Beyond Broken Eggs: Fixing the SAF Machine

Yesterday, we talked about two broken eggs — the MAHA Commission’s push to reduce seed oils in the food system and the renewable fuels sector’s chronic shortage of affordable plant oils — and how, combined, they might make a better omelette for both public health and decarbonization.

Today, there’s a third egg on the counter: the reflex to demonize people at the bottom of the Gartner Hype Cycle just because there was euphoria at the top. It’s a tempting narrative — but it’s also a distraction from the real work.

The ambition to decarbonize aviation through Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) hasn’t failed. The technology hasn’t collapsed. The problem is that the SAF ecosystem is a massive, high-momentum machine that’s being asked to shift to a high-cost, high-reward feedstock alternative without the “repairs and maintenance” such a transition demands. That’s a structural challenge, not a moral failing.

The Chasm Between Promise and Reality

Bold pronouncements have been plenty. In 2019, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby hailed a new contract with World Energy as a model for the industry. Six years later, the partnership is gone, and World Energy’s Paramount refinery — once a rare commercial SAF success — shut down in April. CEO Gene Gebolys called it a “reset,” citing over-budget, behind-schedule realities and a partner’s withdrawal over “challenging commercial conditions.”

Reuters found the pattern is not unique:

• Of 165 SAF projects announced in the past 12 years, only 36 have materialized.

• Just 10 projects (6%) have reported producing commercial volumes.

• Even if all pending projects ran at max capacity, total output would be 12B gallons/year — only 10% of the 118B gallons needed for IATA’s 2050 net-zero target.

Airlines say the oil industry isn’t producing enough SAF. Some oil executives reply there’s not enough demand at current prices — three to five times higher than fossil jet fuel. In other words: a standoff at cruising altitude.

The Technology Works — The Structure Doesn’t

The dominant production pathway, HEFA, is proven. It converts waste oils, fats, and greases into jet fuel. The bottleneck is affordable feedstock at scale. Collecting and purifying diverse waste streams is costly and energy-intensive.

Alternatives like Fischer–Tropsch can process waste wood or municipal garbage — but they’re more expensive, technically complex, and still not commercially proven. As one industry voice put it, F-T “remains a pipe dream even with abundant, low-cost feedstock.”

In short: the problem isn’t whether SAF can be made. It’s whether it can be made at the scale, cost, and reliability the aviation sector needs.

The Feedstock Conundrum and the Grand Bargain

This is where yesterday’s “broken eggs” idea still holds. High plant oil prices funnel incentives toward feedstock traders, not toward bridging the cost gap between plant oils and fossil fuels or between small greenfield refineries and depreciated conventional ones.

A Grand Bargain — aligning a food-policy-driven drop in seed oil demand with fuel-market feedstock needs — could change the math. By intentionally coordinating these markets, rural and urban interests could both win, much as they have in past Farm Bill coalitions. That’s restructuring, not just subsidies — and it’s one ingredient in the omelette.

Signs of Life

Despite the structural headwinds, new capacity is still being built:

• LG Chem and Enilive in South Korea have broken ground on the nation’s first HVO/SAF plant, 400,000 tons/year capacity, due 2027.

• Moeve and Apical in Spain are investing €1.2B in a second-generation biofuel plant using ag waste and used cooking oil, cutting CO₂ emissions by 75% and recycling all its water.

These projects are happening after the Reuters review, showing there’s still investor belief — if the foundations can be strengthened.

What’s Real — and What’s Not

Not real:

• Painting a picture of imminent breakthroughs to burnish green credentials while actual volumes lag far behind.

• Believing technology alone will fix the economics.

• Expecting that piecemeal grants and handouts will substitute for market restructuring.

Real:

• SAF technology works.

• The limiting factor is structural: feedstock availability, pricing, and the economics of building new plants versus running legacy fossil refineries.

• Fixes require alignment between those with market power, policy influence, and capital.

Five Fixes That Matter

1. Structural Reform – Address the feedstock bottleneck through solutions like the Grand Bargain, creating new, stable supply pathways.

2. Coordinated Investment – Move beyond one-off “marquee” announcements; form airline-producer consortiums for large-scale projects, as SGP BioEnergy’s Randy Letang has urged.

3. Stronger, Predictable Incentives – Policy stability is key; sudden shifts or rollbacks will stall investment.

4. Transparency and Realism – Publish roadmaps and project databases grounded in proven technologies and commercial operations.

5. Technology and Feedstock Diversification – Keep HEFA scaling, but advance other SAF pathways to reduce reliance on limited waste oils and fats.

The Bottom Line: From Cracked Eggs to a Meal Worth Serving

The SAF journey isn’t a quick fix — it’s a deep rebuild. Demonizing players at the bottom of the hype cycle wastes energy that should be spent on structural repair. Yesterday’s two broken eggs — the MAHA policy debate and the SAF feedstock shortage — are still in the bowl. Today’s third is the habit of blaming hype hangovers instead of fixing what’s broken.

Add the right ingredients — structural reform, coordinated investment, stable policy, transparency, and diversification — and the industry can turn those eggs into something more than aspiration. The technology is ready. The omelette just needs the recipe — and the will to cook it.