(TAN): United plans to turn microalgae into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through the first new investment of its recently announced UAV Sustainable Flight Fund since its launch: algae biofuel company Viridos, the airline said in a news release.
This USD 5 million investment will support the production of SAF made from algae, which the company says is an abundant and scalable resource that can be grown and harvested without impacting the food supply chain.
Viridos specializes in the bioengineering of microalgae. Its proprietary technology accelerates the amount of oil that can be produced from microalgae. This algae oil could then be used to scale the future production of SAF.
SAF is an alternative to conventional jet fuel that, on a lifecycle basis, reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with air travel compared to conventional jet fuel alone. SAF is made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste, and, in the future, could be made from other feedstocks, including household trash, forest waste, or algae. To date, United has invested in the future production of over 3 billion gallons of SAF.
“SAF is proven, scalable, and the best tool we have to reduce our carbon emissions from flying, but we face a significant shortage of available feedstock,” said United Airlines Ventures President Mike Leskinen. “Viridos’ algae-based biofuel technology has the potential to help solve our supply problem without the need for farmland or other agricultural resources and marks our inaugural investment in our new cross-industry UAV Sustainable Flight Fund.”
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