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Join Andy Marsland in Exploring Clean Energy where we uncover the ideas, innovations, and projects powering our sustainable future.
You may know us as Exploring Hydrogen, where for 31 episodes we’ve shone a spotlight hydrogen. However, our global challenge of decarbonisation is much bigger than one energy vector.
Now, as we continue as The Exploring Clean Energy Podcast, this 2nd season we’re expanding the conversation to include the other stories that are shaping the energy transition of Australia and the world. We hope you enjoy the diversity of thought, and I welcome you so engage with me to help shape the episodes moving forward – so we can bring you the technical experts and projects that you want to hear about and to answer your important questions. Welcome to our energising journey.
?You are listening to exploring Clean Energy, where we uncover the ideas, innovations, and projects powering our sustainable future. I'm Andy Marsland. Welcome to the show.
I'm thrilled to welcome our guest today, Neil Garner, who is the executive manager for Jet Zero Australia. So a very warm welcome, Neil. Thanks very much, Andy. It's good to meet you. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for being on the Exploring Clean Energy Podcast. So. Let's start at a high level. Could you explain to the listeners, uh, what is saf?
Yep. So saf, which basically stands for Sustainable Aviation Fuel. So it's basically a liquid jet fuel that's made from non-fossil fuel equivalents. So your traditional jet fuel. It could come from sources such as agricultural waste byproducts, sustainably grown crops that you can then convert into saf.
The benefit, therefore of SAF is that it helps lower the emissions of the aviation industry by anywhere between about 60 and up to over 85% on a lifecycle basis. The key point about SAF is it's a drop in fuel as well, so it's approved by what's called A STM, which is the American stems approval body that will certify that these products, if they're followed certain pathway, can be blended up to 50% basis with conventional jet fuel to lower the emissions of the aviation industry.
And as a, a drop in fuel, you mean they can use the existing equipment on the plane rather than having to build a whole new plane around the, around the technology. And then, yeah, I guess take, taking a step back. 'cause so the options are for decarbonization in the aviation space. I mean, there's certain organizations that are looking at, uh, electric, which may have its use cases, and then SAF and hydrogen, whether that's, you know, potentially liquid hydrogen or liquid hydrogen going into a.
Combustion or a fuel cell technology. So kind of unpacking that a little bit further, uh, yeah. What are the advantages of, of SAF then? Yeah, no, good call. Okay. So you hit the nail on the head there around SAF being a drop in fuel means it can be used in the existing planes, it can be used through the existing infrastructure.
So think about the money that's been invested in the aviation industry globally. Significant. Significant. Mm-hmm Particularly when planes have an asset life of, you know, 20 to 40 years plus. And these are significant investments. So having, you know, a solution that's available now that can work with existing plane fuse large, that can work with existing infrastructure is significant.
There's a lot of work going in batteries, there's a lot of work going on hydrogen and other options to try and decarbonize the aviation industry. The kind of challenges though, that you face with that is batteries at the moment are just too heavy. For long haul flights and I'm focusing on a long haul flight here in particular.
Just read my notes just to make sure I get these numbers right. But um, yeah, SAF has roughly 40 times the energy density of batteries. Wow. So just think about the size of a plane. You'd need to have just that many batteries. Yeah. It's just not viable at the moment. Focusing on hydrogen, which you mentions SAF, is about four times the energy density of.
Hydrogen. The other issue with hydrogen though, is how you store it. You know, that negative 160 x, you know, whatever degrees Fahrenheit, how manage all the infrastructure to meet that, it's just not viable for the next, uh, the next two decades plus. And so that's why SAF is widely regarded as the near and medium term solution for globally.
Interesting. And so you guys are looking at both the AL alcohol. Side of things as, as well. And yeah, may, maybe you can talk about the sort of feed stocks and potential feed stocks, um, for stuff. Yep, no worries. Alright, I'll just, and I recognize you wanna talk about Jet Zero later, but I just wanna make one point up front, which is Jet Zero is technology agnostic and that's a key point.
Mm. There are about 11 pathways approved under A STM to produce sustainable aviation fuel. However, out of those 11 pathways, many of these are in their infancy. Like that just, you know, very early stage. R and d pilot scale. Whereas to try and get the SAF industry up and running, we need advanced near term commercialized projects.
