Lignin breakthrough unlocks cost-competitive, carbon-neutral jet fuel

A simple, cheap pretreatment promises to radically cut the price of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from waste wood biomass – potentially making it cost-competitive with fossil-based jet fuel, while cutting down emissions by up to 80%.

SAF isn't a perfect green solution to aviation – indeed, no perfect solution exists at this point. Running SAF instead of jet fuel still produces carbon dioxide – but it's a higher-purity fuel, producing up to 3% more energy while burning cleaner, with heavily reduced sulfur and particulate emissions. It eliminates the entire emissions cost of the oil extraction and refining processes, and depending on the feedstock you use, you can even get it to be net carbon negative – all without modifying your jet engines.

It's distinct from biofuel, in that second-generation SAF doesn't use corn, sugar cane, soy or other food crops. That's a heinous waste of land and water. Instead, feedstocks like wood residues from milling operations, sugarcane bagasse, corn stover and other cheap, abundant waste products are used.

The problem, according to UC Riverside researchers, has been lignin, a key structural component in plant cells. Tough and resilient, lignin gives trees their strength – and also makes it hard to extract carbon for fuel from biomass, particularly when you're dealing with the harder woods. Indeed, many operations choose to just burn the lignin for process heat and power, a process which makes economic sense, but looks absolutely bananas from an environmental perspective.

Crude oil is only a tiny part of the total price of Jet A. Today at the KADS FBO Jet A is $6.50 a gal. 100LL petrol is $8.65.

https://www.globalair.com/airport/apt.compare.aspx?aptcode=ads

The refinery gate whole sale price for Feb 24 is $2.65 a gallon. The difference be refinery price and the at airport FBO price is all wholesale plus FBO markup,taxes,and transport costs. You can see that production cost is 1/3 the final price. So if this group for lignin fuel into the $3_4 range it is cost competitive to jetA today. The March futures market price for refinery gate whole sale jet fuel is $3.28.

Lignin is the most abundant plant polymer on earth after cellulose it makes up 30 to 50% or vascular land plants total mass. The added bonus is lignin is a cyclic polymer so when it is broken into basic carbon units it forms aromatic rings these are critical in jet fuels as they have very low freeze and gel points every jet fuel standard on earth has minimum aromatic percentages SAF until now has not been able to make aromatics and this could only be 50/50 blended with lignin based fuels you can go to 100% SAF that’s denser by volume a plus for aircraft and have zero sulfur a plus for all of us who breathe air. Sox forms acid rain and smog and at high altitudes acts as a potent cooling agent for the planet plus has a nasty habit of eating ozone which we need as well.

There is more than enough lignin produced in the world to fuel all of aviation at its current rates of consumption this is important from a long term resource depletion case. Liquid hydrocarbons have 50 years at most and a lot less when not if Asia, Africa,and India demand middle class energy consumption levels that’s at $300 and under in 2024 dollars.

I have spend the better part of 20 years looking, drilling,production,and geochemical analysis for total hydrocarbon systems on 6 of 7 continents as a multidegree holding geologist,geochemist,and hydrogeo. 50 years is not a lot of time to make a transition to other fuels. Do not confuse climate commies and their political masters power grab latched on to co2 for a very real and tangibly calculatable end of the cheap oil era. Oil is finite and no it is not abiotic never once at any AAPG,SEG,USGS,IEA or any other peer reviewed scientific research community or society has any scientists ever presented and successfully defended abiotic oil. Even if they did it’s production and accumulation timelines are on geological time scales meaningless to human time. We humans have depleted 400 million years of fossil sunshine in under 200 there is no process known or theorized to put back what we have used in such a short two century time scale.

So the fact is we need to look long term for a species with 8+ billion heading to ten billion souls every one of which is demanding middle class energy consumption levels. The ONLY sources that can do that is fast spectrum nuclear power, solar electrics and synfuels in arid deserts, and biofuels from nonfood lands with wastes from food production being a few billion tonnes per year. Ocean farming will be needed as will desert coastal areas via salt water agriculture. The oceans and kelp,algae,sea grasses, and plankton grown in floating bags or pens opens up 75% more area for solar output capture which is what hydrocarbons really are. They are the fossil carbon remains of long dead algae,plankton and diatoms in salt water basis or very large freshwater post glacial lakes. Every oil I have EVER geochem had chemical signatures and isotope markers for fossil sunshine and microbiological life sources every single one. The very rare cases are coal based oils these occur in rare cases since coals TOC is usually above 12% they are outside the petroleum window geologically. Very poor coals and peats that pass through the petro window temps and pressures make distinct oils with high aromatics and tars the geochem screams coal it’s loaded with chlorophyll derivatives and phenols. Point is no one has come to the community with an oil sample that doesn’t have the markers of being from the prehistoric biosphere none of it is mantle based carbon or their distinctive isotope ratios. There is some mantle methane and gold hydrogen that shows carbon sources of carbonate rocks being subducted into the mantle and the water chemically bound to the minerals being heated by the mantle to its thermal dissociation point the freed hydrogen then seeks out a electron carbon has four open spots so you get CH4 or H+ can bond with itself sharing electrons as H2. There is no mechanism geologically to polymer CH4 to CH2nH chain hydrocarbons at the temps you are making H2 and CH4 you are well past the cracking temps of any longer hydrocarbon at any pressure. The tectonic setting for subduction is exactly wrong for making basin trap structure to capture any produced methane or H2 gasses as they migrate updip these are lost eventually to the seafloor and feed large communities of methane and H2 eating bacteria it is thought that the deep sea vent methane in the trench areas are a good bit of mantle methane now as more isotopic study is done. There is a window along dip where hydrate formation could occur in that case there would be large amounts of mantle methane trapped as ice in the seabed but it is no means liquid hydrocarbons it’s solid water methane hybrid with a nasty instability curve right up against it’s metastable state. Don’t be above it if you set off a chain reaction of instability the volume of gas released can lower seawater density below .8g/cm at that point things don’t float anymore your drill ship or floating semisubmersable rig is on it way to the bottom.

