Alder Fuels’ Chief Technology Officer, Derek Vardon, shared this illuminating slide guide at ABLC highlighting how they are seeing a future of gathering energy instead of drilling for it and how the solution for sustainable fuel is a load of rubbish – literally forest and agricultural residents and waste. Find out what the economies-of-scale savings are, what the next generation “green crude” oil is all about, their track record in commercialization, and more. Prev1 of 13 Next

The “green crude” SAF alternative: The Digest’s 2022 Multi-Slide Guide to Alder Fuels

How do we address the growth and emissions of the aviation sector? How does Alder Fuels enable the conversion of biomass into transportation fuels? How can Alder hyperscale? Who is Alder partnering with? Bruno Miller, Chief Commercial Officer at Alder Fuels shared this illuminating slide guide at ABLC in DC that answers those questions and more. Prev1 of 7 Next

Decarbonizing SAF: The Digest’s 2022 Multi-Slide Guide to Alder Fuels

4 min read . Updated: 16 Mar 2022, 07:42 PM IST KIMBERLY CHIN, The Wall Street Journal
United Airlines’ venture arm is a key part of its strategy to achieve zero-emissions aviation; GM bets on next-generation batteries
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Companies are increasingly using their venture-capital arms to pour money into startups that could help them profit from the energy transition. Last year, corporate venture funds invested $23.2 billion in businesses in the climate-technology sector—a broad category spanning renewable energy, energy storage, electric vehicles and more—according to PitchBook Data Inc. The amount invested more than doubled from 2020, outpacing growth of 85% for all corporate venture deals. The climate-technology funding was spread across 210 deals, up from 165 a year earlier, according to PitchBook. These early-stage investments come with financial risk as clean-tech startups’ valuations come under scrutiny. The rush of deals illustrates the pressure companies are under to show that they are committed to meeting carbon-reduction targets, said Stefan Gross-Selbeck, global managing partner at BCG Digital Ventures, an arm of Boston Consulting Group that incubates and invests in startups alongside corporate venture funds. Mr. Gross-Selbeck said calls for climate action from big investors such as BlackRock Inc. have shown companies “there’s a risk of them not being funded anymore if they don’t develop a kind of sustainability strategy." Venture investing is one way to take action. An Ernst & Young LLP survey published in January found that a quarter of U.S. chief executives saw improving their company’s environmental, social and governance profile as the main rationale for deal making. In many industries, greener replacements for polluting products and services are in early stages of technical and commercial development. Companies such as cement maker Cemex SAB de CV and shipping giant AP Moeller-Maersk A/S are among the carbon-intensive businesses that use venture investments as a tool to get nascent technologies off the ground. United Airlines Holdings Inc. announced the launch of its venture arm in June, targeting startups that could help it meet its goal of eliminating its carbon emissions by 2050. The venture arm has made five investments since its inception. “Using existing technology by itself isn’t going to get us there. We need to innovate," said Michael Leskinen, president of United Airlines Ventures. United’s climate plan relies on drastically scaling up the supply of alternatives to kerosene made from biofuels, waste products or hydrogen. In September, it invested alongside industrial conglomerate Honeywell International Inc. in Alder Fuels LLC, a company that says it has developed a cheaper way of converting biological materials into low-carbon aviation fuel. United’s Mr. Leskinen, a former aerospace analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said United uses its corporate venture arm as “a little special forces team to go in and shake things up." Corporate venture investing allows ambitious companies to get the jump on their competitors, especially in areas such as aviation fuel, where there has been a dearth of innovation, he said. United in December participated in a $35 million funding round for hydrogen-electric jet-engine developer ZeroAvia Inc., alongside other investors including Alaska Air Group Inc., Amazon.com Inc.’s Climate Pledge Fund and others. The deal came with a conditional agreement for United to buy up to 100 of ZeroAvia’s engines, which it said could be used on its planes by 2028. United’s venture strategy stands out with its focus on climate. It is more common for sustainability to be one investing theme among many. Wade Sheffer, managing director of General Motors Co.’s venture arm, said GM Ventures targets software and hardware companies that could bring GM closer to three goals—“zero emissions, zero crashes, zero congestion." He said GM Ventures acts as a scout for the auto maker, seeking out technologies that could eventually become mainstream, with the expectation that GM will be the startup’s “first and most valued customer." Last month GM Ventures participated in an $11 million funding round for Soelect Inc., a developer of solid-state electric batteries that Mr. Sheffer said could be used in next-generation electric cars. Companies aren’t just making bets on technologies that could one day transform their own operations. Venture investments can also be a way for businesses to use their industry expertise to benefit from rising demand for sustainability services. In 2018, the venture arm of logistics real-estate company Prologis Inc. invested in Redaptive, a startup that provides data and artificial-intelligence tools for reducing buildings’ energy use in areas such as heating, ventilation, lighting and air conditioning. Prologis began using Redaptive’s tools in its own warehouses, including for an LED lighting program. Other Prologis tenants have signed up to use the tools, too. Redaptive, which filed for an initial public offering in November, said its tools have avoided 1 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions. Will O’Donnell, managing partner of Prologis Ventures, said Prologis is well positioned to spot products that could take off industrywide. The company’s strategy is “to set market standards around sustainability, and then really push change across the industry," Mr. O’Donnell said. That illustrates a broader shift in attitude toward sustainability-related investments, Mr. Gross-Selbeck said. Where companies were previously focused exclusively on their own emissions, they are now increasingly thinking, “How can I make investments to build products and services which help others as they look at their value chains," he said. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
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Corporate venture investors boost climate-tech spending