And it's called to use engineering term at a high technical readiness level, so TRL. So what Jet Zero do is we focus on TRL seven and higher. Which basically means that it's proven at scale, at at a commercial scale. And then what we can then do is take that forward and expand the scale to start getting the learning curves, the economies of scale, but also that's critical from a bankability perspective.
Yeah. So to build on that, you heard about the alcohol to jet and the heifer pathways. So we believe that they are the most advanced SAF pathways. They are both the highest TRL level heifer is actually how all SAF is currently made. Globally, right? Wow. Yeah. With one exception there. However, Lanza Jet have just commercialized alcohol jet Pathway through their facility in Freedom Pines in America, in Georgia.
Now this is critical for the industry 'cause what they've done now by producing the firsts through that facility is proven up a second pathway that can now be commercialized. Jet Zero have very, very good relationship with LANs Jet. We've worked with 'em for over three years. We actually signed the first global license agreement with them to use their alcohols jet technology on our project here in Australia called Ulysses.
Awesome. So the aim there is just be a fast follower, take their technology that's now proven. Mm-hmm. Scale it up three times, deliver as quick as we can. What's the feed stock then for, for that process? So for the alcohol jets, use ethanols, the feedstock, cph, ethanol can come from a variety of sources.
Typically you'll use from sugarcane, from corn waste, wheated, starch, other prospective feed stocks for alcohol's jet would be things like agave. Instead making tequila, just use it for Ethan. Ethanol to convert to staff. You talked about heifer pathway, so for those on on the line, heifer uses used cooking oil, tallow oil seeds as a key feedstock that you can then convert through a slight different process.
As I said before, heif is the main pathway for. SAF production globally at the moment. The issue though is you are quite constrained on feed stocks. Mm. There's only so much tallow or only so much used cooking oil available in the world. So the concern with heifer is you're gonna saturate the feed stock market very quickly and it's gonna get very competitive for that.
The opportunity for the heifer pathway though, is start looking at new feedstocks and yeah, there's things like po Gar and other such like, so non-edible oils, things like that. You could also use canola. That presents a signal of opportunity for us here in Australia where we have the ability to grow those kind of crops.
Yeah. It's interesting that you brought that point up. 'cause I think quite often the, the naysayers as it were about SAP is saying, you know, it's, it's never gonna be the solution for the aviation industry because there's not that, that level of feedstock there. But from what you're saying, these, these are advances for other feedstocks and then the alcohol to jet options or opportunities.
Do you foresee it being the solution for the whole of the aviation industry? Yep. For long haul. Okay. To answer that question, I believe it's the near and medium term solution. I'm hoping long term there will be advances in feedstock, advance in technology, and who knows what's gonna come down the line.
And to be honest, that's what excites me about the industry. To your concern around feed stocks, when I was first, uh, talking to Jet Zero about working here after I had the same concerns, yeah. I immediately thought of. Deforestation. Yeah. For palm oil or used cooking oil being tampered with. 'cause it's gaining a higher price than virgin cook oil.
Right? Which is literally happening globally. So those kind of risks really provide negative view on the industry around the risks. But what the industry have done very, very, very well, I've since learned, is just having the processes, the certification, the transparency across the full supply chain to ensure that.
The feedstocks we're using the processing, the certification across the end-to-end supply chain is all proven, it's all traceable and that we are genuinely abating the emissions to the amount that we claim. And the reason that's important is what's driving this is corporates government commitments around.
Decarbonization across the full supply chain. If you don't have that provenance and can't prove exactly how you've delivered it, then you're gonna have issues at the back end around the claims that you are making. Yeah, and it is quite a complex process, isn't it? 'cause you quite often, you're not be gonna be able to secure the, the staff at the, at the the point it's produced.
So yeah. How is the industry kind of combating. Traceability aspect of it. Yep. Okay. So there's a, there's a thing called book and claim, which, you know, trying to simplify this a bit. You've heard of blockchain technology? Yes. Yeah. Basically, it's the ability of having irrefutable data along a key supply chain.
So what we're looking at here is there's, there's two areas we've focused on this at the start, there's a group called, which is the carbon offset. At a global level, let's take a step back, right at a global level. The aviation industry have done very well to jointly agree at airline and government level to decarbonization targets to try and avoid these concerns around traceability unwarranted claims.
They've then implemented corer. As a certification body to assure and approve the feedstocks, the certification, the reductions in emissions. So through that process, that gives users confidence in the process being followed and what's being delivered. You then use blockchain and book and claim process to then make sure that across the full supply chain you have the traceability.
