Is sustainable aviation fuel the future for Teesside?
Plus: Four bin bedlam in Boro
Today’s edition of The Teesside Lead is number 35. Thanks for supporting independent journalism in the Tees Valley region.
If it’s of interest to you, I’m putting on a night in Newcastle this Saturday with the authors Alex Niven (The North Will Rise Again) and Peter Mitchell (Imperial Nostalgia) at the Alphabetti Theatre.
We wanted to reconnect with some of the spirit of Modernist adventure and countercultural vim that’s animated Newcastle at various points in its modern history. To that end, Alex will be chatting to Helen Charman, one of Britain’s most important emerging radical writers.
Alex will be talking to her about her book, Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood, and there’ll be poetry and live music, too.
Get tickets here, or read more about what the heck we’re trying to achieve here.
Today’s edition takes a look at Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and how the global development of this fledgling industry might impact a number of SAF projects on Teesside, as well as the reality of having to sort recycling at home.
The press release went out last week with Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen stood proudly on a cleared site, surrounded by diggers. Work is about to begin on building a hydrogen refuelling station at Teesside Airport for the fleet of vehicles that work there.
Last month the airport signed a new energy deal to ensure its power comes from 100% renewable sources. Its aim is to become the UK’s first net zero airport by 2030.
At the time, Lord Houchen said: “Providing 100% renewable energy is a big positive for businesses at our airport looking at their carbon footprints – and it fits hand in glove into the work we’re doing to make Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool the heart of Net Zero industries through Net Zero Teesside, SAF, and our hydrogen push.”
Plenty has been written about hydrogen and Net Zero Teesside, but what about those three letters - SAF?
Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a broad term for aviation fuel which isn’t made from fossil fuels. It’s mostly made from organic material, like crops, animal fat and used cooking oil.
There have been plenty of announcements for SAF projects on Teesside in recent years. Saudi energy company Alfanar has planned what it claims is the largest SAF project in Europe to be built at Seal Sands. The scheme - named Lighthouse Green Fuels - aims to produce 175 million litres of SAF a year, which is enough to fuel 25,000 flights to European destinations.
At Teesworks, Willis were given planning permission last year to build an SAF plant that will produce a more modest 20 million litres of SAF each year, intended to supply airlines at Teesside Airport. While last month LanzaJet chose Wilton as the site for its own SAF project, which could produce just over 100 million litres of SAF.
The shift to more using less fossil fuels in aviation is coming. New rules from this year mean airlines in the EU and UK have to buy SAF for at least 2% of their entire fuel use. Airlines in the UK will need to increase this to 10% by 2030 and 22% by 2040.
Despite this, the aviation industry is caught in a stalemate.
In 2023, figures from the International Air Transport Association (Iata), the global airline trade body, showed only 0.2% of jet fuel used worldwide was SAF.
SAF is roughly two-to-three-times as expensive as traditional jet fuel, causing lower demand. And SAF producers are unable to scale-up their operations and lower costs as the aviation industry hedges its expenditure as it continues to recover from the impact of Covid.
Neste, a Finnish company which leads global production of sustainable fuels, including SAF, announced this month that it would be firing 10% of its workforce after a disastrous year which has seen its share price collapse by over 60%.
It has spent nearly $10bn (USD) transforming its business from refining oil to leading in green fuel, only to find the market hasn’t grown with it.
Shell paused plans for an SAF refinery in Rotterdam last year, saying it would “address project delivery and ensure future competitiveness given current market conditions.”
Neste’s chief executive, Heikki Malinen, told the Financial Times: “We believe there is a valid case for decarbonisation, and that it will happen, but the journey will be volatile and non-linear”.
He added: “Companies and governments made very bullish statements on their intention to decarbonise. What happened? We had the war in Ukraine, and the inflation spike, and the mood for decarbonisation just went away.”
He was speaking before Donald Trump’s recent intervention on the war in Ukraine and the further uncertainty he’s brought to global politics.
