Sustainable Aviation Fuel

United Airlines announced today that it has signed an offtake agreement with decarbonization-focused industrial biotech company Cemvita for up to 1 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from CO2.

Under the new agreement, Cemvita will provide United with up to 50 million gallons of the CO2-based SAF annually over 20 years.

Sustainable aviation fuel is seen as one of the key tools to help decarbonize the aviation industry, which currently accounts for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. SAF is generally produced from sustainable resources, like waste oils and agricultural residues, providing substantial emissions reductions relative to current fossil-based jet fuels.

Many current techniques used to produce SAF, however, may face difficulty in reaching the scale required to support these ambitions, with required feedstocks often in limited supply.

Founded in 2017, Houston-based Cemvita uses industrial biotech to provide solutions including natural extraction of natural resources, carbon negative chemical production, and the closed-loop renewal of waste as feedstock. The company’s solutions include synthetic microbes that have the potential to convert CO2 into SAF, addressing SAF feedstock issues, and requiring minimal land, water, and electricity needs. The company added that its eCO2 plants have the potential for carbon negative output, and aim to be cost competitive with existing crop-based feedstocks and fuels.