2023-07-21 20:50:30
The SAF+ Consortium has just signed an agreement with the Air France-KLM Group for the production of sustainable aviation fuel. (Photo: 123RF)
The SAF+ Consortium, which specializes in sustainable aviation fuels, has just announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Air France-KLM Group.
The agreement, which took place during the last presentation of the Paris-Le-Bourget International Aeronautics and Space Show, provides that the first deliveries of fuel will take place by 2030. For the moment, it is a question of “a few tens of millions of liters”, confides Jean Paquin, president and chief executive officer of the SAF+ Consortium.
This consortium is made up of Air Transat, Airbus, Aéro Montréal and École Polytechnique de Montréal. He has developed a technology that captures the CO2 produced by various polluting industries at source and then mixes it with liquid hydrogen. The result is a synthetic fuel that helps reduce the carbon footprint of the aviation industry by 92%.
For the moment, although this technology comes from Quebec – a first production took place in 2021 on the ParaChem industrial site in the east of Montreal – the fuel will be produced in France within the framework of the protocol with the Air France-KLM Group.
“We are developing the project in a context of urgent demand from aviation. There is a specific mandate in Europe to include SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) from 2030,” explains Mr. Paquin.
The demand for this is strong as the European Union has passed a series of legislations that force the airline industry to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. “The aviation industry needs to decarbonize completely by 2050. It cannot wait and must start doing it now”, adds Mr. Paquin.
hydroelectric blocks
Despite the know-how developed by the Consortium, the question of the granting of hydroelectricity blocks by the government is at the heart of the issues for large-scale production. “If we don’t have energy, we can’t do production,” underlines Mr. Paquin.
“SAF is a bit like hydrogen. It takes hydrogen to make SAF. We have to be careful because Quebec’s energy capacity is limited,” Minister of Economy and Energy Pierre Fitzgibbon said last May in a forum for the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.
Quebec must also soon reveal the results of its analyzes of an initial list of 23 projects for a block of 3,200 megawatts. SAF+ Consortium, which would like to get just over 300, doesn’t know whether or not it’s on that list.
“We are aware that the government cannot say yes to everyone for the allocation of energy blocks. So what we’re trying to do is work with other partners who might also bring energy into the grid. Producers of solar or wind energy”, explains Jean Paquin.
He adds that the Consortium’s needs will be mainly in 2028, when its new plant in Montreal’s east end will be built and ready to produce the planned 100 million liters.
The fact remains that the stakes are high for the province, which benefits from a major strategic position in the world of aviation.
“We have in Quebec the third aviation hub in the world following Seattle and Toulouse. Having access to, and protecting, SAF is extremely important to the industry […] Planes that need to decarbonize will go to places where SAF is available. So not only are there going to be planes leaving, but we’re going to have planes coming back and all that is related to the economy and local wealth,” continues Mr. Paquin.
In the spring, the director of the Canadian Council for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (C-SAF), Geoff Tauvette, went public to urge the federal government to create favorable conditions to help this industry, otherwise the expertise here would risk leaving for the United States.
“The profitability is not really there for the suppliers. We need a little help from the government to put in place an action plan to help us stimulate production,” he commented, recalling that the Biden government aims for production in the United States to reach three billion liters per year by 2030.
At the same time, on the Canadian side of the border, C-SAF hopes for an annual production of one billion liters.
“Without a Canadian response, the industry will depend on imports to decarbonize the industry. We risk becoming simply a supplier of clean materials [nécessaire à la fabrication du carburant] to regions that have implemented incentives, such as the United States,” he warned.
With information from The Canadian Press
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