Sustainable Aviation Fuel study finds significant obstacles to local production

A feasibility study into Sustainable Aviation Fuel production in the Roaring Fork Valley by Pitkin County and other local governments reached the conclusion that, while there is plentiful ‘feedstock’ for the manufacture of such fuel locally, the logistical challenges of extracting and producing SAF would be too large for a government to take the lead on. 

Those partners included Pitkin County, Mesa County, Eagle County, Delta County, various regional airports in the area including Aspen/Pitkin County Regional Airport and Grand Junction Regional Airport, Atlantic Aviation, and more. 

According to the Department of Energy, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF, is a type of aviation fuel produced with renewable biomass and other waste resources that can offer aviation-grade performance without the need for petroleum, thereby reducing the associated greenhouse gas emissions with flight from the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. 

The feasibility study, which was approved by the Pitkin County Commissioners in July 2024, sought to assess whether the feedstock for such fuels existed in quantities to make local SAF production possible. According to the study, the fuel exists locally in the form of “woody biomass” that would be extracted from beetle-killed pine trees, municipal solid waste like compost and other organic waste, and the potential growth of “oilseed” crops like camelia, soybean, and canola plants. 

However, each local feedstock comes with its own challenges, according to the study, which was published in the Board of County Commissioner’s documents for Tuesday’s meeting. 

But beetlekill pine would be expensive and difficult to extract due to their dispersed nature in state and national forests with competing and different interests in lumber extraction. Municipal Solid Waste does not exist in quantities in the Roaring Fork Valley to support SAF production locally and, while organic waste can be pooled from other waste centers from outside the valley, the dispersed nature of that approach would likely drive the cost of production outside of the realm of possibility. 

And oilseed crops, while compatible with the Roaring Fork Valley’s agricultural history and production, could not be grown in sufficient quantities locally to produce SAF using only locally grown crops. 

“We would not be able to fully support a (SAF plant) using only local oilseed crops,” Pitkin County Climate Action Analyst Michael Port told commissioners on Tuesday. “We would need to import large amounts of material to actually produce SAF at scale. We were originally looking at if we could fully support this just with local material.” 

Additionally, commissioners mentioned a concern around the water-usage of SAF-production in a valley long-known for its water scarcity. 

“Perhaps this just is not the climate and the area where we should be trying to produce fuel,” Commissioner Greg Poschman commented. “It’s a water intensive thing. This would be like saying ‘maybe we should put a big AI facility out here somewhere or chip plant in Western Colorado because we’ve got so much silicon,’ but the thing is that there are other elements involved. Accumulating the fuels and the water to do it would be huge.” 

Currently, the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport uses 20% SAF in their fuel mixture without the local production element. Ultimately, commissioners and staff agreed that the conclusion of the study was that SAF is not currently commercially viable for the local governments involved in the feasibility study to undertake. 

Pitkin County’s presentation did leave open the possibility that private industry could overcome some of the challenges of SAF-production, and noted that local governments and other partners in this study could support that effort. 

“This group didn’t want to be project developers, but our role as local government could be to create an environment that is more suitable for private investors through the mechanisms that we have available,” Port said. “We did not find a business case today for building a SAF plant, given current technology. But this is still a relatively young market, and things might change in the coming years.”