United, Honeywell to Invest in Clean Tech Startup Alder to Develop Sustainable Fuels
September 09 2021 - 7:45AM
Dow Jones News
By Kimberly Chin
United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Honeywell International Inc.
have made a multi-million dollar investment in clean-technology
company Alder Energy LLC, in an effort to produce sustainable
aviation fuel, or SAF, at scale.
Honeywell will use Alder's technology to produce sustainable
fuel by converting forest and crop waste. Alder's technology allows
SAF to be produced using the same refineries, pipelines and engines
as traditional fuel. This helps eliminate the need to blend fuels
with traditional kerosene, said Michael Leskinen, the president of
United Airlines Ventures.
"It's very, very difficult to be able to produce jet fuel that
in the end will be molecularly identical to conventional jet fuel
and to do it in a way that recycles the carbon so that it's
sustainable for the planet," Mr. Leskinen said, describing the
technology as game changing.
United has also pledged to buy 1.5 billion gallons of SAF over
the next 20 years. The company in 2015 made a similar commitment
with alternative fuels developer Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc., agreeing
to buy up to 900 million gallons of low-cost sustainable biofuels
from waste.
United has invested millions of dollars toward increasing the
supply of sustainable fuel sources and new technologies. The
airline earlier this year invested $20 million into Archer Aviation
Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif., company developing flying electric
taxis. Last year, United invested in carbon capture technology
developed by 1PointFive Inc., in a partnership with Occidental
Petroleum Corp.'s Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Rusheen Capital
Management.
United began using biofuels in 2009 but started to use it
regularly beginning in 2016, when it set about fueling some of its
daily flights using biofuels supplied by AltAir Fuels in its Los
Angeles hub.
SAF is a challenge to scale because of the dearth of supply of
biomass--primarily of cooking oil, animal fats, agricultural crops
and unused wood which goes into these alternative fuel sources--and
the high costs. Sustainable fuels can cost up to three to five
times as much as conventional fuel.
Alder will work to secure enough particularly woody biomass from
the paper and pulp industry, the food industry and other
agricultural practitioners, founder and Chief Executive Bryan
Sherbacow said.
The companies hope to commercialize the technology by 2025.
Write to Kimberly Chin at kimberly.chin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 09, 2021 07:30 ET (11:30 GMT)
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