Ben Purvis, a Research Associate on Sustainability at the University of Sheffield is sceptical of the UK’s targets to decarbonise air travel.
He says burning SAF emits similar levels of CO2 to traditional jet fuel, but that the carbon savings come in its production, based on the assumption that waste crops used to create SAF would be burned were they not used to produce the fuel.
So what of Teesside?
The government’s investment in SAF projects, like that at Wilton, could help them weather the storm and build capacity, although this will depend on market leaders like Neste being able to build demand in the fledgling SAF market.
Teesside stories you may have missed…
🚂 Darlington station’s redevelopment continues with a new footbridge installed
🍲 Planning permission has been granted to turn a former Redcar MP’s office into a restaurant
♻️ Middlesbrough residents will begin food recycling next year
🐱 A stray cat on a building site has been adopted
Uproar at four bin Boro
Last year Middlesbrough Council changed household waste pick-up to a fortnightly collection, causing a nice bit of news generation and stories for a few weeks for local media.
This week it was announced the council will deliver new bins to residents and ask them to separate paper and cardboard, as well as food waste into these new bins, as part of the Government’s Simpler Recycling scheme.
Of course, Facebook’s comments section has seen a very measured response.
“Another inefficient waste of everyone’s time in attempt to justify ridiculous tax”, “God I hope this doesn't happen 😡”, “If i have any food waste it'll go in black bin, I won't have it inside”, et cetera, et cetera.
The truth is Middlesbrough’s recycling rates are rubbish.
In 2022/23, Middlesbrough’s recycling rate was one of the lowest in England at 23.1%. Nearly half of which was organic (i.e. garden waste). Only Tower Hamlets in London (17.7%) and Liverpool (17.9%) recycled less than Middlesbrough. As a whole, England’s total recycling rate for 2022 was 43.4%.
Compare that to Wales, which last year became second in global rankings for recycling, only just behind Austria, with a rate of 59%. This has come about because of statutory recycling rates for local councils set by the Welsh Government, and has seen some areas reaching rates of 70% or more.
The not-so-secret secret is more bins.
The Simpler Recycling guidelines for England, introduced by the Labour Government, are a way to simplify the plans they inherited from the Tories, who were set to introduce up to seven bins for household waste.
The new default requirement is for councils to provide four separate bins; for non-recyclable waste, food waste, paper and card, and one for other dry recyclable materials (plastic, metal and glass).
In Flintshire, where I grew up in North East Wales, you get five bins, and can opt-in for three more bins for garden waste, nappies, and clinical waste. Collections for unrecyclable waste are about to change to every three weeks, with food waste collected weekly.
Recycling rates are so low in England, and they dropped in 2020 and are yet to recover, largely because of contamination of recyclable waste. It’s not just a case of putting things in the wrong bins, unclean objects mixed with clean objects can end up sending recyclable waste which was sorted with the best intentions at home to landfill sites or incinerators.
Sorting recycling into different categories at home reduces the time (and expense) of sorting it at recycling centres, and leads to a reduction in waste more generally as people start paying closer attention to what leaves their house.
I’ve lived in England for nearly 20 years, so I was stunned the first time I saw the food waste bin in my parents’ kitchen. But a caddy, smaller than a toaster, next to the sink isn’t really the burden Smoggies on Facebook seem to be worried about.
Storing paper and bottles and cans at home can potentially be an issue for some with limited space, but in my experience (or at least, in my parents’ experience), it’s something you adapt to pretty quickly.
So relax, Smoggies. It may take some adjustment, but the alternative is to bury the waste, or feed one of the many incinerators emitting across Teesside.
Enjoy the rest of your half term week if it’s applicable to you. I’m off to see my parents in Wales and get shouted at for putting something in the wrong bin.
In the mean time, get in touch at teesside@thelead.uk or via BlueSky.
I’ll be back on Sunday.
Leigh