Keat says. “And on top of that you get the deforestation and CO2 emission impacts. The only genuinely sustainable source is waste cooking oil, which is obviously available in very limited volumes.”

The government should be well aware of this, as it dropped its proposed biofuels mandate at the start of this year after industry pushback, as well as concerns from environmentalists that it would have the unintended effect of increasing emissions through tropical deforestation triggered by extra demand for arable land.

The government is instead looking at wood as a feedstock for one of these feasibility studies. However Keat says wood isn’t a viable feedstock. “One problem is the amount of CO2 you need to emit to convert it to fuel. You can easily end up emitting more CO2 than you’re saving.”

But the key problem with wood, and the reason nobody uses it to make biofuel, Keat says, is because it’s incredibly difficult to process.

“Despite the huge number of pine forests all over the world, nobody is doing it. And the reason is, unlike soft plants, wood doesn’t easily break down in nature or for biofuels. So the conversion is very difficult and it’s completely uneconomic. Several steps are still at the research and development stage, so any contribution to climate change would be years or decades away.

Above: Former senior oil executive David Keat.

Oil refinery needed

To make viable aviation fuel from wood requires multiple process steps followed by treatment in an oil refinery, Keat says. But New Zealand’s only commercial scale oil refinery, at Marsden Point, closed and became an import-only terminal in April last year.

“Even if we still had an oil refinery, the overall CO2 emissions would not be significantly less than from fossil jet fuel. The premise of biofuel is that you can continue with business as usual. But at best it’s a percentage drop-in or a dilution of overall fuel consumption. You’re still emitting 90% of the emissions that you were before.”

Keat says the only thing that will currently reduce aviation emissions is reducing flight miles. But airlines are instead making plans for expansion.

“Air New Zealand is based on a profit-driven business model which is almost entirely a function of ‘bottoms on seats’. They’re just trying to sell miles. But there is increasing public awareness that it isn’t good.”

Climate response delay is an increasingly common form of greenwashing, which includes publicising climate “solutions” that are not actually solutions.

Shortly after announcing the biofuels research, Air New Zealand announced its bookings were up, with 45,000 more domestic seats than last year’s July school holidays and more than half a million seats in total for those two weeks. The airline also announced new direct-to-China flights would add 7000 more seats each month, and that it was putting on an extra 2000 seats for Taylor Swift fans to get to concerts in Australia.

Keat says that, from a marketing point of view, airlines and the government “have to be seen to be doing something.”

“Internationally, many airlines have sourced some biofuel and put it in a plane for a trial and have publicised it widely. But of course, you never hear anything about it again.”

Kiri Hannifin, Air New Zealand chief sustainability officer, rejected the greenwashing accusation. In a statement emailed to Carbon News she said that SAF is “a globally endorsed emissions reduction lever for aviation and part of our and many other airlines’ decarbonisation strategies.”

She said the feasibility studies would potentially enable domestic SAF production before 2030.

“The studies will consider the environmental, social and economic impacts of SAF production in New Zealand using two particular feedstocks. We would not continue down this path if there was a materially adverse impact to the environment.”

Hannifin said that SAF is “only one lever” Air NZ is using to decarbonise. “We are one of eight airlines in the world to have a science-based target and are advancing the work globally on green hydrogen, battery electric or hybrid aircraft.”

She admitted that decarbonising aviation is not an easy task. “Air New Zealand is taking action ourselves but we also need the support of a broad range of stakeholders.“

Above: Kiri Hannifin, Air New Zealand chief sustainability officer.

Biofuel plans canned

New Zealand has plenty of recent history with failed forays into biofuel.

Z Energy’s Wiri biofuel production facility has been mothballed for several years, while a proposal to make biofuel at the defunct Marsden Point oil refinery was canned last year.

In January, Lyttelton Port Company abandoned their plans for biodiesel. After eight months of in-house feasibility work, the Christchurch City Council-owned port concluded there was just not enough biodiesel available to make the switch.

Feedstock challenges

Robert McLachlan, School of Mathematics and Computational Sciences, Massey University, was one of the authors of a recent paper on New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.

McLachlan welcomed the government's ambition to decarbonise tourism and to take the first steps towards the domestic production of SAF. “Air New Zealand has set ambitious emission reduction targets so it is good to see that they are investing in this project alongside the government.”

He says that using some of New Zealand’s abundant supply of wood as a feedstock in the LanzaTech study avoids some of the pitfalls of existing biofuels, such as those made from human food such as corn and grain.

However, as with any new technology, there are significant risks and costs. “An initial study for New Zealand estimates that a $520 million plant could produce 57 million litres of fuel from wood per year, 0.7% of New Zealand’s liquid fuel consumption,” McLachlan says.

