The Potential Scale-Up of Sustainable Aviation Fuels Production Capacity to Meet Global and EU Policy Targets

Details

• Creators:
  Martulli, Alessandro ; Brandt, Kristin ; Allroggen, Florian ; Malina, Robert
• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Washington State University
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and Energy
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Air Transportation Policy ASCENT Aviation Fuels Biomass Fuels Demand Greenhouse Gases Resource Development Sustainable Transportation
• Publication/ Report Number:
  s41467-025-66686-9
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66686-9
• Resource Type:
  Journal Article
• Right Statement:
  Open Access; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Elsevier
• Abstract:
  Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) can reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions, yet their production scale-up to meet policy goals remains unexplored. Here, we describe the Global SAF Capacity Database to quantify global and European Union (EU) SAF capacity, comparing it to production capacity announcements. Despite announcements of 9.1 Mt year−1 (2.2 Mt year−1 in the EU) by 2024 and 38.9 Mt year−1 (9.3 Mt year−1 in the EU) by 2030, only 24% (26% in the EU) of the announced capacity was realized on time by 2024. Over 40% of the announced capacity for 2030 risks delays or cancellations. Using a diffusion model parametrized by announced capacity, realization rates, expected demand, and historical growth analogs, we calculate SAF potential scale-up to meet net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Even if SAF follows the rapid scale-up of solar and wind energy, the global and EU capacity will fall short of respective targets by 42% and 18% in 2030, and 7% and 5% in 2050.
• Content Notes:
  This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Please cite this article as:
  
  Martulli, A., Brandt, K., Allroggen, F. et al. The potential scale-up of sustainable aviation fuels production capacity to meet global and EU policy targets. Nat Commun 16, 11619 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66686-9
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  13-C-AJFE-MIT-& WaSU-
• Collection(s):
  Federal Aviation Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:103fdd2f332eeb8ab89901f6a7125db900e6bf6a8cc10bea372af4a3f57e436efde2bb5410e545d727774cfb5c6a846037cf5fa05b456e11b8700c7603df4a0b
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/89583/dot_89583_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.41 MB ]