Episode 157: Jimmy Samartzis, CEO & Board Director of LanzaJet
Today's guest is Jimmy Samartzis, CEO of LanzaJet.
Lanzajet accelerates the global energy transition by using its leading technology to make safe, sustainable aviation fuels and diesel fuels from waste.
Jimmy has spent most of his career focused on climate change and advancing the decarbonization of industries reliant on fossil fuels. As a senior executive with several consulting firms, including Booz Allen Hamilton, Oliver Wyman, and Slalom, Jimmy advised CEOs and senior executive teams on mergers and acquisitions, strategy and operations, sustainability, and customer experience. He also spent a decade working for United Airlines. Jimmy served in several executive roles at United, including as chief executive of a $2B business unit. In June 2020, Jimmy assumed the role of CEO at Lanzajet, where he's leading the company through a scale-up in technology and production, with renewable fuel refineries planned in multiple countries. Jimmy has Master's degrees from The University of Oxford and Johns Hopkins University.
I was looking forward to bringing Jimmy on the show because we haven't talked about Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) as a decarbonization solution. In this episode, Jimmy explains his career path to LanzaJet, the company's mission, and how LanzaJet fits into decarbonizing aviation. We also discuss SAFs generally, what the airline industry is doing to make zero-emission flight a reality, and why aviation has been hard to decarbonize.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded May 4th, 2021.
In Today's episode we cover:
How LanzaJet was founded and the company’s mission
Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) as a decarbonization solution and their history
Jimmy’s background and what led him to working with SAFs
Challenges to decarbonizing the aviation industry
Key stages to brining a company like LanzaJet to market
Differences between SAF and traditional aviation fuel
The credibility of bold net-zero commitments from the airline industry
The role of carbon offsets in the aviation community
-
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ as we call it membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but there were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for, determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent and we're not wasting our time for trying and a collaborative spirit. Beyond that, the more diversity, the better. There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community.
A number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of nonprofits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there. A bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you want to learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co the website and click the become a member tab at the top. Enjoy the show.
Hello everyone. This is Jason Jacobs, and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help. Today's guest is Jimmy Samartzis, CEO of LanzaJet, the global leader in renewable fuels technology and production of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. Jimmy's leading the company through a scale up in technology and production with renewable fuel refineries planned in multiple countries, US, EU, UK, Japan, Canada, and others. LanzaJet's technology was developed in partnership with the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. And the company is financially supported by strategic investors, Suncor, Mitsui, and LanzaTech.
I was excited for this one because we've done a deep dive into aviation as of late with ZeroAvia, Y-Electric and Universal Hydrogen, but sustainable aviation fuel was a topic that we hadn't gotten to yet. And it's clear that it's an important one. We cover a lot in this episode, including the history of SAFs, why they're important LanzaJet's solution, their progress to date, the stages and phases as you think about a company like this to market, what stage LanzaJet is in today, what's coming next. And also just how Jimmy thinks things will play out in sustainable aviation fuels and in decarbonizing aviation in general. Jimmy, welcome to the show.
Jimmy Samartzis: Thanks Jason for having me.
Jason Jacobs: I'm psyched to bring you on. I've been going on a little tour, if you will, where I've had some hydrogen aviation and, um, battery powered aviation and sustainable aviation fuels is an area that we haven't covered yet that seems to come up a lot and you guys are one of the leaders apparently. So I was very excited that you were willing to donate some of your time to come on the show and talk about it.
Jimmy Samartzis: No happy to do it. And thanks for having me. It's a passion area for me. So I'm glad to be able to be a part of this.
Jason Jacobs: Great. For starters, typically what we do with guests is just take it right from the top with the company first. So maybe talk a little bit about LanzaJet and what you do.
Jimmy Samartzis: Great. Yeah. LanzaJet is a sustainable aviation fuels company. We are an engineering and technology company at the heart of it. We have technology that uses ethanol as the starting point and converts it into sustainable aviation fuel and sustainable diesel. So our fuels at the end of the day, have a life cycle, greenhouse gas emissions reduction of more than 70% and also reduce sulfur completely and reduce particulate matter. So overall you are resulting in a much cleaner fuel that also has favorable properties for engine performance as well.
Jason Jacobs: Great. And just to pull it up one level, maybe talk a bit about sustainable aviation fuel generally what it is and why it matters.
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah, so sustainable aviation fuel is I would say one of the most important levers that the aviation sector has on the whole, in order for it to decarbonize. There has been quite a bit of effort over the last decade to figure out the right ways for the sector to reduce its carbon emissions and sustainable aviation fuel is one of the most prominent and important ways in the near and longterm for the sector to reduce its carbon emissions. There's been a lot of focus on the aviation sector across the globe. And aviation is regulated if you will, by the United Nations in some capacity with the International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO. So ICAO has taken a very forward approach with setting ambitious targets for the sector and reducing its overall carbon emissions by 2050 by 50% in total across the globe.