With a tiny output and a hefty price tag, there are huge questions around SAF as a means to decarbonise.

“As well as looking to sustainable fuels, New Zealand should ensure that the total volume of aviation does not grow so as to defeat any possible emissions reductions, and examine existing subsidies to the industry, such as international aviation's exclusion from the Emissions Trading Scheme and its GST exemption,” McLachlan says.

Subsidies to toxic industries, such as international aviation avoiding carbon taxes because it is not included in the ETS, are causing environmental havoc and costing $11 trillion globally, according to the World Bank.

The Climate Change Commission is currently reviewing whether New Zealand’s 2050 emissions reduction target should be amended to include emissions from international shipping and aviation.

Above: Flightradar24 reported the busiest day for commercial aviation that they had ever tracked last week, with 134,386 commercial flights on 6 July.

Environmental risks

McLachlan says there are environmental risks around the government’s SAF feasibility study with Fulcrum BioEnergy. “Their technology is based on converting municipal waste to fuel. A similar plant was proposed for Feilding in Manawatū, prompting a raft of concerns, including toxic waste and plastic - made from fossil fuels - in the feedstock.”

The Feilding company, Bioplant NZ, withdrew its application for resource consent on 8 June after four independent experts recommended consent be declined.

Dorte Wray, general manager of the Zero Waste Network, says that the waste-to-energy technology that the government is funding has already been discredited.

“It is shocking and unacceptable that the Minister of Tourism Peeni Henare has given $765,000 to private companies to study failed waste-to-energy technology for so-called sustainable aviation fuel.”

Wray points out that waste-to-energy using mixed solid waste and plastic feedstocks can create CO2 emissions as well as toxic pollutants. “They are not sustainable and certainly are not a solution to climate change.”

Wray says that, if Henare and Air NZ had looked at what is already happening on the ground in terms of these proposals, they would know that they are not credible. “They are greenwashing schemes to cash in on climate change. They will make waste and climate change worse - not better.”

“The world is on course for catastrophic warming of three degree celsius. Tourism - like everything else - is going to be fundamentally changed in the next 20 years. We need to start taking drastic measures to reduce overall emissions, not throwing away money on false solutions.”

SAF just “one tiny part” of govt decarbonisation plans

Peeni Henare, minister of Tourism, told Carbon News that the research was “just one tiny part” of the government’s plan to tackle climate change. “This government is serious about doing everything we can to reduce emissions.”

He said that SAF is the only currently available technology to reduce emissions from medium and long-haul aviation. “While some say it is greenwashing, we are investing $765,000 in research to investigate the decarbonisation of the aviation industry and this Government will simply not stand by and do nothing.”

The government’s recently launched draft Tourism Environment Action Plan also considers other avenues for aviation emissions reduction, Henare said, “such as increasing aviation efficiency and making lower-emitting forms of inter-regional transport like bus and rail more available.”

He said that the feasibility studies would look at all aspects of a commercial scale SAF facility including costs, not all SAF production requires an oil refinery, and advice from officials was that the process would not create CO2.

A second stage of research would be needed for better certainty about the cost of construction, operation, and fuel per litre, and to help better understand the availability of feedstocks and sustainability implications.

“Progressing with two studies, rather than just one, will help to manage risks associated with new technology and the physical and commercial availability of the necessary feedstocks,” Henare said.

“This is only a first step to explore ways we as a country could be more responsible in reducing emissions.”

Govt invests in hydrogen for “eSAF”

On Wednesday, the government announced it was putting $575,000 towards a feasibility study into an “eSAF” factory with Marsden Point owner Channel Infrastructure and green hydrogen pioneer Fortescue Future Industries.

Simon Upton, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, has warned the government big investments in green hydrogen could potentially hinder New Zealand meeting climate targets, because the power-hungry electrolysers needed to make hydrogen would take renewable generation otherwise needed for decarbonisation. 

A report prepared for the commissioner last month said that Southern Green Hydrogen's 600 MW facility being part of the country’s energy mix would drive up the price of power for ordinary New Zealanders in the long-term, at a cost to society of upwards of $12 billion.

The proposed 300MW “eSAF” facility at Marsden Point requires half the energy but would still pose risks along the same lines.

Keat agrees that hydrogen for SAF would be a poor use of limited supplies of renewable electricity: “A very small climate mitigation bang chewing up a lot of electricity bucks.”

He says the technology is very complex, inefficient and extraordinarily expensive. “It would take many years to construct and commission at Marsden Point.

“I should know. In Borneo I operated one of the few plants in the world using the key parts of this technology and it took Shell 20 years to get it right and make a profit."