Last December, a United Airlines’ flight from Chicago to Washington DC was the first ever passenger flight powered with 100% sustainable aviation fuel. The achievement demonstrated the potential for the aviation sector to reduce its carbon footprint. Our guests in this episode each played a key role in in helping the airline reach this exciting milestone.
Last December, a United Airlines’ flight from Chicago to Washington DC was the first ever passenger flight powered with 100% sustainable aviation fuel. The achievement demonstrated the potential for the aviation sector to reduce its carbon footprint. Our guests in this episode each played a key role in in helping the airline reach this exciting milestone.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the flight today. Welcome aboard United flight 2701, service to Washington's Reagan Airport. Let's get our [inaudible 00:00:08] one hour, 17 minutes en route, cruising altitude 39,000 feet. Weather route looks pretty good, probably a few bumps on the descent, partly cloudy and 35 degrees for our time of arrival in Washington, DC. As you're all well aware, we have 115 partners with us today on this historic day, where this aircraft is loaded with sustainable aviation fuel in one of the fuel tanks for one of the engines. It's 100% drop-in ready, and it is hopefully going to be ushering in the new era in aviation for sustainability. Again, we're very glad to have you with us today, I hope you enjoy the flight, and welcome aboard.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
A first in aviation, a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington was the first commercial flight carrying passengers that flew on 100% sustainable fuel in one of its engines. United says the flight showed how the sustainable fuel has the potential to match the performance of petroleum based fuel with a fraction of its carbon footprint.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
At this time, please ensure your seatbelt is securely fastened, the tray table and seat backs are up and locked. We will be on the way shortly, and thank you for flying-
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (01:20):
When it comes to transportation, commercial air travel is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Since 1990, carbon emissions from commercial air travel have increased by more than 22%. By comparison, the military has decreased its aviation greenhouse gases by 66% during the same period. Commercial air travel is one of the last frontiers in decarbonizing the transportation sector, but thanks to biotechnology there's hope for the future. Our guests today were passengers on that United flight in December, they also played central roles in helping the airline reach this exiting milestone. I'm Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, and you're listening to I Am BIO.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
United 27-0-1, 1-0 left, Delta, Delta. Clear for takeoff. After takeoff, right turn heading 1-2-0.
Speaker 6 (02:34):
United 27-0-1, clear for takeoff. 1-0 left, Delta, Delta. Right turn, 1-20.
Lauren Riley (02:46):
In December of 2021, United coordinated the very first passenger flight using 100% sustainable aviation fuel in one of the engines. For me, it was like a holiday or a birthday party for all climate enthusiasts that believe in the future of travel carbon-free.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (03:02):
This is Lauren Riley.
Lauren Riley (03:04):
I'm Lauren Riley, I work at United Airlines as the Chief Sustainability Officer.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (03:09):
As Chief Sustainability Officer, Lauren is tasked with helping the airline reach its net-zero climate goals.
Lauren Riley (03:16):
Sustainable aviation fuel plays a critical role in decarbonizing aviation, and what sustainable aviation fuels are is they are renewable or waste derived fuels that can replace the petroleum fossil fuel based fuels that we use today in our aircraft. And, what's really exciting about that is that when you look at these sustainable aviation fuels on a lifecycle basis, they have the capacity today to reduce emissions up to 85%, with promise through technology to really reduce the emissions beyond, up to 100%.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (03:48):
United's use of sustainable aviation fuel is a game changer for the airline industry. Typically relying on carbon offsets such as protecting forests or planting trees, the sector struggles to reduce its actual environmental footprint.
Lauren Riley (04:05):
And, that's really important to us because carbon offsets, they play a role in decarbonizing the economy for sure, but when you're talking about a hard to abate industry like aviation, we can't afford to be distracted and call success by basically financing some of these projects that have absolutely nothing to do with aviation. So, for United, we are laser focused on those solutions that can pull out the emissions from flying, and sustainable aviation fuel is one of them.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (04:31):
Last December's flight was more than a photo op for Lauren and United, it was a true test for the future of green aviation.
Lauren Riley (04:39):
But, it was really a remarkable milestone because today we have a limit of the amount of sustainable aviation fuel allowed in our aircraft. It has to blend at 50%, meaning you can use up to 50% sustainable aviation fuel and 50% conventional jet fuel which is fossil-based. So, what we demonstrated on that flight and really celebrated with policy makers, with our corporate customers, with our colleagues across aviation, and of course from the fuel industry, is that you can safely fly using 100% sustainable aviation fuel in your engine and it performs exactly the same as fossil jet fuel, and so that was really a milestone in demonstrating that we don't need these limitations on the amount of sustainable aviation fuel that we can use in our engines. We can actually go 100% there, and so it was a big milestone for aviation. It was a really, really important technical mile marker, frankly, for us to say, "Why do we have these blending requirements? And, perhaps those can be lifted one day into the future, maybe sometime soon."
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (05:38):
United's monumental flight was a long time in the making, owing much to the hard work of researchers and scientists who made this green breakthrough possible.
