Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is the key to decarbonizing aviation. Flight School is our new webinar series exploring all things SAF and the future of sustainable aviation.
In this candid conversation, Twelve's Andy Stevenson, VP Commercial and Ashwin Jadhav, VP Business Development, discuss the future of Twelve's E-Jet® SAF. Below is a transcript of the Q&A portion of the webinar.
Questions | Answers |
Do you have any current products on market? | Our current flagship product is E-Jet® SAF, which is a Sustainable Aviation fuel produced using the Power-to-Liquids (PtL) pathway. We can also produce E-Naphtha™, E-Marine™ and other chemicals, fuels and plastics. Twelve's production of E-Jet and E-Naphtha will begin in 2025. |
Is it possible to use corn fermentation CO2 as carbon source? | Yes, we are in active discussions with multiple ethanol producers that use corn as an input feedstock to use their CO2 byproduct to make fuel and other products. |
How does Twelve's aviation fuels compare to the biofuels regarding cost, GHG emissions, and scalability? | Twelve's E-Jet® fuel has upto a 90% reduction in emissions versus conventional JetA fuel on a well-to-wing basis. Since this is a highly capital intensive undertaking, current costs are high, but as the products scale-up and Twelve leverages economies of scale, the costs are projected to decrease. Twelve plans to produce millions of gallons of SAF by the end of the decade scaled across multiple production plants and has a strong pipeline of customer offtakes, equity/project investment and production sites to support this roadmap. |
What are the specs of CO2 and H2O? Can you take CO2 from steel plants? | Our electrolyzers require high purity water and CO2. Currently we are specifying beverage grade CO2, and so we can use a variety of input sources (including steel) as long as it can meet that grade. |
What if you had a relatively low cost Direct Air Capture as a source? Something like a US Patented DAC that retrofits to all global commercial building HVAC. | If this technology can supply CO2 at a low cost, we're certainly open to considering it. |
Are you looking at international development? | We are mainly focused on developing projects in the U.S. right now due to government incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and state level credits. This is how we can deliver the lowest cost fuel to our customers. However, we're open to exploring development in other locations that also have low-cost, abundant renewable energy, CO2 supply options, and government incentives or mandates. |
What is the Minimum Viable Scale for each project in t/a output of SAF? | The Moses Lake production facility in Washington State will produce 5bpd (~50k U.S. gallons) per year. Future production plants will be in the magnitude of tens of millions of U.S. gallons of SAF per year. |
Do you plan to perfom the Direct Air Capture (DAC) by yourself? | Although we are currently focused on point source CO2 emissions due to cost, when DAC has reached a level where it is cost effective we will most likely partner with other companies to provide the DAC technology. We've had discussions with at least a dozen different DAC companies and look forward to seeing the technology progress. |
What type of by-products are produced in the exhaust when your fuel burns in jet engines? | Twelve's E-Jet® fuel burns in a similar way to conventional JetA due to hydrocarbon-based properties in the fuel. The emissions reductions are obtained at the front-end production process due to little-to-no fossil-based products used as inputs/feedstock. E-Jet fuel has upto 90% emissions reduction versus conventional JetA from a well-to-wing basis. |
What is the planned production capacities of your 1st pilot plant and future larger demonstration plant? | The Moses Lake production facility in Washington State will produce 5bpd (~50k U.S. gallons) per year. Future production plants will be in the magnitude of tens of millions of U.S. gallons of SAF per year. |
A final step for E-Jet® is the Fischer-Tropsch process. Does the technology belong to Twelve or has the process been done with the contracted partner? | The Fischer-Tropsch technology for our first plant in Washington state is being licensed from Emerging Fuels Technology (EFT). |
Do you view the limited CO2 transport infrastructure as a challenge when selecting a location that can provide a viable amount of CO2 feedstock? If so, how does Twelve overcome it? | Yes, we do need to account for CO2 transport infrastructure when siting new projects, which can happen via truck, rail, pipeline, or barge. Either the infrastructure needs to be in place or we need to have a viable path for building new infrastructure. |
What is the CO2 source for the Washington state commercial plant? | The CO2 is biogenic and sourced from the industrial output of a corn-ethanol plant. |
How can Twelve or any other single company can take the lion’s share of the existing Fossil Fuels market? | Our belief is that it will take a variety of companies and pathways to decarbonize fossil fuels, including power-to-liquids, alcohol-to-jet, HEFA, etc. We are actively collaborating with our peers in the industry to advance common policy initiatives and infrastructure build out. One of our company beliefs is "it takes everyone" and we live by that internally. |
Was Twelve a spin-off from another company? How did you develop the technology idea to bring it to market? | Twelve's technology is a result of years of research and development work conducted by our co-founders since 2016. Since, 2021 Twelve has commercialized its products and successfully achieved over $900M in funding, offtake agreements with Alaska Airlines, IAG, Shopify, BCG, etc. and executed on the Moses Lake, WA demonstration plant. |
Can the end product work as juet fuel on its own, or does it need to be blended with conventional fuel? Is the technology for the aircraft any different if they use Twelve's SAFs? | The neat E-Jet® fuel is blended with conventional JetA at upto a 50% blend level. No changes are required to fuel tanks, aircraft engines or storage systems. |
Has it been easy to arrange relationships with your CO2 suppliers? | We’ve been able to secure adequate supply for our Moses Lake facility with an existing industrial gas company. Longer-term, larger scale relationships that involve new carbon capture projects have been more challenging but we have good traction with several potential suppliers. |
