To be honest this all sounds like the ethanol boom all over..

"We're gonna make SAF out of celluosic."  Even though nobody figured that out the last time..

"Import Sugar Cane ethanol from Brazil"  Even though Corn based ethanol from the US is the cheapest.. so much so that Brazil is pushing out it's own.. Sugarcane with Corn down there..

"We can't use US ethanol.. because that will plow down the rainforest.." but ethanol from the rainforest directly is somehow okay?!?  Be it sugar cane or corn...???

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/14/sustainable-jet-fuel-report

"Burning sustainable aviation fuels still emits some carbon dioxide, while the land use changes needed to produce the fuels can also lead to increased pollution. Ethanol biofuel, made from corn, is used in these fuels, and meeting the Biden administration’s production goal, the report found, would require 114m acres of corn in the US, about a 20% increase in current land area given over to to the crop.

In the UK, meanwhile, 50% of all agricultural land will have to be given up to sustain current flight passenger levels if jet fuel was entirely replaced.

“Agricultural land use changes could threaten global food security as well as nature-based carbon sequestration solutions such as the preservation of forests and wetlands,” the report states. “As such, SAF production may actively undermine the Paris agreement goal of achieving greatly reduced emissions by 2050.”

Phil Ansell, director of the Center for Sustainable Aviation at the University of Illinois, said the aviation industry had been faced with a much steeper challenge than other sectors to decarbonize. Large commercial airliners cannot be outfitted with batteries, unlike cars, due to their weight, while progress in other fuel forms, such as hydrogen, has been complicated.

“There’s an underappreciation of how big the energy problem is for aviation. We are still many years away from zero pollution flights,” he said.

“But it’s true that the industry has been slow to pick things up. We are now trying to find solutions, but we are working at this problem and realizing it’s a lot harder than we thought. We are late to the game. We are in the dark ages in terms of sustainability, compared to other sectors.”


... uh huh.