That is causing quite a bit of effort across the globe in different countries to comply with that expectation, reducing aviation's emissions on a country by country level and sustainable aviation fuels identified as one of the key lovers to be able to accomplish that in the immediate term. And then as I mentioned over longer term as well.
Jason Jacobs: And what led you down the path to work in sustainable aviation fuels? I know this is not your first rodeo. So maybe talk a little bit both about your professional history, but also just from a motivation standpoint, like what led you to be doing the work that you do?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah, I appreciate that question. For me, it goes back quite a ways. What I would tell you is as a young high school kid, as a freshman back in the '90s my high school didn't have much of a focus on the environment and climate change at that point in time. But I was part of a small group of students who started the Environmental Awareness Club. It was an area of interest going back 30 years at this point as a younger individual and caring for the environment and finding ways to reduce impact has been a common thread throughout my upbringing and throughout my professional career. So getting to a sustainable aviation fuel here in this current seat that I sit in at LanzaJet is almost like a homecoming for me because I started in this particular field back in 2008 when I was with United Airlines and was responsible for United's Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Programs.
And back then, there wasn't a ton happening. There was quite a bit of pressure from different governments in terms of reducing carbon emissions, but there weren't many levers that we can pull on other than buying new aircraft that had a better emissions profile because of the engine performance and aerodynamics of the aircraft. But SAF was something that was not yet very mature. There weren't technologies that had progressed to commercial scale. There weren't all the tests on engines that have since been done. We had a lot of interests, we had a lot of passion, we had a lot of ambition. We didn't necessarily have the tools to sort of make it happen, but there was, there's been a ton of work since then that has gone on. And for us in particular, jet fuel is the pathway is approved by ASTM. And since that period of time, we now have seven approved pathways with ASTM meaning different pathways to produce sustainable aviation fuel from different feedstocks, using different technologies to get the final product.
Our pathway was approved in 2018, which means that the fuel produced using our technology can be used on commercial passenger flights. So for me, going back again to 2008, having pushed hard and having worked across the industry to advance the technology, to advance policy in my roles that I had at United Airlines, certainly solidified my interest and gave me sort of a direct line of sight into the possibilities and potential of what SAF can mean for the sector. And LanzaJet has its origins from a company called LanzaTech. And when LanzaTech decided to spin out LanzaJet in June 2020, I was thrilled to be asked to come in and lead the company through its final commercialization efforts. So it's been a bit of history in terms of seeing the industry evolve. But for me the year that we're in right now in 2021, this certainly feels like we're at an inflection point where you have technologies that are ready to be commercialized and that are operating at commercial scale.
You have governments who are supportive and putting in place policies and programs that can help encourage the development of the industry. You have customers who are very interested to fly more sustainably and corporate entities that want to reduce their carbon footprint on their scope 3 emissions. You have airlines that are setting ambitious net zero goals, not 40 and 50 years out, but rather 15 and 10 years out. So we have a lot of the right ingredients at this point in time to truly develop a new industry and to accelerate the commercialization of sustainable aviation fuels.
Jason Jacobs: Why is it that aviation is so hard to decarbonize?
Jimmy Samartzis: If you think about airlines and you think about long haul flying, large jets that fly long distances, they require high energy dense fuels in order to operate. And we don't have, we haven't had great replacements for that. So having a liquid fuel that accomplishes the same objective, if you will, is key. We can think about the number of aircraft that are in use that are deployed across the globe and infrastructure that supports airports and supports airlines and aircraft. There's a lot of capital that's been deployed over many decades to support a global aviation industry. Having a fuel like sustainable aviation fuel that is a drop in fuel, meaning you don't have to make any changes to infrastructure, no changes to aircraft engines. And it enables you to fly the same distances or sometimes further.
For example, our fuel has a higher energy density than your typical fossil based jet fuel. Those are all positives while at the same time, reducing life cycle, greenhouse gas emissions, eliminating sulfur, reducing particulate matter significantly, and a significant reductions in controls as well at high altitude. So a lot of environmental benefits while maintaining all of the quality and operational characteristics of fossil based jet fuel is a great combination. So the sector needs liquid fuels in order to operate these large jets over long hauls and SAF is truly a great solution in the near term and the longer term. This is something that will evolve as feed stocks, evolve over time. And as technology scale up, other levers that aviation has are things like buying new aircraft, which is expensive. You know, these aircraft have lifespans of two, three, maybe four decades in some cases, in some parts of the world.
