On 23 January the BBC reported Europe’s International Airlines Group was investing in the Norwegian Recycling Company Wastefront’s £100m project to start construction of a ‘Sustainable Aviation Fuel’ (SAF) factory in Sunderland. The factory will process used tyres and turn them into jet fuel. According to a report published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) SAF “has been shown to provide significant reductions in overall CO2 lifecycle emissions compared to fossil fuels, up to 80% in some cases.” The purpose of this factory is to generate ‘sustainable’ fuel to meet the UK Government’s updated sustainable aviation policies. On paper, SAF is presented to be a greener alternative, but how sustainable is a plant burning tyres in a closed box going to be?
A definition of sustainability
The Cambridge Dictionary defines sustainability as “ the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time”. Keeping this definition in mind, for a fuel alternative to be sustainable and viable, it should not only minimize environmental impact, but also be proven to be able to be a long term solution that will not run out eventually. Tyre derived fuels fail on both counts.
The process of creating tyre derived fuels
Tyre derived fuels or TDF’s essentially are the product of heating used tyres to very high temperature and turning them into oil that can be processed into fuel. The chemical process is called pyrolysis; the decomposition of the tyres at high temperatures,through which one can obtain tyre derived oil, which can then be turned into SAF.
Studies show that pyrolysis is a very energy intensive process, and requires a large amount of heating to complete. As stated by IDTechEX, this can raise “questions about the technology’s overall carbon footprint, especially if the energy used is derived from fossil fuels.” The energy intensive process means that potentially, the ‘sustainable’ fuel plant will be run on non-sustainable energy.
Tyres themselves are not sustainable
Tyres are considered to be hazardous waste for the environment. Tyre recycling equipment manufacturer Gradeall states:
“When waste tires are dumped into landfill sites or tire dumps, they can leach toxic chemicals into their surroundings, and with tires taking up to 80 years to decompose, this is a long time for this to be happening.
Landfill leachate can contaminate nearby water sources and the surrounding soil, which reduces its quality and fertility. It may also cause harm to aquatic ecosystems and surrounding wildlife.”
The UK has banned landfill tyre disposal since the 2006 EU Landfill Directive further showcasing the negative impact on the environment to incur a ban.
Tyre production itself is also unsustainable due to the high usage of fossil fuels in tyre composition. Tyre producer giant Michelin states that at least 60% of the rubber used in the tyre industry comes from synthetic rubber, which is a product derived from fossil fuels. Pyrolysing tyres to create fuel just adds another extra step to the fossil fuels life, ultimately still being released into the air as CO2 emissions during a flight.
Decreasing emissions by not shipping tyres
Currently the UK produces over 50 million waste tyres in a year. Of this 50 million tyres a large portion is “exported for disposal in landfill or incineration in cement production, one of the world’s worst industries for carbon emissions.” The Global Cement and Concrete Association released a report stating that “Cement production is responsible for 7-8% of current global CO2 emissions”. Redirecting tyres can be perceived as a way to avoid more CO2 emissions by the cement industry, but this is not the case.
The Sunderland plant is expected to be able to process up to 10 million tyres annually. These tyres will end up as SAF and be consumed on a flight releasing CO2 into the atmosphere anyway. What redirecting a potential 10 million tyres causes is for the cement industry to burn other resources for fuel, so invariably more resources are getting burned for fuel, possibly even fossil fuels themselves. This means CO2 emissions stay up, at least until cement is produced by a green process.
Emissions during the flight
Back in 2023, on 23 November Virgin Atlantic flew the world’s very first flight using 100% SAF. The emissions for the flight were exactly the same as a regular flight as “When Virgin Atlantic crossed the ocean using only SAF, it produced the same amount of in-flight carbon emissions as any other plane.” So how exactly is SAF going to be more sustainable?
The ‘sustainability’ of SAF
Airlines and experts claim that SAF has fewer lifetime carbon emissions than producing jet fuel. Virgin Atlantic states that “The fuel, made from waste products, delivers CO2 lifecycle emissions savings of up to 70%.” What this means is compared to other fuels, we still release CO2 into the air, just less than the others. So is this really sustainable?
And it could be worse?
If the heat for pyrolysis comes from fossil fuels then even more CO2 will be released. It is also important to note that no conversion process is 100% efficient. CONTEC, a company that employs pyrolysis to recover materials from tyres, states that “pyrolysis reduces up to 100 per cent of waste in terms of weight and volume”. However they also mention that the process does release emissions. “Pollutants released by pyrolysis are little or negligible”. Even if called ‘little’ or ‘negligible’, pyrolysis does in fact produce emissions.
Unsustainable? Yes
At the end of the day, no matter how they brand it, tyre derived fuel is still unsustainable. CO2 will still be released into the atmosphere, and it will still harm the environment. Sunderland’s SAF plant will not be sustainable and will only aid in the process of releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. SAF, which is being portrayed as the saving grace of the aviation industry, is nothing more than a greenwashing ploy. A recent report by Carbon Brief explores how SAF will only cut UK aviation emissions by 0.8% below the current level by 2040.
At the moment there is only one way aviation can become sustainable. As Cait Hewitt, policy director for the Aviation Environment Federation is quoted in The Guardian as saying: “for now, the only way to cut CO2 from aviation is to fly less.”
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