After what could be considered a lengthy out-of-town tryout, LanzaJet is now officially launched as a LanzaTech spin-off \u2014 Suncor Energy and Mitsui & Co. are investing $15 million and $10 million, respectively, to establish the new venture. All Nippon Airways\u00a0is also contributing in exchange for accessing off take.<\/p>\n
What does LanzaJet do?
\nIt\u2019s not LanzaTech technology, it\u2019s new tech, though built by LanzaTech and can certainly work seamless with that company\u2019s waste gas-to-ethanol tech. LanzaJet upgrades ethanol \u2014 anybody\u2019s ethanol \u2014 to sustainable aviation fuel. We covered the technology most recently here, and here. And our Multi-Slide Guide to the technology is here.<\/p>\n
The next step
\nThe funding will be used to build a demonstration plant that will produce 10 million gallons per year of SAF and renewable diesel starting from sustainable ethanol sources. Production is expected to start in early 2022. This initial investment coupled with participation from ANA will complement the existing $14 million grant from the US Department of Energy, enabling the construction of an integrated biorefinery at LanzaTech\u2019s Freedom Pines site in Soperton, Georgia.<\/p>\n
Calling in Jimmy Samartzis
\nThe new CEO of LanzaJet has been announced, too. It\u2019s Jimmy Samartzis, whom the industry came to know during his tenure at United Airlines where he was driving the commercialization of sustainable aviation fuels, it was clear then that he was \u201cJimmy Smarts\u201c. Samartzis will lead the company through the demonstration and into commercialization.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a new, non-stop financial model
\nOfficially, the word is that Suncor \u201chas contracted to take a significant portion of the SAF and renewable diesel produced at the facility to provide its jet fuel and distillate customers with sustainable energy solutions\u201d. And that Suncor and Mitsui \u201care aiming to invest further in the construction of commercial production facilities after the demonstration meets all its technical and economic targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bottom line, as a friend explained, \u201cthe investors are committed to build commercial production facilities after the technical and financial KPIs of the commercial demo are met.\u00a0 Passing a stage brings a cash call not a new cash raise.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s going to reduce the cycle time of raising future cash. And if you\u2019ve heard of the model before, it\u2019s being used in pharma right now, and possibly to solve the COVID-19 problem, because it provides speed for the company as it marches towards certification and scale. At the same time, it limits investor exposure.<\/p>\n
The world needs gallons, fast, and the bioprocessing industry needs to move, faster, and a plan that looks like \u201cBuild out a demo, meet a set of KPIs, followed by a call of committed capital to build commercial plants\u201d, is fastest.<\/p>\n
You might call this the Non-Stop Model, to replace the quadruple-connection flight patterns of bioindustrials of the past, wandering from city-pair to city-pair with bewildering directionality and a limp pace. I once took a flight from Reno -> LAX -> Houston -> Honolulu -> Guam -> Cairns -> Brisbane -> Sydney, because the non-stops were all booked by the time I could make my plans. I arrived in Sydney looking like a creature out of Star Trek, and that\u2019s been the case with industrials.<\/p>\n
Partners for tough times
\nYep, its been an annus hornbills for airlines like ANA, energy companies like Suncor and conglomerates like Mitsui. They\u2019ve taken a gut punch. Interesting to see how they have remained committed to the low carbon economy. Clearly, wise counselors there who can see that COVID-19 will pass but Climate Change will still be here.<\/p>\n
The Bottom Line
\nRobert Rapier wrote this week about exciting news for renewables at a time of economic, health and social crises and noted ruefully,\u00a0\u201cThis seems really inconsequential with all that\u2019s going on in the world.\u201d So let me say this about that.<\/p>\n
Important news remains important news, no matter how acute a crisis may feel. COVID will pass, and climate will still be with us. COVID feels like a health crisis, because we are experiencing it that way, but it actually is a market failure. If someone had a vaccine right now, they could easily, easily sell it for $1 trillion and become the most valuable company in the world, not even breaking a sweat. That financiers were taking very chancy long-term risks in oil & gas exploration, but not taking them in building a pandemic-prevention companies (or a sector), is the market failure, which manifested as a health crisis.<\/p>\n
Two other market \u201cunderperforms\u201d that teeter near to market failure are in US ethanol production and climate change prevention. Ethanol producers wander around like booksellers in the 90s or Blockbuster Video execs in the 00s, or K-Mart executives more recently, wondering \u201cWho Moved My Cheese?\u201d. The climate change prevention companies remind me of something I wrote in the Digest a few years back, \u201csomeone in the petrochemical industry, right now, is laughing at your concept of scale.\u201d Both sectors need big solutions for the hard problems. Easy ones like extracting more corn oil or more ethanol per bushel, or converting coal-based power to gas-based power, are what occupy attention. I don\u2019t say that as a criticism of individuals or companies, but as an observation of how our choices in focus usually play out.<\/p>\n