So these assets are going to be around. They're going to be around for a while. So how do you make the best use of those assets to tackle climate change? Any airline will tell you that the burning of jet fuel is the largest contributor for them to climate change. It's 98 plus percent of their overall footprint.
Jason Jacobs: So from the other discussions I've had and I know just enough to be dangerous here. I'm not trying to pretend I'm some expert or something, but it seems like the duration of the flight is one of the toggles when determining the best path to de-carbonization. And then the size of the plane is another toggle to look at when determining the best path to de-carbonization. Do you look at that the same way? And putting aside LanzaJet, if you look at say hydrogen and batteries and SAFs, just like, how should this all play out in terms of the best way to decarbonize and will there be one solution that kind of runs the table or will it end up being a portfolio approach?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah, I would say it as a portfolio approach, but I would also say more importantly, at least from my perspective and my company's perspective, right? It is about taking action and taking action today. I think climate change is a real problem for us as a global society. Taking action as quickly as we can with the largest impact that we can have is absolutely important. So having the ability to take action today through available means today, while also focusing on technologies that are in development and that will have impact down the road is absolutely necessary. So for my point of view, I mentioned seven pathways for sustainable aviation fuels. I want all of them to succeed. At the end of the day, there is so much global need for jet fuel. If you think about it, I think the statistic is in 2019 global consumption of jet fuel was 96 billion gallons.
That is a lot. In the US alone, it was about 21 billion gallons. So there isn't a single solution that's going to address all of that need and all of that volume on a national basis, or even on a global basis. There are technologies that are in development, battery powered, hybrid meaning electric and jet fuel powered aircraft. There's hydrogen technologies that are in development. Those are all great. They all have their application. As you point out, some are great for shorter haul, small planes, short distances, others show promise for your regional type jets and over shorter distances. But at the end of the day, from where I sit, we've got a solution that actually works. It is SAF in general has been deployed globally and airlines are using it. There are 1,000s of flights that have occurred just this past year that have used sustainable aviation fuel.
It is just as safe and has the exact same characteristics as fossil based, but it has all the positives that come along with it. So as I look at the future, I think there's a continued scale-up of sustainable aviation fuel production technology that will continue to happen while the same time you will have new technologies perhaps on the front end of that, that can bring new feedstocks, new streams into the fold. Meaning there are, I mentioned LanzaTech and LanzaTech is a great example for a company that recycles carbon. And they have proven at commercial scale where they can take waste gases coming from say an industrial steel mill and convert that carbon monoxide into clean ethanol. They have a gas fermentation technology and a process that has been proven and that works. And that is just one example of it. They can also take municipal solid waste.
They can also work to capture CO2 directly from the air and convert that through that same technology, ultimately through gas fermentation to ethanol. We have a great technology then on our end that takes out the metal and makes it into sustainable aviation fuel renewable diesel. So the front end technologies will continue to evolve in the coming years and coming decade. And those other technologies that we talked about hydrogen and electric and hybrid powered aircraft will also evolve. So I think all are necessary, are going to be helpful. And I think sustainable aviation fuels has significant promise for today and for the future, in terms of getting to the large quantities that are required.
Jason Jacobs: Now is sustainable aviation fuel a compliment to those other technologies that I mentioned, or is it a replacement?
Jimmy Samartzis: I would say it's a compliment, right? I think stabilization fuel can work in any size aircraft, any size like the fly and any like flight.
Jason Jacobs: And it also works if it's a hydrogen powered plane or a battery powered plane, or do you not need to be a hydrogen powered plane or a battery power plane to use sustainable aviation fuel?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah, no, it works in today's technology, right?
Jason Jacobs: Got it.
Jimmy Samartzis: So today's jet engines.
Jason Jacobs: And not a hydrogen power plane and not a battery powered plane.
Jimmy Samartzis: Correct? Yep.
Jason Jacobs: Okay.
Jimmy Samartzis: That is absolutely right.
Jason Jacobs: So it sounds so, I mean, it might be a compliment, but it's, they don't coexist. They don't coexist in a specific plane.
Jimmy Samartzis: That is correct. They don't coexist in a specific plane. Other than if it's a hybrid, there are some companies out there that are developing a hybrid aircraft that use jet fuel to generate energy and store that energy and batteries. And that also holds promise. So if you can pair the sustainable aviation fuel with that hybrid technology, that can be an early win if you will, within the current decade.
Jason Jacobs: So I guess what I'm trying to understand is if it works today and the technology is here, then why doesn't it get us to the promised land? Why is it a portfolio? Why do we need hydrogen powered aviation? Why do we need battery powered aviation? Where does SAF fall short?
Jimmy Samartzis: I wouldn't say it falls short, but in the context that you sort of provided, we are still scaling up technologies and new technologies first of a kind plants are not easy as, you know, having new technologies be successful.
