The SAF Podcast: CleanJoule – Making the most of what’s been granted

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On this week’s episode Mukund Karanjikar, CEO, CleanJoule joins Oscar on The SAF Podcast to discuss their approach to accessing biomass to create sustainable aviation fuel.

Listen in to hear Mukund’s thoughts on the debate around the availability of waste biomass as a feedstock to accommodate demand levels and the importance of Carbon Intensity (CI) scores for CleanJoule and biomass. We also look at the role that government grants have had in helping CleanJoule get to their current stage, since their founding in 2009. Mukund highlights how critical these grants are, highlighting the example of Tesla and other start ups that rely on government funding.

We also look at the signals of long term certainty and how the current form of the Inflation Reduction Act could do more in financial support for producers, potentially looking at aligning with oil prices to truly unlock SAF production, rather than the maximum $1.75 currently available. We also discuss how targets like the SAF Grand Challenge and mandates align with financial incentives to to give longer term certainty to investors, and what we can expect to see in 2027 when the current tax incentives expire.

We end the discussion by looking at the private consortium that invested in them including three airlines (Frontier, Wizz Air and Volaris) and two decarbonisation investment funds (GenZero and Cleanhill Partners). This is an optimistic tale of airlines engaging in securing their decarbonised future and poses the inevitable question of should/could they be doing more?

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2202964/15427620