So say I'm a corporate. I say I've reduced my missions because I've procured SAF to freight product on or move, you know, for my staff to fly on. I can now through blockchain and the book and claim system now see all the way along the supply chain, where the feed stocks come from, how it was certified, how it's transported to the relevant plant, how it's processed, how it's then moved to the ends airport and combusted.
Yeah. But having that traceability allows me as a. As a corporation to put my hand on my heart and say I've genuinely reduced my emissions. That sounds fantastic. And sounds like significant processes or improvements have been made, particularly to get the global industry on board, isn't it? It's, uh, you know, I think, uh, all too often there's all duplication across the world, so it's quite.
Nice and reassuring to hear that, uh, in the aviation industry that's happening and how, how is that working, you know, practically at the moment. Yep. So it, it's working well so far, and you're exactly right. Like what they've achieved in the aviation industry is significant. Look at what Marine are trying to achieve through the IMO slash marriage organization.
Just a spin, delayed another 12 months, exactly like they're trying to do the same thing. Mm-hmm. It's just a real struggle. Why is the aviation industry being so successful? It goes back to our previous point. They realize that SAF is the only near and medium term solution for long term, for long haul travel.
Yep. I think that's how they're able to get it through how well it's working. So the other thing that's really benefiting the SAF industry is you've got the airlines and governments who are now aligned on these decarbonization commitments. What governments are now doing is implementing policy to make sure that that's met.
So globally, you're seeing a lot of countries mandate the use of saf, like, I'll give some examples. I've got here. EU have a 1% blend mandate of saf, which was introduced in 2025. That increases to 6% in 23 and then onwards from there, UK 2% blend mandates. By 2025, Japan introduced in to 10% blend by 2030. What that's doing now is it's legislating the offtake of.
SAF and it's really pushing the whole industry to get on board and embrace it and make sure that it's genuinely delivered onto meet those targets. The other thing that that does though, as well is it says to the market, we're serious about this, and it provides the demand certainty. That's necessary to then underpin the finance in the delivery of those projects.
Yeah. Which is key. It is key. I mean, these projects are billions of dollars. Mm-hmm. Like, so they're very capital intensive and this is quite a new emerging industry. So say an investor with a certain amount of capital to deploy, if you're looking at a new. Emerging, relatively nascent industry on technology tech A TJ.
That's slowly getting proven up. You're gonna want high capital returns on that, but it's very difficult though for, um, to provide that in a relatively high cost new emerging industry as well. Like think about the way in industry evolves as well. You have all these learning curves up front and then slowly over time through more efficient delivery, you start again, economies of scale.
You start coming down the learning curve. That's the challenge that we're facing at the moment. Yes. Yep. You didn't mention Australia, would you comment on legislation o over here if there is any, and Yep. You know, if you were in the, in the big seat, what would policy look like over here to try and encourage that staff up uptake?
Yep. So, good question. You're right. I didn't, we didn't mention Australia. Unfortunately, the moment we don't, we have a lot of support, but we don't actually have clear policy here in Australia. So we are a bit of a laggard in that regard. I mean, uh, listed a few countries, but. There's a lot globally who are now mandated.
We currently do not have a mandate within Australia, but we know the government are actively looking at that. In fact, there is a consultation process act at the moment. Yeah. Seeking industry feedback. There was another one back end of last year. So the government recognized this opportunity and they're recognized the need.
So what they're now doing is working with industry to try and work out the optimum. Policy framework and what's gonna support the industry and Australia in general. The benefit about being a laggard is probably, shouldn't use that word too much benefit about being behind some of the other countries is we can take the best of all the other policies that people have implemented.
We can see how they're working and I think that's the opportunity for us here in Australia because. We have a genuine opportunity here of being a global leader in biofuels if we can just get this right policy and the right support. Another point I wanna make on this as well is corporates are actually leading the charge at the moment.
So Qantas, for example, back in, I think it's 2022, made a commitment to procure 10% of their jet fuel to be SAF by 2030. That's a massive commitment. Fantastic. How could they do that? The reason they did that is behind them, they have what's called a SAF coalition. A group of corporates who've all agreed and jointly committed through their own ESG commitments to reduce their Scope three emissions.
So they went to Qantas and said, okay, we want you to start procuring SAF so we can reduce our scope three. And that then gave Qantas the confidence to then go out and start making these commitments around SAF procurement. Yeah, well Qantas did well then, is they worked with Airbus and created a, a SAF funds $200 million to start trying to help new emerging players in this area and help catalyze the industry.
