The aviation industry is likely to fail to comply with the government’s SAF mandate over the next decade.
That is according to Dr Chris Malins, director at low carbon fuels consultancy Cerulogy, who described the UK SAF mandate introduced this month as “well structured” but the targets as “challenging”.
He said the mandate’s requirement for 1.2 million tonnes of SAF, or 10% of aviation fuel in the UK, by 2030 “implies pretty rapid investment in SAF production and billions in capital expenditure”.
Speaking at a Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport Forum on UK aviation decarbonisation, Malins noted the UK would need “30-40 commercial-scale facilities by 2035” and warned: “There is likely to be a compliance shortfall in a number of years up to 2035.”
He said the mandate “should support SAF at a price quite a bit higher than the current price of jet fuel”.
Greg Fearn, senior associate at law firm Burges Salmon, told the Westminster Forum: “The SAF mandate gives a clear direction for the next five years, but it allows for reviews [every five years] and the flexibility for reviews more regularly.
“What the sector needs is set policy. So, it’s important the reviews don’t result in wholesale changes that cause uncertainty.”
Fearn highlighted a substantial skills gap in aviation and decarbonisation technology, saying: “If we roll out at the scale needed to deliver these projects we will be competing with other sectors for the limited available workforce.
“If everyone is trying to decarbonise at the same time there is only a limited amount of knowledge on decarbonisation.”
When it was suggested artificial intelligence (AI) technology could help, he said: “It’s not about AI. It’s about do we have enough people with the capacity to meet all these challenges at once.”