July 26, 2021
BY Erin Voegele
The U.K. Department for Transport on July 23 opened a public consultation on a proposal that would establish a sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) mandate requiring jet fuels suppliers to blend an increasing portion of SAF into aviation fuel starting in 2025.
A consultation document released by the U.K. government offers five scenarios for the proposed mandate. All would start with a proposed 0.5 percent SAF requirement in 2025, but would ramp up a vasty different rates, requiring between 15 percent and 75 percent SAF blends by 2050.
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The Department for Transport is seeking public comments on the need for a SAF mandate; high-level ambition and design of the proposed SAF mandate; fuel eligibility criteria; interactions between SAF and other domestic and international policy; and compliance, reporting and verification principles that will steer the creation of the scheme.
Velocys issued a statement welcoming the SAF mandate consultation. “SAF mandates could play an important part in enabling aviation to decarbonize,” said Andrew Morris, chief financial officer of Velocys. “Velocys welcomes the government’s consultation in this area and its theme of setting ambitious but realistic targets for carbon reduction. But as the Transport Secretary himself states, this should also be the beginning of a conversation on providing price certainty for investment into this nascent sector.
“Combined with SAF mandates, a price support mechanism that ensures stable prices for SAF will go a long way to giving investors the confidence they need to invest in UK SAF production and supply to deliver the Jet Zero ambition,” he continued.
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“Last month Velocys’ technology enabled the world’s first commercial flight fuelled with SAF derived from wood chips, demonstrating that ours is a ‘here and now’ technological solution to decarbonising aviation,” Morris added. “We look forward to responding to this consultation and the jet zero consultation, whilst proceeding with the development of our waste-to-SAF plant near Immingham.”
The consultation is open through Sept. 19. Additional information is available on the U.K. Department for Transport website.
A bill to formally adopt a revenue certainty mechanism to support the production of SAF was introduced in the U.K. Parliament on May 14. The proposed scheme is in the form of a guaranteed strike price.
Delta Air Lines on May 7 announced its strong support for new bipartisan, bicameral legislation that will accelerate the growth of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in Michigan. The bill aims to create a SAF tax credit of up to $2 per gallon.
The U.S. EPA on May 14 delivered two RFS rulemakings to the White House OMB, beginning the interagency review process. One rule focuses on RFS RVOs and the other focuses on a partial waiver of the 2024 cellulosic RVO.
U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on May 15 told members of the House Appropriations Committee that the agency is working as quickly as it can to take action on the backlog of RFS small refinery exemption (SRE) petitions.
The U.S. EPA on May 15 released data showing nearly 1.79 billion RINs were generated under the RFS in April, down from 2.09 million generated during the same month of last year. Total RIN generation for the first four months of 2025 was 7.12 billion.