So it's great to see, as I said, corporations really leading the charge in this area and showing the criticality of this and the need. I think gives the government the confidence for the overarching policy in place to really better it down and drive it forward. Great stuff. You've given the audience a, a fantastic overview of the basics of, of stuff and the pathways, the opportunity and the de demand increase, the criticality of why it needs to be happening.
Let's kind of bring that all together and talk about Jet Zero and then, uh, let's talk about your organization and where, where you're up to and perhaps some of the projects. One thing I just wanna do first, just, I just wanna nail the point on growth. Okay. So through all these demands and mandates and the decarbonization commitments globally, you're seeing significant growth in this.
So I remember seeing, um, Hannah from Bowen on one of your previous presentations Oh, yes. Which is really good. Yeah. She talks about how the aviation industry contributes about two to 3% of global emissions. That's increasing, expected to increase unless they move towards saf. So the current forecast about five to 6% by 2050 if we do nothing.
Wow. So the demand for SAF is around about 450 billion liters by 2050. That represents around about 25% compound annual growth rate. Per annum over the next two and a half decades. 25% per annum, per annum. Compound annual growth. I dunno about you, but that, that's pretty exciting. It just makes the SAF industry one of the fastest scale in fuel transitions ever in the world.
Like that's the excitement for me, and that's the excitement for the industry. So with that backdrop, what's Jet Zero? What are we doing? Why are we created Jet Zero? Is we're, we're proudly Australian. Make that point first. We are a SAF project developer and aspiring operator. We have founded in 2021 to reduce the missions for the aviation industry.
So I gave you the background on Airbus and Qantas. Airbus and Quants invested in us very early on. In the project deliberately to help us get, to help us establish ourselves and start creating this industry while catalyzing the industry. We also received early grant support from the Queensland government.
It was a small value, I think it was 660,000 off the top of my head, but that value was critical at the time. It allowed us to start doing early stage design, build up the key relationships with the likes of Lanza Jet, who you've mentioned. Start understanding how this industry works and how we could start driving this forward.
As I said before, with technology agnostic, we focus on proven technology that we can commercialize quickly, and that's critical. If you deploy capital chase in lots of early stage r and D projects, you're gonna run outta money very quickly. Quickly through quickly. Exactly. Yeah. So what we need is just to get a few key projects up and running in in Australia, prove out the.
The concept that will then show the pathway for all other developers behind us. We've come from very much an northern and gas background. We've all got expertise in, yeah, the technology, the technical side, the commercial side, supply chain, and critically the financing side. So we're a small, nimble team, but we all bring that expertise and that.
Major project mindset that we can then apply to the implementation of this. We are developing two projects in Australia at the moment, two SAF projects. One is called Ulysses, which is, that's it sounds or one is it? That's it, yeah. So Ulysses is the most advanced SAF projects in Australia at the moment, which is taken alcohol to jet technology.
So that's taken. Roughly 200 million liters of ethanol in, and it'll produce roughly a hundred million liters of SAF and about 11 million liters of renewable diesel. That technology that has the ability to flex between the two products, so depending on market conditions, you can actually increase the volume of RD that's produced, sorry, renewable diesel.
The amount of staff we're currently in feed on that project, um, we're targeting what's called final investment decision in the second half of next year, 2026. That's key. What we need to do between now and FID is obviously progress, the engineering to try and get that as accurate as we can. That will then inform the procurement costs of what the fall.
Plants gonna cost from a CapEx perspective. The aim is to obviously try and get that down to as narrow an estimate as possible. That then gives our investors confidence on both the debt and equity side to bank that project and get it up and running. Mm-hmm. So that is our sole focus at the moment. The second project is called Mandala.
So this is in Gladstone. This uses the heifer pathway. Feedstock for that is tallow used cook oil and domestic canola. We're also looking at other native crops, for example, ponga as future Feedstock. Mandala. We've just literally completed feasibility on that. Board review. Is tomorrow on the final numbers?
Yeah. Good look. Yeah. Thank you for that. And then the aim is to then move towards, yeah, pre-feed, feed on the next stages on that one. So Lanza Jett involved in the, in the Townsville. Yeah. Project Ulysses. How are things going up there? Uh, maybe a, a social license perspective. And is your relationship with a local community?
