Flying with sugarcane fuel: Brazil wants to lead the green aerial race

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Airplanes have long been in the spotlight for their responsibility in global warming, and although this sector is one of the most behind in decarbonization, there are already alternatives within reach.

This is the so-called SAF (the acronym in English for sustainable aviation fuel), which emits up to 80% less C02 than conventional kerosene.

One of its variants can be achieved from ethanol, the biofuel that in Brazil is made mainly from sugar cane.

Specialists predict a revolution in the coming years worldwide, and Brazil, one of the largest ethanol producers in the world, is rubbing its hands.

However, there are still many challenges along the way, such as the danger that the demand for sugar cane and other crops will end up driving deforestation.

At the moment, SAF are in an initial phase, like solar panels 20 years ago.

The technology works and has numerous advantages (there is no need to adapt airplane engines, for example), but it is still expensive and large-scale production is lacking.

Until now, most of these fuels are made from leftover animal fats or used cooking oil, but with these inputs it is not easy to increase manufacturing exponentially.

That's where Brazil, the ethanol superpower, comes in.

“Half of the story, what many are looking for, we already have it, is biomass.

“Brazil has everything to stand out and be a major global producer of SAF,” Amanda Duarte, coordinator of the Brazilian network of Biokerosene and Sustainable Hydrocarbons for Aviation (Rbqav), says by phone.

In her opinion, Brazil's next oil is shiny green.

For the coming years, it predicts an increase in production, not only of sugar cane, but also of soybeans, palm oil, sunflower and corn.

All these plants can be transformed into fuel.

So far, SAF ethanol is only produced in one plant in the United States, but in Brazil there are already plans to open five factories.

The leading Brazilian company in the sector, Raízen, is one of those that is taking the lead.

It expects that by 2030, 25% of the world's SAF will be made from ethanol, representing approximately 9 billion liters of ethanol per year.

Brazil, which rubs shoulders with the United States and India as a world leader, already produces a lot of ethanol (more than 35,000 million liters last year), but that production already has its destination: the majority ends up in hybrid car engines or mixed with gasoline. , especially within the country.

If airplanes begin to use the new green fuel on a large scale, production will have to be increased no matter what.

The risk of increasing deforestation

Raízen's Vice President of Trading, Paulo Neves, believes that Brazil has the capacity to do so without problems, especially because second-generation ethanol has existed for a few years, which uses sugarcane remains that were previously discarded.

“This technology will allow Brazil to increase its total ethanol production by 50% without planting anything new.

That should be the first move,” he says.

But what will happen next, when the aviation industry demands more and more green fuel?

Neves categorically assures that “there is no risk” of increasing deforestation due to this foreseeable increase in demand.

As a positive point, for years there has been a moratorium that prohibits planting cane in the Amazon, and most of the plantations are very far away (in the State of São Paulo, thousands of kilometers to the south).

A person walks between sugar cane fields in Piracicaba, Brazil.

In the background, tanks full of ethanol. Victor R. Caivano (AP)

However, the Amazon is not the only threatened biome in Brazil.

The Cerrado, the tropical savanna, suffers much more deforestation due to agricultural pressure: in 2023 it increased 43% compared to the previous year.

More than 7,800 square kilometers were devastated (an area equivalent to seven times the city of Rio de Janeiro), largely to plant soybeans, corn or sugar cane.

Furthermore, environmentalists warn that the danger is not only advancing on the jungle or other threatened biomes, but also replacing food production with monocultures of more profitable

commodities

, putting food security and sovereignty at risk.

How to decarbonize aviation without generating another problem is “the million-dollar question,” summarizes Marcel Martin, director in Brazil of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), by videoconference.

“We have to see how to make that increase without creating impact.

You have to be clear about where the input comes from so as not to create agricultural pressure in deforestation regions,” he adds.

The key, he assures, is to strengthen traceability mechanisms.

Being able to verify the origin of each plant, which is not an easy task.

The ICCT also warns that there are many types of SAF, and that some can be as polluting as kerosene, due to indirect emissions.

Example: a fuel made from fatty acids from cattle that have been grazing in a deforested area.

Fuel based on sugar cane ethanol would a priori be one of the best, because it reuses waste.

Japan, in fact, has already recommended using inputs

made in

Brazil to manufacture SAFs.

Although there are still many open questions, the Brazilian Government is already preparing for this revolution that promises to be imminent.

In Congress, the “future fuel law” is about to be approved, with a package of measures that, for example, forces airlines to use a minimum of 1% green fuel in their national operations from 2027. The percentage should rise little by little until reaching 10% in 2037. Last year, the European Union, a decisive market for driving changes at a global level, agreed that from 2025 two percent of the fuel used by aircraft must be sustainable, to reach 70% in 2050.