The EU-funded project ICARUS – International Cooperation for Sustainable Aviation Biofuels – is dedicated to advancing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production by addressing critical technology limitations for three pivotal SAF production routes: biocrude from hydrothermal liquefaction to SAF, isobutanol from lignocellulosic biomass to SAF, and synthetic Fischer-Tropsch fuels from biomass gasification to SAF. These three value chains have been strategically chosen due to their proximity to market and their indispensable role in achieving European and international SAF deployment targets.

ICARUS builds on a strong international consortium of 20 reputed partners including 5 partners from three Mission Innovation Countries (MIC) Canada, India and Brazil, and two partners from USA joining R&I activities as members of the External Executive Advisory Board (EEAB).
 

For more information, please visit the ICARUS website: www.icarus-biojet.eu
 

Activities and results from the ICARUS project were presented by Francisco Girio, LNEG - Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia from Portugal at the 32nd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE 2024) in Marseille, 24-27 June 2024. EUBCE was also attended and used for networking and knowledge exchange by several ICARUS partners: CRES, LNEG, TNO, NTNU, WIP, DBFZ, UNIBO, BIOREF, NovelYeast, and KM-IIC.

Prof. Girio presented outcomes of first ICARUS reports on SAF standards: Defining fuel quality, regulatory framework and policy initiatives in Europe and Mission Innovation Countries, and challenges to SAF market deployment. Today, despite the large potential of SAF, significant barriers hinder its widespread adoption and market penetration. Such barriers include high costs with respect to conventional fuels, significant up-scaling needs for SAF production capacity, logistical challenges for adapting existing airport infrastructure as well as the sustainable sourcing of feedstock for SAF production. All these barriers will be addressed during the implementation of the ICARUS project.

The ICARUS presentation at EUBCE is available:
 

This ICARUS workshop aimed to present and discuss the various policies on SAF with the objective to deliberate which policies and legislative actions facilitate the market uptake of SAF. A critical issue discussed was the role of research and innovation in facilitating policy and market deployment of SAF.

The workshop was organized by ICARUS partner Kyriakos Maniatis and kindly supported by Maria Georgiadou from the European Commission, DG RTD.

The first workshop session included presentations by Maria Georgiadou, DG RTD on supporting policies on European level promoting and stimulating innovation in the field of SAF, and Ewa Oney, DG MOVE, on the European policy initiative ReFuelEU Aviation. The ICARUS coordinator Myrsini Christou from CRES presented an overview on project activities and results, and Preeti Jain from IATA underlined commitments from International Air Transport Association (IATA) member airlines to achieve net-zero carbon emissions from their operations by 2050. Such decarbonization targets for the aviation sector will heavily rely on a massive increase in SAF production in order to meet the expected demand.

The second workshop session served to present and compare policy initiatives and actions in the field of SAF in the EU and UK as well as in key Mission Innovation Countries (MIC) being Brazil, Canada, China, India, and USA.

Our special thanks for their informative and concise presentations go to Daniel Lira, Instituto Senai de Energias Renováveis, Brazil; Warren Mabee, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada; Prof. Shizhong Li, Tsinghua University, China; Mr. Ramakrishna YB, India; Cato Sandford, Cerulogy, UK; and Ling Tao, NREL, USA.

Kyriakos Maniatis presented first comparative results for different policy measures and tools employed in different countries worldwide. Today, only the EU and US have enacted legislation for the deployment of SAF. Mandates have been adopted in the EU and are planned in Brazil and India while Canada, China and the USA are basing their policies on volumetric targets. Only the EU has a specific mandate for eSAF, also including hydrogen from nuclear electricity. Within the ICARUS project the development of policy initiatives and actions in the field of SAF will be continuously monitored and comparative analyses will be regularly reported.

Finally, Kees Kwant from NL Enterprise Agency moderated a panel discussion on “The role of Mission Innovation in enabling SAF deployment”.

All workshop presentations and the recording are available.
 

Upon initiative of ICARUS partner Franziska Müller-Langer, DBFZ who serves a National German team leader of IEA Bioenergy TCP Task 39: Biofuels to Decarbonize Transport, a joint webinar on "Enhanced Innovative Technologies for a global production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels" will take place on 5 September 2024, 16:00 – 17:30.

Enhanced innovative technologies are of high importance to expedite the global expansion of sustainable aviation biofuels (SAF) production. With a special focus on the EU and Mission Innovation countries like Brazil, India and Canada involving the IEA Bioenergy TCP Task 39, the ICARUS project aims to foster the development of optimal methodologies, rooted in enhanced innovative technologies, and conceptual frameworks grounded in market access insights on the entire value chain.

This webinar attempts to introduce the objectives of the ICARUS project connected with IEA Bioenergy Task 39 activities on SAF technologies as well as certification schemes promoting SAF with low GHG emissions. The webinar will be moderated by Franziska Müller-Langer, DBFZ and include presentations by Myrsini Christou, CRES, Kyriakos Maniatis and José Muisers, Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), National Dutch team leader at IEA Bioenergy TCP Task 39.

Information on this webinar will be made available at the ICARUS website.

The organization of an ICARUS Workshop on "International R&I Cooperation on Sustainable Aviation Fuels" on the occasion of the BBEST & IEA Bioenergy Conference 2024 - Bioenergy and bioproducts: Accelerating the transition towards sustainability was agreed upon with the conference organizers.

The BBEST – IEA Bioenergy 2024 Conference will take place in São Paulo, the capital city of the São Paulo state, Brazil, from 22-24 October 2024.

The BBEST conference is organized every three years by the FAPESP (Research Foundation of the Brazilian State of São Paulo) Bioenergy Research Program (BIOEN), the Bioenergy Society (SBE), and the Brazilian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SBBq). In 2024, the conference will be cohosted with the IEA Bioenergy Conference, becoming a unique opportunity to discuss advances in bioenergy around the world. Topics discussed among the large international audience include development of biorefineries and emerging advanced bioproducts and materials, bioelectricity, biofuels for air, sea and road transport, waste use for bioenergy production and strategies for the circular carbon economy.

This workshop as well as the participation of several ICARUS partners at the conference will serve to disseminate ICARUS activities and results among stakeholders from the international Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) sector (especially from the Mission Innovation Country Brazil) and the IEA Bioenergy research & innovation community.

Furthermore, collaboration links will be strengthened with representatives from the Brazilian ICARUS partners SENAI-RN and SENAI-CIMATEC, and the Horizon Europe project BioTheRoS - Collaborative Actions to Bring Novel Biofuels Thermochemical Routes into Industrial Scale, aiming to accelerate the production of sustainable biofuels via thermochemical conversion technologies.

Our thanks go to the following speakers and panelists contributing to the success of this ICARUS workshop: Laís Thomaz, Federal University of Goiás, Advisor to the Brazilian National Secretariat of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels; Myrsini Christou, CRES, Greece; Francisco Girio, LNEG, Portugal; Giovanny Oliveira, SENAI-ER, Brazil; Rainer Janssen, WIP Renewable Energies; Jose Muisers, IEA Bioenergy Task 39, RVO, The Netherlands; Carolina Grassi, RSB, and Andrea Sonnleitner, BEST, Austria.

Further information on this workshop is available at:
 

Registration for the ICARUS workshop and the BBEST & IEA Bioenergy Conference 2024 is possible at: Registration - BBEST & IEA Bioenergy Conference 2024 (bbest-ieabioenergy.org)