Pretty good. Yeah, good question. Good work folks on this. So community is critical in this. One of the things I love about SAF is most of the feedstock comes from the regional areas and that's, that's critical. Like farming industry in particular faces so many challenges. Regional growth is also faces a lot of challenges.
So to start creating new industries that support the regions is excellent to be involved in. What we've found so far is very positive engagement from the communities. We've held many, many, many. Community engagement sessions up there, which has been excellent. We are heavily involved, for example, with NRL Cowboys House, so we work in partnership with them where we support Aboriginal and Torres Strait students from remote and disadvantaged communities where they can learn about general wellbeing and education.
But. Also focused very much on aviation and the SAF industry and it's been really interesting to Oh, cool. To, to be involved in that. Mm-hmm. We all start things like we work with the healthy waters, partnerships through the dry topic, dry tropics, things like that. And I think by, even though, you know, we're a new growing company, but by Community First Focus has just helped deliver these very positive results also.
Through the state government have been excellent in supporting us there as well in the local councils, local members. So yeah, feedback so far has been very positive. There's still concerns around, you know, where's all the feedstock coming from? How do we meet feedstock volumes in the future? We have the traceability for the feedstock for the first project.
We believe there are opportunities for new feedstocks to be coming from the regions in the future. And I'll touch on that a bit later on as well, if you want. Yeah, great. Hence the, uh, your company motto. Bringing the, uh, the regions to the runway. Yep. That's it. That's it. So how, how would you choose the regional locations then, or how have you selected use See in Mandala?
So there's a few key things you need here. In order to build these projects, you need access to, ideally as close to the water as you can to bring large modules in for construction of these kind of assets is probably one of the biggest risks on this. Second to financing. So being able to minimize the construction risk by bringing in modular design is critical for us and it'll be critical for.
Nearly all SAF projects globally. Another key point for us is you need roughly two times talking about alcohol jet two times the amount of feedstock to the amount of product you produce. So if you can minimize the movement of the feedstock, then obviously you're gonna have lower costs on your logistics.
So you ideally wanna be close to regional feedstock areas. We believe that Queensland particular has a very good advance in this area, particularly around Townsville and Gladstone. So that's why we're focused on those areas primarily. Sorry to jump in. So where's that loss from or where do you need twice the feedstock to energy usage or Yeah.
What, what's the difference? Yeah. It's the process and techniques it goes through, basically. Yep. You need to break down the, the carbon atoms of the ethanol. Mm-hmm. You then add hydrogen, um, hydrogen in, and then you have to basically break it back up to the chains and then think about traditional refining.
Processes as fractionation. Then you get the SAF off the top and you get renewable diesel off the bottom. So just through that process, it's incredibly efficient. Like the waste streams are minimal. But yeah, you need roughly two times amount of feed stock to the on the output. Sorry. Yeah, please continue.
No, that's good. I like it. Yeah, I'm just showing. Well, so I can add to that really. I just think the reason why I think the community has been so behind this is within Australia, we import roughly 90% of our liquid fuels. So we import it from overseas. That makes you very dependent on international trade, different supply chains in times of conflict war.
That is a major risk for us. So yeah, I think the regions defense government recognize the benefits of starting to refine our own products here within Australia. Currently, nearly all of our feedstock is getting exported overseas for processing. Internationally and then in the future for us to buy the product back.
Wow. Typical Australia. Exactly. Yeah, that's, that's one of the things that frustrates me. I mean, you know, if you think about what we're trying to do, which is decarbonize, here we are now shipping feedstock overseas, like Asia, et cetera, to get processed to then ship the finished product back like so You're just adding costs, you're adding emissions, and you are moving away from a strategic advantage that Australia should capitalize on.
So another key point is. Within Australia, we're very good at closing refineries, as you know, we're not very good at building them. This industry has the ability of changing that view, actually starting to creek refineries here in Australia. Local manufacturing, regional growth jobs, which is a key one like functional jobs.
Project Ulysses, the estimates about a thousands jobs during construction at the peak, and about a hundred operational roles. Again, all regional. We're based. So yeah, just these kind of numbers just show why we're getting so much groundswell and support for these projects. You mentioned before about the, it's a drop in fuel and then it's a, you know, was it Europe?
You said it was about 2% going up to 6% with the existing planes. Could that be ramped up to a hundred percent or do you know what it's been tested to? So currently it's restricted to 50% blend as per a S tm. However, there are many flights that have now been done on a hundred percent saf, but I just think.