Lauren Riley (05:49):
United has been on a journey to decarbonize and support sustainable aviation fuel for quite some time now, well over a decade, for sure. We conducted our first test flight using sustainable aviation fuel back in 2009, and by way of context today, sustainable aviation fuel, it's a pretty nascent technology and solution. It was barely heard of at that time. In 2011, we conducted the first passenger flight, without passengers that time, but on a commercial aircraft using sustainable aviation fuel. In 2015, we made the largest investment still to date in a sustainable aviation fuel producer, and we've been using sustainable aviation fuel every single day out of Los Angeles Airport on every flight that is a United flight leaving Los Angeles Airport, which is really exciting. It shows that if you can get the supply and you can get it into your fueling tanks, you can use this on any aircraft in any flight today. That's why they call it, "drop-in ready."
Speaker 5 (06:48):
United 27-0-1, contact Chicago departure. Now 1-2-5, decimal zero. Have a good day.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
United 27-0-1, over departure 25-0. We'll see you.
Lauren Riley (06:59):
And, since then we've made many, many investments in sustainable aviation fuel producers. Right now it's a bit of a support all things, technology, innovation, decarbonization, because we need a suite of solutions. And, finally, I'll just mention that last year United established what we call the United Airlines Venture Group, and this group is specifically designed to enable investments by United Airlines in strategic priorities, of which decarbonization is one of the primary – and through this group we can continue to invest in startups and emerging technology groups that have the promise to deliver solutions that can scale and permanently decarbonize aviation, and that's really exciting.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (07:41):
Being able to take these solutions to scale is important. For United, incorporating sustainable aviation fuels to green up its fleet makes economic sense as well as environmental sense.
Lauren Riley (07:54):
There absolutely is a relationship between technological innovation and environmental sustainability. In fact, I think they go hand in hand, quite frankly, and I'll say that in two different dynamics. Technology inherently does drive efficiency. When you have technology to enable better processes, better operations, better behaviors across your enterprise, you are by way of that improvement emitting less carbon, less greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and that's a win-win for everybody. So, there's absolutely a critical role that technology plays in driving that efficiency that we need. In addition to that, it also drives transparency. You can't run away from the numbers that are captured through technology, you cannot run away from the numbers that demonstrate, "Are you moving the right direction or the wrong direction?"
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Cleveland Center, United 27-0-1. We're out of 18-9 to level 2-3-0.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
United 2-7-0-1, Cleveland Center, Roger. Climate maintained, flight level three, niner, zero.
Speaker 6 (09:03):
Up to 3-9-0, United 27-0-1.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (09:07):
There's no doubt that investments like United's sustainable aviation fuel program will help scale new green technologies, however, it will also take government action to spur greater adoption.
Lauren Riley (09:20):
There are several policies that we know work, which is really exciting because it means that we have a roadmap to actually decarbonize if we can put some of these mechanisms in place. There is no doubt that the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard has been magically successful. It really has stimulated the kind of supply that we need, frankly, federal, across the US, and then globally. In addition to that, there is a Sustainable Skies Act that's on the table that was part of the Build Back Better package called the Blender's Tax Credit, and essentially what's really exciting about this tax credit is that it will be active for a 10-year period and it's performance based. And what that means, frankly, is that the more carbon you reduce through the fuel that qualifies under the tax credit, the greater payout. So, it incentivizes these future innovators, these fuel suppliers to really create the kind of fuels that we need that can truly pull the carbon out of flying, and so we're hopeful, we're optimistic, we continue to push.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (10:20):
When we come back from a break, we'll talk to Lauren about supply challenges and we'll meet the company that supplied the green fuel for United's historic flight.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Folks, on the flight deck, leveled off at our cruising altitude of 39,000 feet, looks like it's mostly smooth en route. We're going to turn the seat belt sign off for now, however if you stay seated, please keep your seat belts fastened in case we come across any bumps down the road. Computer shows us touching down in DC about 14 minutes ahead of schedule. We'll update you with that and the weather as we get closer. For now, I hope you enjoy the fight.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (11:05):
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Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (11:45):
We're back to talk about green supply sources with United Airlines' Chief Sustainability Officer, Lauren Riley.
Lauren Riley (11:52):
Today's technology is using fat, oils, and greases, so think used cooking oil, to really produce sustainable aviation fuel, and in fact, when we had our flight back in December, the first passenger flight using sustainable aviation fuel, someone joked that they thought they smelled French fries in the corridors of the aircraft, which was not quite true, but nevertheless. The second generation is really around biomass, so think about municipal solid waste, think about woody waste and forestry and agricultural byproduct. That's really an exciting and emerging space that has the opportunity to bring new supply on line, but the future is really around what I call "Power-to-Liquid."
Lauren Riley (12:31):
You can hear it referred to as eFuels, there's a variety of different nomenclature out there, but essentially what that means is pulling carbon dioxide, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere in a variety of capacities and converting that into jet fuel. That is the technology of the future, it's going to take a lot of time. None of these pathways today are economic, and that has been a major, major challenge of ours. Even the fuel that exists today, it's anywhere from two to four times the cost of conventional jet fuel, and so having the partnership with our corporate travelers, having policy engagement to incentivize this market and actually begin to close that premium, it's so critically important right now.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
Potomac, it's United 2-7-0-1 checking in, 2-3-0.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
United 2-7-0-1, flight level 2-3-0, radar contact to send via cap three landing south.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
All right, descend via to caps three, landing south. United 27-0-1.