Alder Fuels CEO Bryan Sherbacow wins the 2022 Global Bioeconomy Leadership Award for 2022
In Florida, The Daily Digest announced that Alder Fuels CEO Bryan Sherbacow will receive the 2022 Global Bioeconomy Leadership Award and will give the Global Leadership Address at ABLC 2022, the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference, on March 17, 2022. The Award recognizes world and world-class leadership achievement in the advanced bioeconomy. Previous winners of the Award are: Thomas Vilsack, US Secretary of Agriculture; Ray Mabus, former US Secretary of the Navy; POET CEO Jeff Broin; and LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren. “This Award recognizes the growing strategic importance in the commercialization of sustainable, affordable, available aviation fuels, and Bryan Sherbacow’s long-standing leadership in bringing this key technology to scale,” said Digest editor & publisher Jim Lane. “He has led on technology, led on partnership, led on policy and led on scale for more than ten years. As the industry looks to advance production to meet President Biden’s goal of 3 billion gallons of SAF by 2030, as well as ambitious targets in other countries around the world, we expect that Bryan will continue to innovate and re-define. He was in the front seat in the earliest days of SAF and remains there as it enters its next amazing chapter. That’s what leadership is all about.”
As CEO of Alder Fuels, a clean tech development and production company, Mr. Sherbacow is leading commercialization of a proprietary process to produce carbon negative crude oil that is scalable and cost-competitive with the petroleum it replaces. The technology converts abundant biomass from regenerative agriculture, wood processing, forest and crop residues to energy dense crude oil. Critical to rapid, world-scale deployment, the biocrude is compatible with existing petroleum refining and logistics infrastructure. The resultant jet and diesel products meet the same ASTM specifications and certifications of the fossil fuels they replace. Alder has entered a joint technology development and licensing agreement with Honeywell UOP. United Airlines has contracted to purchase 1.5 billion gallons of SAF from Alder, the largest publicly announced SAF agreement in aviation history. The Company’s research is further supported by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and a partnership with DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. United and Honeywell are also equity investors in Alder Fuels. Previously, Mr. Sherbacow co-founded AltAir Fuels, which developed the world’s first refinery designed to produce SAF. Mr. Sherbacow was responsible for identifying strategic industry partners and equity investors in addition to negotiating
contracts for the refinery JV, technology licensing, engineering and construction. Commissioned in January 2016, AltAir Paramount converted a petroleum refinery to the production of SAF, renewable diesel, naphtha and propane. Mr. Sherbacow negotiated the aviation industry’s first commercial contracts for SAF with United Airlines and World Fuel Services. Additionally, he executed the first contract for operational use of renewable diesel fuel by the U.S. Navy. Subsequent contracts included Gulfstream, Boeing, UPS, Amazon and Shell. In March 2018, Mr. Sherbacow facilitated the acquisition by World Energy of AltAir and the Paramount refinery assets. Mr. Sherbacow also serves as Chairman of the Low Carbon Fuels Coalition and a steering committee member of the Business Aviation Coalition for SAF. The Daily Digest is the world’s most widely-read bioeconomy daily, with more than 5 million unique readers, and organizes ABLC, the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference in Washington and San Francisco each year, which is also carried to a global audience via the Digest’s streaming service.