Lignin is what coal is made from largely it is why when you liquify coal you get primarily aromatics not linear chain hydrocarbons. The Germans called liquid coal products benzine because the primary light liquid product is benzene at 105 octane to boot. Too bad it’s a massive carcinogen it’s perfect petrol for high compression engines.

“There’s no such thing as fossil fuel. America has enough fuel deposits to run our industrial,capitalist modern society
until the proven replacement is invented like what runs the Jetson’s vehicle. “Sustainable” is one of the environmental made up terms that means nothing in their context. The left will have us driving Flintstone cars.”

Your wrong in the sense that every oil ,coal and natural gas deposit is a fossil fuel. Fossils not macro animals like the cartoons,but fossil sunshine for absolute
Certainty. Every oil,coal and gas on earth has the geochemistry markers to show it is sourced from carbon that was not only in the atmosphere it was exposed to cosmic rays at the surface. Trillions of tonnes of algae,plankton,diatoms, and in coal case vascular plants grew in sunlight in water or swamps and was then deposited into a sedimentary basin. This is true of every known and tested total hydrocarbon system planet wide. Humans have been enjoying 400+ million years of fossil sunshine accumulations.

There will be an end to the cheap oil era it’s when not if. The end is determined by how much energy consumption levels rise to meet Asia,Africa and India’s growing middle class energy consumption demands. It’s confirmation bias to say oh well America has X number of years usually hundreds. Nothing is farther from the truth. Original oil in place at 100% recovery rates won’t get the USA to a hundred years even at 2024 consumption rates let alone given that oil is fungible and demand is world wide. Speculative reserves or even resources at 100% recovery won’t either. The real numbers today show that at $300 or less in 2024 dollars the planet at 2024 consumption rates has 47 years of liquid hydrocarbons left. That’s not a lot of time to seek and implement an alternative. Especially given that in those years another billion people will be added to our planet.

Don’t confuse climate commies power grab via co2 with very real and very pressing resource depletion in an over populated planet. I have spent a career in the industry it’s made me quite wealthy as well but those of us who are actual scientists can see we need alternatives as a species and should use the blessings we have of liquid hydrocarbons to make that transition while we have time and resources to do so. Liquid hydrocarbons are arguably to precious to just burn to the sky when you think of all the other more valuable uses such as fertilizers,medications,plastics,lubricants,electronics ect. The mantra should be mine once use many on a planet with 8 times it’s sustainability point. There is not enough fossil resources for 8 billion to have EU level energy consumption levels that’s just cold hard math. Even burning every scrap of coal won’t put 8 billion people at EU level energy consumption levels for very long half a century at most with waters so dirty you couldn’t eat the fish due to the heavy metals coal burning puts up in the sky. Coal has 900 terawatt hours global power consumption was 22 bringing 6 billion up to what 1.5 billion use takes at least a 5x increase just for electricity alone if you have to replace liquid fuels with coal to liquids 15x that since 80% of liquids are used in transportation not power sector.

IEA-”In 2019, world total electricity final consumption reached 22.848 TWh, up 1.7% from 2018.”

It’s not all gloom 8 billion would use 3000 exajoules joules of energy per year that’s about five times more that what we used in 2022 why because 6 billion souls need to be elevated to somewhat middle class energy consumption levels. You would need to go to 12 times 2022 to bring the world to USA consumption levels you see the issues right.

Fortunately the giant thermonuclear reactor in the sky showers us with energy. 3,850,000 exajoules per year rains down on us. Look at those two numbers and think for a second. One percent of what the good Lord shines on us can power 8 billion at a lifestyle level that is comfortable and equitable world wide. It issue is not is there enough energy it is how to capture it store it and transport it to where it is needed.

Uranium in once through reactors should be a crime against humanity it’s hideously wasteful throwing 96% away. There is only 300 terawatt hours of uranium 235 reserves if you throw 96% away it’s insanity. Going to fast reactors and reprocessing that 300 becomes effectively unlimited as you can make more fuel than you use in breed reactors. U238 is available in unlimited amounts in the oceans for $600 kg or less the Japanese have already made commercial quantities of seawater U238 in testing that’s too expensive for once through but breeders get 100 times the kWh per kg of uranium fractions of a cent per kWh on fuel costs even as $600kg to start with. Fast+reprocessing+seawater uranium is billions of terawatt hours it’s enough to power tens of billions at middle class energy consumption levels. Jimmy C should have been brought up on crimes against humanity charges for ending our reprocessing program. The French Japanese and Russians didn’t drop the ball we can just ask them for the tech back.

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