Stewart Stewart | Nova Pangaea Technologies | Boring is beautiful

Date: 14 October 2026

On this week’s episode of The SAF Podcast we welcome back Nova Pangaea Technologies (NPT) for the first time since 2023. 10 months into his role as CEO, Stewart Stewart, we discuss what attracted him to SAF and get some updates from NPT.

We cover a variety of topics including:

• Why energy ventures fail: it’s rarely the chemistry, it’s the handoffs between science, engineering, finance and the first commercial plant. 
• A reminder of NPT’s REFNOVA process which turns forestry and agricultural waste into second-generation sugars and biochar. The sugars become ethanol, which goes to SAF via alcohol-to-jet, while the biochar locks carbon into soil, making the fuel carbon negative on a lifecycle basis.
• The campaign two at the Wilton demonstration plant in Teesside delivered more than three days of stable, continuous operation, validated externally by Fichtner. His verdict: “boring is beautiful”, since every uneventful hour turns investor imagination into operating data.
• We discuss what is next up on the horizon as the NPT scale up continues. 
• Project Speedbird, with IAG/British Airways and LanzaJet, gives the company a clear route to market and a single killer app. Nova Pangaea provides the ethanol, LanzaJet the alcohol-to-jet technology, and IAG the offtake.
• On LanzaJet’s Freedom Pines facility, he’s watching closely but notes Nova Pangaea has fallback options: other alcohol-to-jet plants and road fuels
• Stewart argues the industry should reward emissions reduction, not just litres produced. Under the UK SAF mandate, Nova Pangaea can monetise its biochar sequestration through additional SAF certificates, delivering two to three times the carbon impact of other fuels.
• Sceptical of shipping feedstock around the world: with around 80% of European used cooking oil and tallow imported from Southeast Asia Stewart highlights HEFA supply security and sees book-and-claim as the more honest decarbonisation route.
• Finally we touch on NPT’s continual fundraising and how much time this ends up taking from Stewart’s schedule.

Check out the full episode to find out all the details.