A Chicago clean energy startup is helping to bring sustainable aviation fuel to the United Kingdom.
Spun out of LanzaTech in 2020, LanzaJet takes ethanol and converts it into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel. After establishing the world's first alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) sustainable aviation fuel production plant in Soperton, Georgia, which is expected to be completed this year, the company is bringing the same concept to the U.K.
Project Speedbird — a partnership between LanzaJet, British Airways and Nova Pangaea Technologies (NPT) — received around $11.2 million in new funding from the U.K.'s Advanced Fuels Fund competition this month. The competition provides grant funding to first-of-a-kind commercial and demonstration-scale projects in the U.K.
The U.K. has allocated more than 135 million pounds through the Advanced Fuels Fund for the development of SAF production plants as part of the country's mandate to require at least 10% of airline jet fuel be made from sustainable feedstocks by 2030.
Through Project Speedbird, a new, larger ATJ facility based in Wilton, United Kingdom, is being developed that uses pyrolysis and ethanol-to-jet technology to convert agricultural and wood waste into SAF.
LanzaJet and NPT, a U.K.-based cleantech company developing advanced biofuels used to product SAF, will receive the funding from the Advanced Fuels Fund, and British Airways will purchase all of the SAF produced through Project Speedbird to power some of its flights.
Project Speedbird is expected to be at full capacity by 2028, when it will produce 27 million gallons of SAF per year, the equivalent of approximately 26,000 British Airways domestic flights.
The SAF will be developed using a combination of NPT and LanzaJet's tech, with the NPT ethanol first processed through LanzaJet's ATJ plant in Georgia before going through Speedbird U.K. facility that is expected to be built by 2027.
This isn't the first time a LanzaTech affiliate has been recognized by U.K., as Britain's Prince William selected LanzaTech as one of 15 finalists for the Earthshot Prize, a global environmental prize that looks to uncover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet.