I was trying to get a 50% blend. ISS gonna be high enough for the time being. Yes, I think let's, let's get that up and running. But then what you're seeing is the likes of Airbus bowing, et cetera. As they bring on their new planes, they are focused very much on, right. How can we maximize the amount of SAF goes through it?
So a lot of 'em, we will be certified to a hundred percent blend ratio. Fantastic. And then, yeah, just following on from that then, with a projected demand in say, you know, 15 years time, what percent of the market could be captured from the project yield season and mandala? Okay, so total volume of jet fuel consumption for Australia.
I need remember exact numbers, either seven or 8 billion liters. I probably should that off the top of my head. So with us doing a hundred million liters of SA from Ulysses, you're about just under 1%. Sorry, about 1% of title national demand. Very small. Yeah. Well, so. If you combine mandala and you'll see you about 5%.
So it's still significant. It is significant. And that's what we're saying, like prove it up and then we start scaling more and more. Like what we're trying to build here is a full portfolio of projects and diversification as well. As much as possible. Yeah. Are you looking at other, um, lenders at the moment or are you just specifically focused on delivering these two first?
We're always open to new opportunities. Um, we're always keeping our eye out, but yeah, these two projects are consuming a lot of time, particularly SSEs. As I said, our key focus, get Ulysses to FID, prove that up, and then yeah, we'll start progressing other projects in parallel. Yeah. And do you think there's the opportunity for export as as well, or uh, is li likely to be domestic demand?
So there's both. Qantas obviously have laser focused on procurement, hence the. Um, investment in US upfront. Same from Airbus. We also have I Mitsu as a strategic investor. I, Mitsu focus is within Japan. They have the mandate over there, so they would ideally like to procure an export. And I think this is one of the challenges that we face here.
We shouldn't. Exclude export, but we should incentivize domestic use and I think that's critical here to make sure that we benefit from it here, but we can also capture the export prices if we export this product. What are your biggest challenges at the moment? A lot. Just one or two. Alright, so for us.
Commercialization and the financing of this is a key one. It's great to hear you've got such big players on board at an early stage as well. Yeah. I mean those are global brands. Global organizations must have seen the value in, in you guys and uh, and seen the opportunity. Yep. Yeah, I agree. To be honest, all kudos to them as well.
Like they're helping to create this industry through investments in companies like us, like us. So it's, it's great. We also have about five institutional investors behind us as well. So we've got significant firepower from a financial perspective. It's all down to deploying that capital effectively and making sure you get the return on investment.
That is the critical part. So for us, as we go through feed and move towards final investment decision, we have what's called an ERS mindset. Eliminate, reduce, simplify. So what in that design do we not need? What can we simplify? What can we reduce to just make sure that what we're going for here is fit for purpose and just delivers the end result at the least cost possible?
That's the only way you're gonna get these kind of projects up and running at the start. So that is our laser focus. And then working with the financiers to then make sure that the way this deal is structured meets their expectations. It's very hard to go to an investment, as we talked about before, an investor who wants certainty on their investment over.
10, 20 years. These assets go for at least 20 years operating life. So ideally you wanna maximize your return across that period. What that needs, therefore is feedstock certainty for as long as you can, and off tech certainty for as long as you can. So trying to manage, trying to balance those and make sure you can get that to meet their investor requirements is a key focus for us at the moment.
The other one that probably keeps me up awake at night at the moment is policy side. We've talked about that it's being progressed, but we need policy support on both the demand side through mandates, but also through the, the supply side. Uh, these projects to make sure their economic are gonna need significant ground support as well.
Where the government need to lean in to actually help get these up and running whilst we prove up the delivery model. Yeah. What's the price differential between SAF production or, or, I dunno if you can talk about in your forecasts versus aviation fuel from, from fossil fuels. Yep. Good call. Said. Jeff Fuel, it's around about current forecast, anywhere between about two and five times more expensive than conventional jet fuel.
Significant. What we're targeting is coming around about two to three times the price of jet fuel. So the benchmark that we've even focused on is as this industry establishes itself, you're now starting to get price and indexes globally. And so we're very much laser focused on two, which is the, uh, European pricing index and the Singapore pricing Index for saf.
