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Avfuel supplies alternative jet fuel for sustainabilty event
Avfuel supplied its first full truckload delivery of sustainable alternative jet fuel for an event called Business Jets Fuel Green: A Step Toward Sustainability held at Van Nuys Airport (KVNY), which is situated in the San Fernando Valley on the city limits of Los Angeles, California. Avfuel describes this as a landmark moment amid its ongoing initiatives in the area of sustainable alternative jet fuel (SAJF).
January 21, 2019 By Wings Staff
Avfuel’s first full delivery of sustainable alternative jet fuel “Sustainable alternative jet fuel is the future for aviation – both in the commercial landscape and for business aviation,” said Keith Sawyer, Avfuel’s manager of alternative fuels. “Avfuel is committed to the industry’s initiative to meet carbon neutrality goals and has worked diligently in the supply of and logistics for the environmentally friendly product.”
As part of the event, operators flying in to Van Nuys’ Castle & Cooke Aviation and Signature Flight Support FBOs were able to purchase Avfuel’s new SAJF product on January 17.
“The sustainable alternative jet fuel mission is an important initiative for business aviation… I’m happy to see the various aviation organizations working collaboratively to bring the product to fruition,” said Milt Hobbs, manager of aviation for a Fortune 100 company based in the Northeast. “Flying our aircraft on sustainable fuel would help support our company’s environmental goals. I’m particularly excited about the Van Nuys event as an introduction of the product to bizav, and learning more about how and when SAJF will become more widely available.”
Avfuel supplied the day’s SAJF in partnership with biofuels company Gevo Inc., which produces the concentrated SAJF product. Avfuel then blended the concentrated SAJF product with petroleum-based jet fuel and tested the fuel for quality and to ensure it met ASTM D1655 standards.
Gevo’s product, explains Avfuel, has a net benefit to the environment across its lifecycle: For every one million gallons of SAJF the company produces, approximately 20 million pounds of animal feed and protein is produced and sold into the food chain.
Avfuel entered into an agreement with Gevo in July 2018 to be its exclusive fuel supplier. The full load at the Van Nuys event is described as the first fruits of this partnership. Avfuel explains, to deal with the major challenge of product availability, it has a dedicated alternative fuels team that has been working to procure reliable sources of the product and encourage producers to create more of it through formalized commitments with flight departments.
“To make this product a reality in the entire aviation marketplace, we need to encourage demand in order to encourage supply,” said Sawyer. “Just like any other commodity, there needs to be a sense of demand to foster production, even for such a worthwhile commodity like sustainable alternative jet fuel.”
