The European Union (EU) is considering ambitious alternative fuel policies to decarbonize aviation. However, it is crucial that policymakers set realistic targets for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) deployment that are consistent with the amount of fuel that can be manufactured from available feedstocks. This study assesses the EU resource base that could support SAF production from 2025 to 2035, focusing only on the potential quantities of sustainably available raw materials.
This analysis uses a resource and technology deployment-constrained approach to estimate the amount of advanced SAF that could be supplied to EU aviation as a share of EU-wide aviation fuel consumption. Without taking into account political or economic barriers to SAF production, we estimate that there is a sufficient resource base to support approximately 3.4 million tons of advanced SAF production annually, or 5.5% of the expected EU jet fuel demand in 2030. The base alone is not necessarily sufficient to expand SAF deployment from current sizes of less than 0.1%. While the production of SAF from waste oils is the most technically mature SAF conversion pathway, these waste oils are extremely limited in resources and are already largely consumed by road traffickers. High near-term targets for SAF blending may only stimulate the diversion of waste oil from existing uses in the road sector, approaching about 2% of 2030 jet fuel demand from waste oil alone. Going beyond 2% of SAF deployment will require targeted support to more conversion pathways with more challenging economics and uncertain production timelines, such as lignocellulosic biofuels and electrofuels.
