California-based sustainable fuel producer World Energy has received the necessary permits to renovate its Los Angeles-area refinery—the first in North America to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at a commercial scalestarting in 2016. The $2 billion project will see the former Paramount oil refinery facility fully converted to sustainable fuel production and will give it a capacity of 340 million gallons a year, a 700 percent increase from its current rate. This development project is expected to be completed and at full capacity by 2025.
Speaking at a ribbon-cutting for the new project on Friday in honor of Earth Day, World Energy CEO Gene Gebolys explained the significance of the development with regard to decarbonization. “Airplanes are going to run on high-density liquid fuels for the foreseeable future, and what we need to do is get into that fuel tank with lower carbon fuels. So our approach to making net-carbon-zero real is to take existing aircraft and make them fly in a much-less carbon-intensive way.”
SAF is a renewable fuel derived from sustainable feedstocks and is currently approved for blending with conventional jet fuel at ratios of up to 50 percent. By 2050, the company estimates its sustainable fuels will displace more than 76 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 3.8 million net-zero emission commercial flights from Los Angeles to New York.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2022-04-25/world-energy-upgrade-sustainable-