(Credit: Canva Pro)Gevo has partnered with a subsidiary of McDermott International to develop sustainable aviation fuel facilities in North America. The first facility, Net-Zero 1, will be located near Lake Preston, South Dakota, and is expected to produce up to 65 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), diesel, and renewable gasoline with a net-zero greenhouse gas footprint.
McDermott will provide front-end engineering and early planning services, along with execution planning and pricing for the engineering, procurement, and construction phase of the Net-Zero 1 project. The partnership is a step towards finalizing the EPC agreement in coordination with Gevo's financing activities.
The project intends to ensure cost-effectiveness, reliability, and scalability to meet the growing demand for sustainable aviation fuel and renewable hydrocarbons. This collaboration enhances Gevo's capabilities in project execution and modularization.
The Net-Zero 1 facility holds immense potential, not only in sustainable aviation fuel production but also in generating 550 million pounds of high-value nutritional products annually. It will operate on wind energy, ensuring an environmentally friendly approach to fuel production. Moreover, the use of renewable natural gas from captured methane emissions of dairy cattle and livestock will further enhance the plant's sustainability.
Gevo uses low-carbon renewable resources as raw materials and is developing renewable electricity and natural gas for its production processes, resulting in low-carbon fuels with reduced greenhouse gas emissions compared to standard fossil-based fuels. McDermott, on the other hand, provides engineering and construction solutions to the energy industry.
The partnership between Gevo and McDermott is aligned with a number of other airlines and companies eager to pursue a net-zero fuel option. In the past few months, Virgin Atlantic, Boeing, and Emirates have all announced their intentions of pursuing SAF options.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel was first introduced in 2011, and at the time, it was an expensive option compared to fossil-based fuel. However, with more and more companies pursuing the reduction of carbon emissions, increased production of SAF will help improve the cost-parity. According to the a study from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, 4.5 millions gallons of SAF produced in 2020, and with the increased interest in SAF, that number has surely increased in the past three years.
The project will be led by McDermott's team in Houston, Texas, with support from its engineering team in Gurugram, India.
