Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has acquired North Dakota ethanol manufacturer SAFFiRE Renewables. The move marks the next green step in the investment portfolio of the airlines’ wholly owned subsidiary Southwest Airlines Renewable Ventures.
Launched in February with the $30 million acquisition of LanzaJet, SARV is dedicated to creating more opportunities for Southwest to obtain scalable sustainable aviation fuel, the company said.
Terms of the SAFFiRE transaction were not disclosed.
“This acquisition marks Southwest’s transition from investor to sole owner of SAFFiRE, expressing our confidence in SAFFiRE’s technology and its potential to advance our sustainability goals as well as the goals of the broader industry,” Southwest President and CEO Bob Jordan said in a statement. “Championing SAF is a key pillar of Southwest’s Nonstop to Net Zero plan and our work toward a more sustainable future for air travel. We look forward to continuing our journey with SAFFiRE as part of our efforts to propel this promising technology forward.”
Converting ‘corn stover’ feedstock into renewable aviation fuel
[Video still: Southwest Airlines]
SAFFiRE is part of a project supported by the Department of Energy to develop and produce scalable renewable ethanol that can be upgraded into sustainable aviation fuel. SAFFiRE said it expects to utilize technology developed at the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory to convert corn stover, a widely available agricultural residue feedstock in the U.S., into renewable ethanol.
Southwest first invested in SAFFiRE during phase one of the pilot project in 2022.
With the acquisition, Southwest said that SAFFiRE is expected to proceed with phase two of the project by developing a pilot plant at Conestoga’s Arkalon Energy ethanol facility in Liberal, Kansas.
That plant initially is intended to use SAFFiRE’s exclusive technology license from NREL to process 10 tons of corn stover per day for the production of renewable ethanol. Then, the plan is for the ethanol to be converted into SAF by LanzaJet.
“Renewable ethanol is an important feedstock to realizing high-volume, affordable SAF, which is a critical part of the journey to net zero carbon emissions,” Tom Nealon, president of SARV and CEO of SAFFiRE, said in a statement. “We’re enthusiastic about the ethanol-to-SAF pathway and SAFFiRE’s potential ability to produce renewable ethanol at a scale that is economically viable.”
The acquisition comes just weeks after Southwest acquired LanzaJet, a SAF technology provider and producer with a patented ethanol-to-SAF technology and the world’s first ethanol-to-SAF commercial plant.
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