US’s 1st commercial-scale e-SAF plant opens as production costs stifle scale-up

AirPlant One, the first facility in the United States to produce e-SAF at commercial scale, opened in June at Moses Lake, Wash., as electricity, production costs and other hurdles hinder wider-scale e-SAF production. E-SAF is produced by combining “green hydrogen” — produced using renewable electricity — with sustainable CO2, according to IATA. [caption id="attachment_57298247" align="aligncenter" width="1375"] AirPlant One was developed by fuels producer Twelve. (Courtesy/Twelve)[/caption] SAF made with hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) is the most common type and is produced by refining vegetable oils, waste oils and fats. Alaska Airlines, which alongside Microsoft invested in the facility’s 2022 $645-million funding round via its Alaska Star Ventures subsidiary, will use fuel from the facility for its domestic operations, according to a release last month from Twelve, the operator of AirPlant One. Globally, 580 SAF-producing facilities have been announced and are in various stages of operations, according to data from ICAO’s Sustainable Aviation Fuels Facilities tracker. Of those,164 are in the U.S. SAF, including the e-SAF from AirPlant One, will account for about 1% of Alaska Airlines’ total jet fuel use in 2026, which is above the industry average, an Alaska Airlines spokesperson told Cargo Facts . Alaska Airlines, which owns Hawaiian Airlines , also deploys SAF on Hawaiian’s international flights departing Osaka, Japan (KIX), the spokesperson said. Better e-SAF than sorry By 2050, e-SAF will account for about 40% of global SAF use, Nicolas Jammes, assistant director of sustainability communications at IATA, told Cargo Facts . “This gives the [e-SAF] pathway significant long-term potential because it can expand SAF production beyond the limits of biomass feedstocks,” Jammes said. “Compared with other pathways like HEFA and Alcohol-to-Jet , e-SAF is behind in commercialization but is highly important for long-term scale-up.” The greatest challenges to e-SAF scale-up include cost, process maturity and infrastructure, a spokesperson from Worley, an engineering firm active in the SAF market, told Cargo Facts . The pathway is among the most sustainable in terms of potential lifecycle emissions reductions when produced with low-carbon inputs, such as renewable electricity, green hydrogen and captured CO2, the spokesperson said. Meanwhile, the elevated costs of e-SAF production are being exacerbated by rising electricity demand from sectors including data centers, Jammes said. Production costs can be as much as twelve times higher than conventional jet fuel and multiple times higher than bio-SAFs, such as SAF from HEFA, he added. Though e-SAF projects ideally should be developed in regions where renewable electricity is abundant and affordable, forty of the forty-six announced commercial-scale e-SAF facilities are in Europe, where the average cost of renewable electricity is among the highest globally, Jammes said. Though the cost of renewable electricity is expected to decrease over time with new technologies and other factors, no commercial-scale e-SAF project in Europe has yet reached a final investment decision, he told Cargo Facts . “This creates a significant implementation challenge, given that e-SAF sub-mandates will start in 2028 in the U.K. and 2030 in the EU, before adequate and affordable supply is ready,” Jammes said. “This highlights a broader point: e-SAF cannot be scaled through demand signals alone and the policy sequence should start with incentives that secure the supply.” Cargo Facts Symposium 2026, the premier event for the freighter aircraft and air cargo industries, will take place in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 21-23. Find out more and register by Sept. 4 to take advantage of early-bird pricing.

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