SAF: Sustainable Aviation Fuel - Agnosticism as a Guarantee (French version - FR)
Technical and Strategic Note — Éric Jacob, Engineer (Maths-Sup, DEA)
The Problem: Fragile SAF Pathways Captured by Lobbies
The European ReFuelEU Aviation regulation imposes increasing incorporation of sustainable fuel: 2% in 2025, 6% in 2030, 32% in 2040, 63% in 2050. These targets are binding and airlines have no choice.
Yet the major SAF pathways currently financed and contracted rely on food crops:
- Sugar beet (Rebound project, Tereos/Technip/Airbus/Safran)
- Vegetable oils (rapeseed, recycled palm)
- Corn and sugarcane (American Alcohol-to-Jet pathway)
These choices pose serious structural problems that the signed contracts seem to deliberately ignore.
Why These Pathways Are Doomed in the Medium Term
1. Climate Vulnerability
Food crops are directly exposed to worsening climate hazards each year:
- Droughts: Sugar beet is a major water consumer — yields collapse during water stress
- Heatwaves: Temperature peaks above 35°C destroy cereal and sugar crops
- Torrential rains: Spring floods compromise sowing
- Late frosts: Increasingly unpredictable hazards disrupt vegetative cycles
A SAF guaranteed at 6% of global aviation consumption in 2030 cannot rely on crops whose yields vary by 30 to 50% depending on the year’s weather. This is not a guarantee — it is a gamble.
2. Food Competition
Using agricultural land to produce aviation fuel rather than food is a political choice that is not neutral in a context of rising global food tensions. The FAO regularly warns of this risk. First-generation biofuels have already caused documented food price increases.
3. Suspicion of Lobbying
The Rebound project (Technip Energies, Airbus, Safran, Tereos) relies on the Alcohol-to-Jet pathway from sugar beet. Tereos is Europe’s leading sugar producer. The presence of such a powerful player in this consortium, on a pathway that directly valorizes its main production, raises legitimate questions about the criteria that led to the technological choice.
An obligatory agnosticism criterion in public SAF tenders — excluding any pathway dependent on a single food crop — would steer public funding toward genuinely sustainable solutions not captured by sectoral interests.
The Solution: Total Agnosticism of the Haffner SAFNOCA® Pathway
Haffner Energy’s SAFNOCA® technology produces SAF through thermolysis of residual biomass followed by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. Its fundamental characteristic: it works on more than 140 different types of biomass, tested and validated.
All-Season Agnostic Sources
Agricultural Residues (available year-round)
- Cereal straw (wheat, barley, rice)
- Corn cobs and stalks
- Grape pomace and vine shoots
- Brewery and distillery draff
- Olive pomace
- Vegetable tops and residues
Forest Residues (available year-round)
- Dead wood and windfalls
- Sawmill by-products (bark, sawdust, slabs)
- Clearing and pruning wood
- Class B wood (non-recyclable)
Urban and Industrial Waste (continuous flow)
- Organic fraction of household waste
- Dried sewage sludge (STEP)
- Agri-food industry waste
- Non-recyclable cardboard and paper
- End-of-life wooden pallets
Aquatic Biomass (growing resource)
- Marine algae and sargassum: invasive on Atlantic and Caribbean coasts, they constitute a major environmental nuisance. Their valorization through thermolysis simultaneously solves a coastal problem and produces SAF — without using any agricultural land
- Cyanobacteria and toxic algae: proliferations linked to eutrophication of lakes and rivers (Breton green algae, etc.) are currently an environmental cost. They become a resource
- Duckweed and water hyacinth: invasive plants in wetlands, available in large quantities in tropical and subtropical regions
Fast-Growing Non-Food Biomass
- Miscanthus and switchgrass (energy grasses on marginal soils)
- Short-rotation coppice (poplar, willow)
- Residues from non-food energy crops
Why Agnosticism Guarantees SAF Permanence
| Criterion | Sugar Beet/Cereal Pathway | Haffner SAFNOCA® Pathway |
|---|---|---|
| Weather dependence | High (drought, frost) | None (substitution between inputs) |
| Food competition | Direct | Non-existent (residues only) |
| Annual availability | Seasonal | Continuous (permanent flows) |
| Carbon balance | Positive to neutral | Negative (biochar) |
| SAF production cost | €1.5-3/kg depending on prices | €0.69-1.18/kg (biochar included) |
| Crisis resistance | Low | High (input diversification) |
If one biomass source becomes unavailable (poor harvest, logistical disruption), the Haffner module switches to another without technical modification. No SAF pathway in the world offers this guarantee of continuity.
The Economic Balance: Already Competitive Without Subsidies
The production cost of Haffner SAF is between €1.08 and €1.18/kg with the current H6 module alone — already on par with fossil kerosene (€1.18-1.38/kg). When integrating carbon credits from co-produced biochar (€275-420/tonne depending on sequestration rate), the net cost drops to €0.69-0.92/kg — 30 to 50% below the price of fossil kerosene.
No subsidies are needed to make this pathway competitive. This is the opposite of the electrolysis pathway (e-SAF at €2.50-4.00/kg), whose cost depends directly on the price of green electricity.
What the State and the EU Must Impose
1. Obligatory Agnosticism Criterion in public SAF tenders: any pathway dependent on more than 50% of a single food crop is excluded from public funding and state guarantees.
2. Carbon Bonus: SAF pathways producing biochar as a sequestration co-product receive a bonus in the regulatory carbon intensity calculation (RED Directive, Annex V).
3. Priority to Nuisance Biomass: Public SAF tenders must favor pathways valorizing biomass considered environmental nuisances (invasive algae, sargassum, toxic algae) — doubly virtuous.
4. Input Traceability: Any SAF pathway benefiting from public funding must publish quarterly the composition of its biomass inputs — to prevent greenwashing and hidden food substitutions.
Conclusion: Agnostic SAF Is the Only Guaranteed SAF
The ReFuelEU obligations are binding and irrevocable. Airlines must source SAF, whether it rains or shines, whether the beet has frozen or not, whether sugar prices are high or low.
The only pathway that can contractually guarantee this continuity of supply under all circumstances is the one that does not depend on any particular crop.
Haffner SAFNOCA® is that pathway. It is French, patented, already competitive, and capable of valorizing waste that no one wants — from Caribbean sargassum to Breton toxic algae.
Linkedin: Eric Jacob
Basic private research @ | Multiple Degrees in Physical Measurements | Energy transition advisor