Sustainable Aviation Fuel and its Progress in Louisiana

InsightsArticle
Written By Jamie Bentley

Anurag Mandalika

Assistant Professor
-
Louisiana State Universiry

For numerous reasons, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is seen as one of the most promising ways for decarbonizing the aviation sector. If and when energy storage (in the form of batteries or hydrogen fuel cells) becomes feasible for long-distance transportation (aviation, maritime, or long-haul trucking), liquid carbonaceous fuels will likely play the primary role in reducing emissions from these sectors. In the United States, the aviation sector accounts for ~3% of total emissions and substituting jet fuel with SAF can reduce Scope 1 emissions.

As of December 2025, SAF accounted for ~0.6% of total jet fuel consumption globally[1]. While momentum may have been flagging, it is definitely not dead. U.S. federal policy recently sent mixed signals to the biofuels industry where it extended the Section 45Z clean fuel production credits (from 2027 under the Inflation Reduction Act to 2029 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), while simultaneously bringing the SAF credit to parity with other transportation fuels – a downgrade from $1.75 per gallon to $1 per gallon. This means that projects focused on SAF will likely see a dent to their projected IRR but have a longer timeframe to rely on credits. There is currently bipartisan legislation introduced in the senate to restore the SAF credit to previous levels, which is further evidence of the popularity that biofuels enjoy in the U.S.[2]

The vast majority of SAF production relies on first-generation biomass feedstocks, i.e., those that compete with food, or land used for food production. These include fats from seed oils such as soybeans and canola, etc., through a process referred to as hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) – the most dominant SAF production process currently. Other sources include byproducts such as animal fats, used cooking oil (UCO), included in the general category of fats, oils, and greases (FOG). To alleviate land use and sustainable feedstock concerns, it is imperative that future SAF production is increasingly derived from second-generation feedstocks.

Two of the largest cost contributors to SAF production include the cost of feedstocks as well as the transportation of biomass from harvest site to the refinery. Any efforts to bring costs down in this space will contribute to profitability and scalability of SAF projects as the industry expands. Feedstock costs can be reduced by utilizing residues and byproducts from agricultural (e.g., stubble, stover, bagasse, etc.) and forestry (thinnings, sawdust, and other residuals) residues. Similarly, transportation costs have the potential to be reduced by collocating biorefineries next to feedstock production, e.g., decentralized facilities within a certain radius of feedstock availability, e.g., corn stover, rice hulls, or sugarcane bagasse.

In the energy-producing state of Louisiana, biofuels currently account for ~4.2% of total primary energy produced in the state, driven by renewable diesel produced in the state but utilized elsewhere. Spurred by federal tax credits, recent project announcements have the potential to increase this share to ~9.2%, with 9% of new biofuels production attributable to SAF[3]. Louisiana State University (LSU) and its partners recently secured a National Science Foundation (NSF) award focused on producing biofuels from agricultural residues found in Louisiana such as sugarcane bagasse and field residues (trash), rice straw and husks, cotton field residues and gin trash, among others[4]. One of the central questions of this project is investigating the techno-economics of centralized vs. decentralized biomass processing refineries – while centralized facilities can avail of economies of scale, decentralized facilities lower the costs associated with biomass transportation. For example, utilizing sugarcane bagasse as a feedstock allows for a biorefinery to collocate next to a raw sugar manufacturing factory, as the bagasse is concentrated in one location as opposed to being collected over an entire field (such as the case with corn stover). Working tangentially with agricultural producers and processors can allow for better economics, and therefore, long-term business viability for SAF producers.

Lowering SAF costs and thereby ensuring viability of SAF projects will require not only multi-faceted efforts on the research and engineering fronts, but also cooperation between stakeholders in traditional agricultural and forestry industries and biofuels developers. These are the foci of LSU efforts with collaborators from EPRI and the LSU AgCenter, as part of research funded through the LSU Energy Institute. Seamless collaboration between the various stakeholder groups involved in SAF production is essential to accomplishing sustainable SAF deployment which can withstand the headwinds of policy changes. In many ways, academia is well-suited to facilitate these conversations and assembling stakeholders that are instrumental to this objective.

Jamie Bentley
Previous

Unlocking SAF Investment: What Will It Take to Reach FID?
Next

The Year in SAF: What did 2025 teach us, and where is the industry heading next?