Alder Fuels CEO Bryan Sherbacow wins the 2022 Global Bioeconomy Leadership Award for 2022

United Airlines says it could fly new-tech jets by 2028
ZeroAvia is developing an engine for regional passenger jets and small turboprop freighters, but getting to market will take many years. 9 minutes read
United Airlines plans to retrofit small regional CRJ-550 jets, like this one, with hydrogen engines if the technology proves out. (Photo: United Airlines)
United Airlines’ announcement Monday that it could be flying hydrogen-electric-powered regional jets by 2028 runs counter to expert consensus that development timelines will take at least twice as long given the complexity of the technology and the amount of funding required for development and commercialization. “Sometimes showmanship trumps science and technology,” Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia, firm that provides market analysis and forecasting in the aerospace and defense sectors, said in an email. “Hydrogen is a long-term speculative bet, but with many big hurdles. There’s nothing that will be ready for use in 2028, unless it’s completely uneconomical to operate.”
Val Miftakhov, founder and CEO of ZeroAvia, the hydrogen-engine company that United has invested in, insists hydrogen flight will become a reality much sooner than many predict. ZeroAvia is also working on a hydrogen power plant to replace engines on turboprop freighters operated by U.K.-based ASL Aviation. Aside from the technical challenges, getting aviation authorities to sign off on an advanced aircraft design will take more than seven years, Richard Anderson, director of the Eagle Flight Research Center at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, told FreightWaves. “If you tried to certify a [Boeing] 737 today from scratch with nothing new or novel, that timeline would be challenging. That’s a very optimistic timeline” for hydrogen deployment in commercial aircraft, he said. The aviation sector accounts for about 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but its contribution to overall climate change is higher because planes also affect the concentration of other gases and pollutants in the atmosphere, scientists say. The aviation industry is crossing its fingers for a technological breakthrough over the horizon that will decarbonize air transport but is emphasizing sustainable aviation fuels as a bridge until it can get there. Hydrogen-electric engines use electricity created by a chemical reaction in a fuel cell to power an electric motor instead of burning fossil fuel. Because no fuel is burned, no climate-harming carbon is released into the atmosphere when the engines are operated. European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has said it is confident it can develop a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system by 2035. Boeing officials say it will take longer for them to develop because of the technical challenges. Even if hydrogen fuel engines eventually work, experts say they likely will be limited to short-haul commuter-type aircraft, at least initially. There are many challenges that scientists and engineers have to solve before hydrogen becomes viable as a power source for commercial aircraft. Liquid hydrogen, for example, takes up more volume and has to be kept at a very low temperature. Storage of hydrogen as a gas requires high-pressure tanks. “We have some physics problems for hydrogen in terms of volume. Eighteen percent more volume has to be carried, and we have to compress this gas at minus 250 degrees Celsius to liquify it to create that efficiency,” Stanley Deal, Boeing’s CEO of commercial airplanes, said during a panel discussion at the International Air Transport Association’s October annual general meeting in Boston. A 2020 study by management consultancy Roland Berger identified five barriers to overcome before hydrogen technology becomes a viable energy system for aviation, including aircraft and engine redesign; storage using advanced light-weight tanks and cryogenic cooling systems; and sustainable hydrogen production or carbon capture and sequestration. Also requiring development, experts say, are a hydrogen fuel supply chain, with fuel produced using renewable sources rather than natural gas, and a distribution system to get it to the airport. It will take four to five years to mature the technology for hydrogen propulsion systems, an additional two years to establish a production program, and then seven or eight years to roll it out, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury predicted at the IATA event. “If you tried to certify a [Boeing] 737 today from scratch with nothing new or novel, that timeline would be challenging. That’s a very optimistic timeline.” – Richard Anderson, director of the Eagle Flight Research Center at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ) said Monday that it has taken an equity stake in ZeroAvia and expects to buy up to 100 of the startup company’s hydrogen-electric engines. But there is no firm commitment to purchase yet. Chicago-based United said it will pursue a purchase agreement for 50 ZeroAvia engines, with an option for 50 more, on condition that they meet its operational, safety and sustainability requirements. It said the engines could replace kerosene-powered jet engines on its United Express fleet as early as 2028 — pending full development and certification by regulators. A potential candidate for the engine retrofit is the 50-seat CRJ-550, it said. At two engines per aircraft, an initial order would equip 25 to 50 aircraft. The hydrogen announcement is not the first time United has raised eyebrows with splashy news about quick adoption of a breakthrough technology. Last summer, United signed a letter of intent to buy 15 supersonic jets from a startup company called Boom and said they will enter passenger service in 2029 even though the plane is still under design, doesn’t have an engine yet and must be certified by aviation authorities. Skeptics question whether an aerospace startup has the billions of dollars in capital necessary to start manufacturing from scratch and say the supersonic model doesn’t work for commercial air travel because the aircraft are fuel-intensive, requiring five to seven times as much jet fuel as conventional aircraft. They also can’t be flown over land because of noise concerns. And if sustainable aviation fuels are used, as Boom Supersonic and United claim, the cost of fuel will be three or four times higher because there is such limited supply. ZeroAvia, with dual headquarters in Hollister, California, and the U.K., said United is part of a $35 million fundraising round that includes Alaska Airlines (NASDAQ: ALK) . Existing investors include Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and venture funds for energy company Shell (NYSE: RDS ), Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy and three portfolio investment groups. Total investment in ZeroAvia to date is $115 million. “Hydrogen-electric engines are one of the most promising paths to zero-emission air travel for smaller aircraft, and this investment will keep United out in front of this important emerging technology,” said Scott Kirby, CEO of United, in a news release. “United continues to look for opportunities to not only advance our own sustainability initiatives but also identify and help technologies and solutions that the entire industry can adopt.”
