The potential scale-up of sustainable aviation fuels production capacity to meet global and EU policy targets

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) can reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions, yet their production scale-up to meet policy goals remains unexplored. Here, we describe the Global SAF Capacity Database to quantify global and European Union (EU) SAF capacity, comparing it to production capacity announcements. Despite announcements of 9.1 Mt year−1 (2.2 Mt year−1 in the EU) by 2024 and 38.9 Mt year−1 (9.3 Mt year−1 in the EU) by 2030, only 24% (26% in the EU) of the announced capacity was realized on time by 2024. Over 40% of the announced capacity for 2030 risks delays or cancellations. Using a diffusion model parametrized by announced capacity, realization rates, expected demand, and historical growth analogs, we calculate SAF potential scale-up to meet net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Even if SAF follows the rapid scale-up of solar and wind energy, the global and EU capacity will fall short of respective targets by 42% and 18% in 2030, and 7% and 5% in 2050. Sustainable aviation fuels production scale-up is slow. By 2024, only 24% of the capacity planned to be in production had been realized and more than 40% of year 2030 plans risk delays. Even with a solar/wind-like rapid scale-up, global and EU SAF capacity will miss 2030 and 2050 policy targets.