Cooking Oil-Powered Plane to Fly Tourists to Antarctica

Imagine flying from South Africa to Antarctica, one of the most remote places on Earth.Then visualize making the journey on a jet powered, partially, by fuel made from left-over cooking oil.That’s from a headline today on Business Insider Africa, which says that White Desert, a luxury-tourism company, will soon operate flights between Cape Town and South Africa with jet fuel supplied by Sasol, a South African energy and chemicals company. Passengers will pay between $16,500 and $120,000 for the privilege, depending on the tour package.The White Continent is inhabited by more penguins than people.In any given year, Antarctica only sees 1,000 people in the winter and 5,000 in the summer, mostly scientists, researchers and support staff.Lately, the popularity of luxury tourism has bulked up those numbers. Tourists can now fly from North America or other regions into Buenos Aires, Argentina, or Santiago, Chile. From there it’s a domestic flight to Ushuaia or Punta Arenas, the main gateways for Antarctic trips.From Ushuaia, Argentina, visitors board a ship across the Drake Passage for 48 hours to reach the Antarctic Peninsula. Travels from Punta Arenas, Chile, takes a two-hour charter flight to King George Island, avoiding the ocean crossing.Either way, it’s a leap of faith in modern transportation modalities.Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is not new to the airline industry, but it is to Sasol, whose first flight using the South Africa-made fuel is expected to depart in November on an Airbus A340-600.White Desert has been sourcing sustainable aviation fuel from Europe since 2021. Business Insider Africa states:It is switching to Sasol after the South African company secured international sustainability certification for fuel produced at its Natref refinery.Natref, located in Sasolburg, has the capacity to process approximately 108,500 barrels daily. It is also South African’s only inland crude-oil refinery. Sasol’s product is made by processing renewable materials, including used cooking and vegetable oils, alongside conventional feedstock. It can be used in existing aircraft after being blended with ordinary jet fuel, avoiding the need to replace engines or build new airport-fuelling systems.The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) says over 360,000 commercial flights have used SAF at 46 airports largely concentrated in the United States and Europe.Companies like World Energy and Neste supply these lower-emission fuels to airlines like United, KLM and Delta.Commercial flights are legally permitted to use a blend of up to 50% SAF mixed with traditional fossil-based jet fuel.SAF is chemically similar to standard jet kerosene. It works in existing aircraft engines and airport fueling infrastructure without any need for retrofitting.However, SAF only accounts for a small percentage of commercial jet fuel used globally because production scale is still low. This is mostly due to its higher cost. Producing SAF from renewable waste, fats, and oils is more expensive than refining conventional crude oil.While filling up with SAF is certainly cleaner than using conventional jet fuel, the aircraft will still produce emissions. Its environmental advantage comes from using renewable waste instead of extracting additional crude oil.The airline industry plans to use more sustainable aviation fuel to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The European Union is the furthest ahead in this regard. The trading block enforces strict blending mandates, starting with a minimum 2% in 2025 and scaling up to 70% by 2050, with 35% coming from synthetic electro-fuels, or e-fuels — a type of synthetic liquid fuel that does not rely on adding new carbon dioxide into the carbon cycle. Instead, they are made by extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which serves as a building block for the fuel.By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.comMore Top Reads From Oilprice.comHormuz Shipping Traffic Remains Stuck in Single DigitsGermany Weighs Market Incentives to Boost Record Low Gas Storage LevelTTF Gas Hits $92.95 as Gulf Tensions Weigh on Energy Markets