United CEO Scott Kirby. (Photo: United Airlines)
ZeroAvia’s road map calls for it to develop hydrogen-electric propulsion for progressively larger aircraft. The company says it is on track to commercialize its hydrogen propulsion technology in 2024, starting with a 10-to-20-seat aircraft, as well as package delivery aircraft. On Tuesday, Canadian manufacturer De Havilland announced a development partnership with ZeroAvia for the Dash-8 turboprop and an option to purchase 50 hydrogen-electric engines for existing aircraft. Alaska Airlines is contributing resources to the development program. Alaska and ZeroAvia engineers will work together to scale the company’s existing powertrain platform to produce the ZA2000, an engine family capable of producing between 2,000 and 5,000 kilowatts of power with a 500-mile range. Alaska Air Group will donate a De Havilland Q400 turboprop aircraft previously operated by subsidiary Horizon Air, capable of transporting 76 passengers. ZeroAvia will set up a location in the Seattle area to support the initiative. Alaska has options for 50 engine retrofit kits. ZeroAvia says it has 460 options to purchase its engines, including those from United and Alaska. The new funding round targets the next segment of 40-to-80-seat turboprops by 2026 and regional jets by 2028. The company has so far flight-tested a six-seater aircraft, has secured experimental certificates from U.S. and U.K. aviation authorities, and will soon begin ground tests of its ZA600 engine in a 19-seat aircraft, with the aim of entering commercial service with the smaller engine by 2024. Hydrogen freighters
Under the ASL deal, ASL Airlines Ireland will provide a retired ATR72 freighter to ZeroAvia for program development and subsequent use as a demonstrator. ASL will then convert several owned aircraft to the zero-emission engines beginning in 2026. Dublin-based ASL Aviation owns six cargo subsidiaries, including four that operate in Europe carrying freight for customers such as DHL, FedEx (NYSE: FDX), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ), and two joint ventures in South Africa and Thailand. “ZeroAvia’s hydrogen-electric powertrain will allow us to operate cost-effective regional freight services using existing aircraft that are now powered by traditional turbines. ZeroAvia’s early flight test successes are promising, and we are also excited by the extensive R&D they have put into the green hydrogen production and the refueling ecosystem needed to support air operations,” said ASL Aviation CEO David Andrews in an announcement early last month. ZeroAvia will also collaborate with ASL on the development of its ZA2000 engine. To support the refueling of these aircraft, ZeroAvia is working toward scaling its already developed Hydrogen Airport Refuelling Ecosystem, which was developed with U.K. government assistance. In addition, ZeroAvia was recently awarded a new transport research and innovation grant from the U.K. Department for Transport to explore concepts for liquid hydrogen refueling in an airport setting. Zero-CO2 without offsets
Chicago-based United is pushing hard to achieve its goal of eliminating 100% of greenhouse gas emissions from its fleet by 2050, without relying on traditional carbon offsets. There are three legs to its approach: becoming more efficient in using conventional jet fuel through better engines, more direct routes and other operational improvements; sustainable aviation fuels; and new technologies, such as hydrogen. And it is investing in startup companies to help build up these new industries. On Dec. 1, United operated the first passenger flight using 100% sustainable aviation fuel, from Chicago to Washington, demonstrating the safety of SAF. Currently, airlines are only permitted to use a maximum of 50% SAF on board, but United met the standard by using 100% SAF in one engine and conventional fuel in the other, instead of blending the fuels. (Source: United Airlines)
Earlier this year, United announced a record-setting agreement to purchase 1.5 billion gallons of alternative fuel from non-petroleum feedstocks from Alder Fuels and has now committed to purchase nearly twice as much of this fuel as the rest of the world’s airlines combined. Alder Fuels is a clean-tech company developing new technologies for producing SAF at scale by converting biomass, such as forest and crop waste, into low-carbon replacement for traditional aviation fuel. United said that the Alder technologies, coupled with a special refining process developed by Honeywell, could produce a carbon-negative fuel that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. forestry residues and agricultural residues alone could provide enough biomass energy to generate more than 17 billion gallons of jet fuel and displace 75% of U.S. aviation fuel consumption. If the U.S. were to broadly adopt regenerative agricultural practices, which capture more carbon in healthier soil compared to traditional methods, the country could generate an additional 7 billion gallons of SAF, which would completely replace the U.S.’s current fossil jet fuel consumption, United said. The company is also an investor in Fulcrum BioEnergy, where United has an option to purchase up to 900 million gallons of additional SAF. Many airlines are trying to help accelerate production of SAF at the scale needed for regular use in daily operations. In July, United’s venture capital arm announced that along with Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Mesa Airlines (NASDAQ: MESA ), it has invested in electric aircraft startup Heart Aerospace. Heart Aerospace is developing the ES-19, a 19-seat electric aircraft that has the potential to fly customers with zero emissions when powered by renewable electricity. United is also working with Archer Aviation to help it accelerate development of an electric “air taxi.”
Electric power won’t work on large, widebody planes that are the primary form of air transport for cross-border shipments, United CEO Kirby recently said. “Technology is only going to take us so far because the reality is flying big airplanes long distances isn’t going to be done with batteries. They simply don’t have enough energy density. No matter how efficient you make the engines, it requires a lot of energy to get a several-ton airplane off the ground and fly it,” he said on the Nov. 18 edition of the “Leadership NEXT” podcast from Fortune. United is also investing to support direct air capture, a carbon capture and sequestration technology that involves pumping CO2 underground where it can be stored for millions of years. “Traditional carbon offsets are not going to solve this problem. … There is simply not enough space on the planet to plant enough trees to soak up all the emissions that mankind is producing. And in fact if we planted every square acre of land on the planet that could grow trees it would account for less than five months of mankind’s emissions,” Kirby said on the Forbes podcast. “There’s nothing wrong with planting trees, but when 99% of corporate America is relying solely on planting trees as their way to market to consumers that they are net zero, it won’t work.”
On another podcast, produced by Salesforce, Kirby said, “It drives me crazy that essentially every corporation [is using carbon offsets] — because it’s easy. That’s a marketing message.”

