LanzaTech UK, among other companies, has been shortlisted for funding through The UK Department for Transport’s Green Fuels, Green Skies (GSGF) competition to advance the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). (Earlier post.)

LanzaTech’s Project DRAGON (Decarbonizing and Reimagining Aviation for the Goal Of Netzero) will undertake the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of a facility in Port Talbot, South Wales, that will produce more than 100 million liters per year of ATJ Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (ATJ-SPK). The feedstock for the facility will be waste-based, low-carbon ethanol, procured from a variety of waste sources.

The facility will also have the ability to use ethanol produced from local steel mill waste gases via LanzaTech’s gas fermentation platform.

The ATJ-SPK produced will provide >70% GHG emission savings versus traditional jet fuel. Using a 30% blend target, the 100 million liters of ATJ-SPK will yield about 330 million liters per annum of blended SAF. This will be used by UK-based airlines, including British Airways, and longtime partner, Virgin Atlantic.

In October 2018, the first batch of LanzaTech jet fuel, made by recycling waste industrial gases, was used on a Virgin Atlantic commercial flight from Orlando to London Gatwick.

This facility will be the UK’s first commercial-scale project to implement the LanzaJet Alcohol-To-Jet (ATJ) technology. Commercialization of ATJ has been years in the making, starting with the partnership between LanzaTech (which launched LanzaJet in June 2020) and the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

The development will support significant jobs in the region and the facility will undergo certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials, globally recognized as the most robust approach to sustainability for the bio-based and circular economy, a reflection of LanzaTech’s longstanding partnership with the RSB and commitment to certification across the supply chain.

British Airways has invested in LanzaJet’s first commercial scale Freedom Pines Fuels facility in Georgia in the US and will acquire sustainable aviation fuel from the plant to power a number of its flights by the end of 2022. The partnership will involve LanzaJet implementing early-stage planning and design for a potential commercial facility for British Airways in the UK.