Pathways to Low-carbon Aviation: Comparative GHG Intensities from Syngas-, Biocrude-, and Alcohol-to-SAF Production Routes

This work provides a comprehensive sccreening of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production routes, analyzing life cycle assessments (LCAs) published over the past decade. The analysis focuses on greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities as the main metric for comparing SAFs to fossil jet fuel, aligning with decarbonization policies such as EU-RED and ICAO-CORSIA. The study emphasizes European cases while including global data for key pathways assessed include syngas, biocrude, and alcohol-to-SAF routes. This study brings the main results focusing on carbon footprints of SAF alternatives and provide a screening of the main factors affecting the climate impacts of the different routes.