Hydrogen hype? United Airlines says it could fly new-tech jets by 2028

World Energy

AltAir Fuels

This collection includes companies from upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the Oil & Gas industry, as well as companies focused on sustainable fuels. Sectors are tagged by general focus of the company (even if the tech works across sectors).

Oil & Gas Tech

Corporate Minority

Alder Fuels is a process technology and project development company in the low-carbon energy industry. Alder is commercializing a process to produce crude oil that is carbon negative, scalable, and cost-competitive with the petroleum it replaces.

Date	9/10/2021
Round	Corporate Minority
Amount
Investors	Honeywell, and United Airlines
Valuation
Revenue	0 FY undefined
Sources	4

First funding	Last Funding	Investor	Rounds	Board Seats	Type	Location
9/10/2021	9/10/2021	Honeywell	1 Corporate Minority		Corporation	North Carolina
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	United Airlines	Subscribe to see more		Corporation	Illinois

First funding	9/10/2021	00/00/0000
Last Funding	9/10/2021	00/00/0000
Investor	Honeywell	United Airlines
Rounds	1 Corporate Minority	Subscribe to see more
Board Seats
Type	Corporation	Corporation
Location	North Carolina	Illinois

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Alder Fuels

Investors Count

Alder Fuels Funding, Alder Fuels Valuation & Alder Fuels Revenue

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