Dave Kettner (13:28):
It's greener because what we're doing is we're recycling the carbon from the atmosphere, pulling that carbon through plant resources, and then letting the plants and mother nature do its thing to take that carbon, turn it into a useful material that ultimately we can turn into jet fuel.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (13:46):
This is Dave Kettner, the President & General Counsel of Virent.
Dave Kettner (13:49):
Virent is an early stage company that is working to commercialize our technology, which we call the BioForming process, for converting sugars from plants into renewable fuels and chemicals. One of those renewable fuels is sustainable aviation fuel.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (14:06):
Virent's product powered the United Airlines commercial flight last December.
Dave Kettner (14:11):
Sustainable aviation fuel is basically a substitute for petroleum based jet fuel, except that it comes from sustainable resources, which can be plants, it could be biogenic carbon captured from the atmosphere as well as other things such as waste materials, wood waste and agricultural residues, which are basically the leftovers from farming practices.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (14:34):
Dave's company, like many others, works on solutions to decarbonize all modes of transportation, including air travel. What is unique about Virent's technology, however, is something Lauren alluded to earlier, the ability to "drop in."
Dave Kettner (14:53):
The reason why the flight with United Airlines was so important, and quite frankly, quite monumental and historic, was because it proved that you don't need to change the aircrafts or the fueling industry because there is the possibility of providing a 100% drop-in sustainable aviation fuel. And, the critical part of that for Virent is that the piece that's missing from other fueling opportunities, Virent gets to provide that particular element and so the combination of fuel produced by Virent as well as the United Airlines flight, the fuel that was produced by World Energy, the HEFA component, the combination of those two components together, we're able to produce a drop-in fuel.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (15:32):
And, because Virent's technology uses sugars, the option for feed stocks are pretty much endless.
Dave Kettner (15:38):
So, what the Virent BioFarming process is able to do is to take, basically, sugars from any source. Those sugars could be from corn, it could be from cane sugar, it could be from beet sugar, it could be from wood material, it could be from corn stocks in a cornfield, it could be from the gas which is left over from processing cane sugar, it could also be from municipal solid waste. What we're able to do is take any sugars which can be extracted from those materials, and today there's a multitude of technologies that are able to take starch and corn, sugar, and pull them out of the corn kernel.
Dave Kettner (16:15):
Same thing with sugar cane and sugar beets, that is a very well-known technology which is being commercialized by multiple other companies around the world. So, we don't need to be involved with the growing side, we don't need to be involved with production of the sugar itself, all we do is we take the sugar from its sugar source and we put it into sugar water so it's in liquid form, and then we run it through a refining system, very much similar to what you would do with oil except that it's sugar water on the front end. Coming out of the back end, going through our process is the exact same things that you would see out of a refinery, namely gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, and then the chemicals, that can go into plastics, fibers and films.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
United 2-7-0-1, Potomac approach. Advise, river in sight.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
River is in sight, United 2-7-0-1.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Roger. United 2-7-0-1, you are cleared the river visual, runway one niner.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
All right, clear the river visual. 1-9, united 2-7-0-1.
Dave Kettner (17:15):
Basically, what we're able to do in the course of minutes is what mother nature takes millions of years to do, and that's to take plant material, that being the sugar component, and convert it into fuels and chemicals no different than what you see out of a petroleum refinery today. And, the beauty of it and why it's sustainable is because the origin of the carbon in those sugars is from the atmosphere as opposed to coming out of the ground.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (17:39):
Thanks to biotechnology, Virent is turning our oversupply of sugars into green energy, and for Dave, who was also on that United flight, experiencing his company's sustainable fuel at work was quite incredible.
Dave Kettner (17:53):
I was on that flight, sat in the fourth row, and it was pretty historic. It was really cool, there was 115 people on the flight including senior executives from our company, as well as United Airlines, Boeing, Siemens, World Energy, a lot of press was on that plane as well. Some members of Congress were on the plane, and getting on the plane itself you could hear a buzz and feel a buzz about it. Certainly when the plane landed, I think a lot of people were like, "Great, we made it." So, that was successful, but then just truly being part of a historic moment like that, not too many people have that opportunity and it was real exciting to be part of it.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
Tower to United 2-7-0-1 to river visual, 1-9.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Yeah, its 2-7-0-1. Reagan tower, roger. Clear to land runway one niner, no traffic between you and the runway.
Speaker 6 (18:44):
Clear to land 1-9, United 2-7-0-1.
Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath (18:47):
Thank you to today's guests for their contributions to creating a cleaner, greener planet, and for inspiring others to follow in their footsteps. We have no time to lose to protect our planet. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and/or review this podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn at IAmBiotech, and subscribe to Good Day BIO at Bio.org/goodday. This episode was developed by executive producer Theresa Brady and producers Connor McKoy and Marilyn Sawyer. Sound design and mixing by Jay Goodman, theme music created by Luke Smith and Sam Brady.