What we've done then is calculate what the prices are at those indexes plus freight costs to get it to Australia, gives us. Basically like an import price parity for SAF landed in Australia. That represents the, the maximum price we'd want to come in at, ideally underneath. Mm-hmm. As we went through feasibility on both Ulysses and Mandala, we were confident we were competitive of those and that gave the board confidence to approve us to continue through the development.
As we go through feed. The aim is to make sure that that number and number is as low as possible, so we're as competitive projecting ahead, let's say 10 years from now, 2035. What does success look like if you are, yeah. In the executive manager position, what do you see? How big is the company? What's the whole aviation industry like at that point?
Well, world domination, obviously, where we'd like to be is at that stage, let's say 2035. We've got multiple projects in operation by that stage. So at the moment we're targeting first operations end of 2028 from Ulysses and 2030 from Mandala. If we can achieve that and we have ideally a few more projects through FID or ideally operational by 2035 would be excellent, so we can then support the government and the industry in meeting our decarbonization commitments and helping us lead the charge.
That would be utopia for me. The other one I think I would love Australia in general to capitalize on is the feedstock sides. Uh, we, we have a real opportunity here to progress feedstocks that are native to Australia that can help us meet the demand for low carbon liquid fuels moving forward. That's both SAF and renewable diesel.
We haven't touched on renewable diesel much, but renewable diesel is. Very key for us as well. We use about 33 billion liters of diesel domestically under safeguard, but also under other commitments. You are gonna start seeing more and more demand for renewable diesel as well. So to talk about the feed stocks, we've done a lot of assessment on a.
That you have a 30 different fee, stock varieties, um, Jatropha, beauty leaf, Karen, et cetera. There's a lot of potentials. We have focused on two primarily within Australia, that we feel provide us a good opportunity and probably the critical ones, one called Ponga. So Jed Zero have invested in a 10 hectare.
Plantation trial that we planted later on this year near Charters Towers. In parallel to that, we're aware that, uh, Rio Tinto and ISU are also doing their own trials in po. Where PO is really interesting is it's native to Australia, it produces these oil seeds. I think like, um. Trees, peak trees, you can remove the seeds from this tree, crush the oil, and then that provides a feedstock into the heifer pathway.
The more feedstocks we can progress like that, that we can process refine within Australia, the more it's gonna position Australia as a. As a powerhouse, as a, you know, a low com that could fuel producer for both domestic and export demand. I've just had a, a thought bubble, but you know, how quickly certain types of seaweed, particularly kelp grow, is anyone looking at, at that and sort of dried kelp or It's funny sell that?
Yeah, there is actually someone in, I think there's an acquaintance, um, who looking at. It's you that's massive kelp forests about how you can actually grow that and harvest it. The concern with that, there's a lot of companies looking into algae as well. It's just trying to get to that commercial scale.
It's to get that consistency of feedstock output. It's to manage the control and quarantine of that feedstocks. You don't impact other species, other areas. I believe they're great opportunities for long term, but I just think they've got a few challenges to overcome before it commercialized on it. Yeah.
Yeah. How can the audience follow what Jet Zero is doing? Are you on LinkedIn or, um, yeah. What, what are the socials that you use mostly through your website? Yep. So we, we have a website, so Jet Zero, Australia, we're on LinkedIn. We're very active through industry groups like Bow and in Bio Energy Australia.
So yeah, if anyone has any interests, please look us up and we have an inquiries link on our website. Please send us an email. Roy's interest in talking to everyone. Yeah. Fantastic. Any other thoughts, final comments before we close off? No, I just think hopefully I've managed to get this across that SAF is, it's the most practical near term.
Route to meaningfully decarbonize the aviation industry. And on top of that, Australia is very well positioned as a result of our size. As a result of our expertise in major project delivery and through our agricultural expertise, we have a real opportunity to position Australia as a lead player in the biofuels area, and I just hope that we capitalize on that great stuff.
Thoroughly enjoyed that discussion Neil. So I wish you all the best in, in your endeavors. Seems like a fantastic opportunity and uh, yeah, I think you did extremely well painting that picture for the audience of the high level, the opportunity and then, uh, sort of nutting it down to how Jet Zero it's looking to achieve that.
So wish you all the best and I'll keep an eye on socials and look forward to seeing your progress moving forward. Thanks very much Andy. Appreciate your time. See ya.
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Exploring Clean Energy. I hope you enjoy the show. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. I'm keen to continue to bring you the best experts and most interesting projects. So if you have an exciting story to share, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or email.
I'm Andy Marsland, and hopefully see you next time.