Will we be able to produce enough “green” fuel for airplanes? Emmanuel Macron will announce an endowment of 300 million euros per year from 2024 to support the aeronautical sector, in particular to promote the production of more sustainable fuel. The main players in the sector should also contribute a similar amount. “We have clients, manufacturers and airlines, whom we will support,” confirmed this Friday morning the director of TotalEnergies in France, Isabelle Patrier, in BFM business.
The energy giant recently announced that it wanted to increase sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production capacity to 285,000 tonnes per year at its Grandpuits biorefinery in Seine-et-Marne, close to Orly and Roissy airports. “It is a great challenge” that “will allow us to support the decarbonisation of air transport”, said Isabelle Patrier, for whom “we are lucky to have a powerful aeronautical system in France”, giving examples of companies such as Dassault, Airbus or Safran.
used edible oils
“When we transformed the Mède refinery, near Marseille, we made an investment of more than 300 million euros to make terrestrial biofuels” and for the transformation of the Grandpuits refinery, “it is 400 million euros”, assured the director of France from TotalEnergies. The European Union reached an agreement last April to reach a proportion of 70% biofuels and synthetic fuels in aviation fuels by 2050, in order to achieve its objective of carbon neutrality in this horizon.
“Today, the biofuels that we produce, we produce in the form of a circular economy,” said Isabelle Patrier. “We use used cooking oils and animal fats, and therefore waste”, because “we need lipids” to produce a biofuel. The synthetic fuel is the result of “a reaction between hydrogen and CO2”, which requires green hydrogen. But “to produce green hydrogen, you need green electricity […]hence the importance of developing renewable energy”.
Source: BFM TV
