Supported by the Julia R. Brown Fund, MAS Climate Science and Policy student Ian Chiquier attended the Sustainable Aviation Futures Congress in Amsterdam to investigate policy pathways for scaling affordable U.S. production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). The conference highlighted Europe’s ambitious ReFuelEU mandate, offering Ian fresh perspectives that contrast with the incentive‑focused approach he observed at earlier U.S. meetings. In this post, Ian describes how this experience deepened his capstone research on optimal U.S. SAF policy and secured a network of contacts that will guide his future career in the SAF sector.
In May of 2025, I got the opportunity through the Julia Brown Fund to register for and attend the Sustainable Aviation Futures Congress in Amsterdam. This conference is an international gathering of key stakeholders in the aviation industry: airlines, fuel producers, regulators, and aircraft and engine manufacturers.
More specifically, the conference seeks to address the question of how to best make the sector sustainable, which is also the domain I chose for the culminating capstone project of my Master’s of Advanced Studies in Climate Science and Policy at Scripps. More specifically, the aim of my project is to investigate the best policy for the United States to implement in order to scale affordable domestic production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). These are drop-in hydrocarbon fuels that are made either from carbon sources that would have ended up in the atmosphere anyway or that offset a large part of their tailpipe emissions during their production process. They allow for the sector to curb its net emissions not by decarbonizing technically but rather by de-fossilizing. But the SAF industry remains incredibly nascent: SAF makes up only about 0.3% of all jet fuel in the world today.1 And the correct strategy to scale the industry – both technologically and policy-wise – is greatly debated today given how new the sector is.
Indeed, the United States and the European Union have very different approaches on producing SAF in terms of their policies and the prominent production pathways they are prioritizing (which naturally go hand-in-hand). Prior to this conference in Amsterdam, I had attended earlier this year the Accelerate Clean Fuels conference in San Diego in January and the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference in Washington D.C. in March. These conferences were much more focused on American policy and producers. For instance, I learned there that American industry strongly favors financial incentives (i.e. “carrots”) over obligatory mandates (i.e. “sticks”) when it comes to scaling production. The future of the 45z tax credit for incentivizing clean fuels (introduced as part of the Inflation Reduction Act) and its eligibility criteria, for example, were widely discussed. I also witnessed the extent to which biofuels are the dominant pathway in the U.S., namely the HEFA and Alcohol-to-Jet processes that use FOG (fats, oils, grease) and alcohol-based feedstocks, respectively.
The Sustainable Aviation Futures Congress in Amsterdam, on the other hand, was much more focused on the European Union’s strategy and was attended by both the European Commission and prominent European airlines. The European Commission is responsible for the creation of the ReFuelEU mandate; this mandate imposes a 2% SAF blend requirement for all fuel uplifted at E.U. airports3 (increasing to 6% for 2030, 20% for 2035, and 70% for 2050). It also, however, contains a sub-mandate that I admittedly did not know about before attending the conference, which dictates that 1.2% of all aviation fuel come from a pathway called Power-to-Jet (or e-Fuels) by 2030. The Power-to-Jet pathway involves sourcing CO2 either via direct air capture or from a biogenic feedstock and combining it with green hydrogen (hydrogen produced using renewable power) to make a liquid, drop-in hydrocarbon fuel.4
This ReFuelEU sub-mandate for this technology was particularly eye-opening for me, and I don’t think I am entirely to blame for not hearing about it previously, for at both of the American conferences I had previously attended (ABLC and Accelerate Clean Fuels), the Power-to-Jet pathway for e-Fuels was largely dismissed as being “decades away”. I had not considered it before the conference in Amsterdam to be a seriously scalable pathway, but upon going to the Sustainable Aviation Futures Congress I witnessed first-hand the many Power-to-Jet-focused start-ups that were beginning to appear in Europe in order to meet the demand for their e-Fuels given the sub-mandate. The unexpected prominence of the e-Fuel industry in Europe was certainly the most striking take-away of this experience for me.
I also got to hear about the advantages and pain-points that fuel producers are experiencing as a result of European SAF policy, which are valuable insights for my investigation into what policies could work well for the U.S. (accounting for the different, generally anti-mandate American culture). On the airline side, I also got to hear about the challenges they are experiencing in terms of the cost of SAF, but despite this I could truly see the will in airline personnel – most notably the CEO of KLM and leadership from Air France’s SAF Procurement efforts – to use SAF predominantly in the future.
Finally, this conference was a major networking opportunity for me within the SAF space, and I made many professional connections that I am keeping in touch with today. The event used the CrowdComms smartphone app to manage its agenda and attendee contact information, and I made several key connections from the event.
It’s important to note that I made perhaps double the amount of connections through physical business cards, which seem to still be the prominent contact method today. Making these connections was immensely valuable to me as this conference confirmed for me my desire to enter the SAF space professionally, either in consulting or in industry, given the international enthusiasm for clean aviation that I witnessed and that resonated with what I previously observed at my American conferences.
Blog content and images provided by Ian Chiquier – thank you!
References:
- “Disappointingly Slow Growth in SAF Production.” IATA,
www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-12-10-03/?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Accessed
4 June 2025. ↩︎ - “Sustainable Aviation Futures Europe.” Sustainable Aviation Futures Europe, www.safcongress.com/. Accessed 4 June 2025. ↩︎
- “Refueleu.” 4AIR, www.4air.aero/refueleu. Accessed 4 June 2025. ↩︎
- Twelve Benefit Corporation, Berkeley, CA, 2024, pp. 1–24, Know Your SAF The Power-to-Liquid
Advantage. ↩︎