ALTERNATIVE FUELS

ALTERNATIVE FUELS -- The Swedish Energy Agency has just awarded 5.1 million Swedish kroner ($600,000) to an industry consortium building a proof-of-concept Fischer-Tropsch plant making sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from forestry residue in Sweden. Dutch airline KLM is already working with SAF producer SkyNRG, Swedish forestry group Sodra, local energy firm Vaxjo Energi, the RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and nongovernmental body 2030-Sekretariatet to build a 16,000 ton/yr pilot plant in the Vaxjo region of Smaland, Sweden, by 2026. “Current technologies based on used cooking oils will reach their limit due to [feedstock] scarcity, and the development of sustainable synthetic SAF has financial and technological challenges to overcome,” said KLM’s VP Sustainability Karel Bockstael in a Jun. 17 statement. “The technology we will be deploying in Sweden ... produces jet fuel from forestry residues. There is a lot of this residue available in Sweden and the rest of Europe, making it a promising project,” he added. "We are active partners in a multitude of projects, focused on scaling different feedstock/technology pathways,” SkyNRG Managing Director Maarten van Dijk said, referring to SkyNRG’s involvement in plants making SAF from HEFA and alcohol-to-jet technologies in Europe (JFI Jan.15'21).