Boeing invests in Canadian SAF ventures

Boeing is injecting CAD17.48m ($12.6m) into two Canadian sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) initiatives as part of its Industrial and Technological Benefits commitment to Canada, stemming from Canada’s acquisition of Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon aircraft.

The move aligns with Canada’s ambition to produce 1bn liters of SAF by 2030.

The larger portion of the investment, CAD10m ($7.2m), goes to Project Avance, a joint venture between Bioénergie AECN and Alder Renewables in Port Cartier, Quebec. This project will convert wood waste from sawmills into a low-carbon biocrude, which can then be transformed into SAF. Production is slated for 2027, with the potential for future Quebec projects to generate 10m gallons of unblended SAF annually.

“This significant investment in SAF production demonstrates our commitment to scaling SAF and to our work in Canada,” said Al Meinzinger, president, Boeing Canada.

Serge Mercier, president of Bioénergie AECN, added: “The technology that we will utilise with Alder Renewables has the potential for full commercial deployment across Quebec’s forest regions, creating new revenue streams for a legacy industry and helping to decarbonise aviation, one of the hardest-to-abate sectors.”

The remaining CAD7.48m ($5.4m) will be invested in Dimensional Energy, a power-to-liquid technology provider. Dimensional Energy is studying the scaling of a project that converts industrial CO2 emissions into synthetic aviation fuels.

“With this funding, our engineering team in Houston, Texas, is already underway with front-end engineering and design to support commercial SAF production using our proprietary Fischer-Tropsch and Reverse-Water-Gas-Shift process technologies. This essential pre-development capital will catalyse projects and scale our proven power-to-liquid technology to market now,” said Jason Salfi, CEO of Dimensional Energy.