Bio-based jet fuel helps aviation to cut emissions

Sustainably-produced bio-based jet fuels provide the industry a solution to address these challenges.

Produced entirely from renewable and sustainable raw materials, Neste Renewable Jet Fuel enables airlines to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to the aviation industry’s ambitious targets: carbon-neutral growth from 2020, and a net reduction in carbon emissions of 50 per cent by 2050 compared to 2005.

Neste Renewable Jet Fuel helps airlines reduce the amount of fossil crude oil based fuel they use with renewable jet fuel while simultaneously significantly reducing emissions. This low-carbon jet fuel is already being used by several major airlines on commercial flights, and its production can be scaled up in Neste’s refineries to meet the growing demand.

Neste Renewable Jet Fuel is energy-dense and has good thermal stability properties. This makes the fuel an excellent blending component. It is a drop-in fuel that, according to current specifications, can be blended with conventional jet fuel up to 50 per cent. The fuel is also free of aromatics and sulfur, which should result in cleaner turbine exhaust emissions.

Meet Neste – one of the world’s most sustainable companies

The company that does this, Neste, is a forerunner in oil refining and renewable solutions. With an annual production volume of more than 2 million tons of renewable fuels, it is the world’s largest producer of renewable fuels from waste and residues. Its sustainable practices have received recognition in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the Global 100 list of the world’s most sustainable companies.

Tested in practice on commercial flights

The high performance of Neste Renewable Jet Fuel was demonstrated the first time already in 2011 in more than 1,000 commercial Lufthansa flights. Neste also joined the EU-funded Initiative Towards Sustainable Kerosene for Aviation (ITAKA) project in 2012, which was launched to support the development of renewable jet fuels in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner, improving the readiness of existing technology and infrastructures.

In 2013, a BioPort Holland sustainable renewable jet fuel supply chain initiative was set up with Neste, the Dutch government, KLM, SkyNRG, Schiphol Airport, and the Port of Rotterdam to scale up production of sustainable renewable jet fuels in the Netherlands, particularly at Neste’s renewable products refinery in Rotterdam.

In 2014, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer Boeing successfully tested Neste’s renewable fuel in a 15 per cent blend with conventional jet fuel in the Boeing ecoDemonstrator 787, a test airplane that assesses technologies that can reduce aviation’s environmental footprint. In November 2015, Neste and Boeing entered into an agreement to promote and accelerate the commercialisation of renewable jet fuel.

Since January 2016, Oslo Airport Gardermoen has been the world’s first airport to offer Neste Renewable Jet Fuel via the hydrant system. The airlines KLM, Lufthansa, and SAS have already announced that they refuel their planes with Neste Renewable Jet Fuel in Oslo, Norway. Additionally, Neste closely cooperates with various airlines and key organizations in aviation around the world, such as IATA (the International Air Transport Association, a trade association for the global airline industry), United Nations’ ICAO (the International Civil Aviation Organization), aireg (the Aviation Initiative for Renewable Energies in Germany), European Advanced Biofuels Flight Path Core Team at the EU-level, as well as CAAFI (the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiativein the U.S., among others.