With COVID-19, now we are swimming in the consequences of unpreparedness, as the chickens have come home to roost. The time to prepare on climate is not when it is dominating the headlines or our thoughts \u2014 by then, history tells us, it will be too late. There\u2019s not much popularity in working on the next crisis while the other one is swamping our metaphorical boats. \u00a0Yet, how much better the world would have been if leaders in the First World War had been as intent on winning the peace as winning the war. The leaders in the Second World War did a far better job, though not a perfect one.<\/p>\n
Always remember:
\n\u201cIt is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nReaction from the stakeholders
\n\u201cSuncor is excited to join LanzaTech, Mitsui and ANA in helping LanzaJet take off,\u201d said Mark Little President and CEO of Suncor. \u201cWe believe this technology will provide a solid foundation for the commercial production of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. These products are very complementary to our existing product mix and we see growth potential in both North American and international markets. Suncor is committed to both a low carbon future for our own business and to helping our customers, including in the space of commercial aviation, realize their own vision of a sustainable future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are pleased to launch LanzaJet along with excellent partners LanzaTech, Suncor and ANA,\u201d Toru Matsui, Managing Officer, COO of Mitsui said. \u201cThis partnership demonstrates our continuing commitment to improving the sustainability of the aviation industry and supports our ambition to be the first in Japan to produce SAF on a commercial scale. The SAF produced by LanzaJet will support the development of a global SAF supply chain, which has the potential to significantly reduce emissions from aviation and help to create a low carbon society.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cANA is thrilled to work alongside LanzaTech, Mitsui and Suncor on this new venture,\u201d said Akihiko Miura, Executive Vice President of ANA. \u201cWe believe that this partnership is a great step forward for carbon-neutral growth initiatives. ANA is happy to share in this innovative endeavor and to be a part of a carbon-free future in the aviation industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Industry leader, Jimmy Samartzis, has joined as CEO, bringing a background in clean energy, public policy, infrastructure and sustainability, as well as a decade at United Airlines including multiple executive roles in operations, commercial, corporate affairs, strategy, renewables, and safety. Currently serving as a Director on the Board for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, he has held various industry roles, including with Airlines for America and the International Air Transport Association, and advised the World Travel and Tourism Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe launch of LanzaJet marks an historic milestone in the clean energy transition that is underway globally. I\u2019ve been part of many renewable energy and sustainability firsts over the last decade, and this one is the most exciting,\u201d said Jimmy Samartzis, CEO of LanzaJet. \u201cThe commercialization of LanzaJet \u2013 built on the shoulders of LanzaTech, Suncor, Mitsui, ANA and with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy \u2013 gives our world, and aviation in particular, an important solution in shaping a cleaner future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The LanzaJet process can use any source of sustainable ethanol for jet fuel production, including, but not limited to, ethanol made from recycled pollution, the core application of LanzaTech\u2019s carbon recycling platform. Commercialization of this process, called Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) has been years in the making, starting with the partnership between LanzaTech and the U.S Energy Department\u2019s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL developed a unique catalytic process to upgrade ethanol to alcohol-to-jet synthetic paraffinic kerosene (ATJ-SPK) which LanzaTech took from the laboratory to pilot scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cAchieving our global climate goals requires scaling new, transformative technologies rapidly. This requires new methods of financing that enable scaling from lab to pilot to demo to commercial without stopping after each step to raise more cash,\u201d said Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. \u201cSuncor, Mitsui and ANA are stepping up to show that achieving meaningful scale will require new technologies, new business models and new approaches. I am delighted to see LanzaJet take off and to see Jimmy Samartzis lead the team as it brings this sustainable solution to market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After what could be considered a lengthy out-of-town tryout, LanzaJet is now officially launched as a LanzaTech spin-off \u2014 Suncor Energy and Mitsui & Co. are investing $15 million and $10 million, respectively, to establish the new venture. All Nippon Airways\u00a0is also contributing in exchange for accessing off take. What does LanzaJet do? It\u2019s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[10794,13521],"supplier":[19207,2392,2777,3791,17142,11236],"class_list":["post-75770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-aviationfuel","tag-jetfuels","supplier-all-nippon-airways-ana","supplier-lanzatech","supplier-mitsui-co-ltd","supplier-pacific-northwest-national-laboratory","supplier-suncor-energy","supplier-u-s-department-of-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75770"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=75770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}