Jason Jacobs: I didn't know, but I've been learning because-
Jimmy Samartzis: [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: I hear it from founder after founder, after founder, founder, after founder [laughing], "It's not, not easy to build, but also not easy to fund."
Jimmy Samartzis: That's exactly right. So not easy to get the technology to actually work and do and produce and be as efficient as you want it to be. Not an easy to fund, not easy to change minds and approaches that have been in existence for decades. There was a lot working against you. I think what I would say for stabilization fuel is this has been something that the industry has been working on again for the better part of 10, 12 plus years, and the involvement of government and policy makers to large aircraft and engine manufacturers to large airlines and large corporates at this point who are all very keen and very interested to improve their emissions profile is quite helpful. That is causing the investors and the funders to want to pay attention and to want to participate. There's been a lot of activity over the last 12 to 18 months.
And I think a lot that's happening this year and into next year, that is very promising. Our company and our technology being one of those. We are building a plant in the State of Georgia here in the United States. That will be up and running by the end of 2022. That plant itself is a 10 million gallon a your plant. So if you put that in the context of what I shared in terms of consumption in the US, 10 million gallons within a market that requires 21 billion gallons, it's a very, very small portion, right? So getting the technologies further scaled up, getting ours, for example, deployed across the globe. We have assembled a fantastic group of investors. We've got LanzaTech, our founder that spun us out as one of our anchor investors. We've got Suncor Energy out of Canada. We've got Mitsui a company out of Japan.
We got British Airways out of the UK. We've got Shell out of Europe and we also have support from others. That is a framework for us to work with a set of investors to deploy our technology across the globe. And the approach that we're taking in fabricating our production units and installing them, enables us to pick up speed and to try to build up some momentum and deploying the technology on the global level. But our goal is to have a 100 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel and production by 2025. Again, a small number in volume relative to what's needed. That being said in the US alone this past year in 2020, there were a total of 5 million gallons of SAF that were actually used. 1 million of those gallons were actually produced here in the United States, the rest were imported. So the opportunity is pretty significant and the opportunity to have an impact with scale is also significant here in the near term.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. And when you think about staging and phasing, what are the key stages to bring a company like this to market? And what phase are you in today?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah, so I'll start with the backend of that. We are in the final stage of our scale-up. So the plant in Georgia that we're building is the final commercial step that we're taking in scaling up the technology. But this technology... And I think we're a good example of what this takes has been in development for 10 years. So it started with a partnership with the US Department of Energy and the Pacific Northwest National Lab, where the technology was first developed. At Lanzatech and then scaled that technology up from lab scale, if you will, to pilot and demo scale, and then got it to a point where we can produce enough quantities of the product so that we can properly test it and properly take it through the ASTM process to get it approved as a pathway. And then we were able to fly commercial flights with passengers.
We flew a plane with Virgin Atlantic from Florida to England, and we flew a new aircraft delivery for All Nippon Airways from Seattle to Japan using our fuel. So that process of US Department of Energy technology development and scale up with LanzaTech, ASTM approval, flying it on planes has taken 10 years, and we are now finally doing the final scale up, meaning building a commercial size plant to produce fuel. So it takes time. It also takes support. Government has been quite supportive of us throughout that, not only in that where the technology originated, but also our plant in Georgia, as an example, is partially being built with funds provided by the US Department of Energy. We have a nearly a $19 million grant from the US Department of Energy that's helping fund the final scale for our plant.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. And when you look at the whole life cycle, so not just actually powering the planes, but for example, manufacturing and shipping and any logistics, but also things like security concerns. And can it travel by certain means or is there a risk of explosion or something like that? What are the key differences either positive or negative that need to be taken into account when you look at SAF versus a traditional aviation fuel?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah, I think the simple answer is that it behaves identically to traditional fossil based jet fuel, right? So the infrastructure that airports and countries have to transport jet fuel whether pipeline, rail, truck, all work for sustainable aviation fuel. Right now, ASTM has approved the use of sustainable aviation fuel to a maximum blend of 50% with 50% fossil based jet fuel. There is work currently going on with engine manufacturers and ASTM to evaluate 100% use of SAF And that is only a matter of time before it gets approved. So we'll get there soon, relatively speaking, but the logistics and supply chain for moving jet fuel around is already there. We can use the same logistics and supply chains that are already in existence.
The key is for us is we're producing a neat green product, right? SAF, that product has to be blended. So in order for it to be flown on a plane, it has to be blended and has to be certified to that traditional fossil jet fuel spec. So there is a bit of work involved if you will in, in the production of SAF, transporting it to a location for blending with fossil based jet fuel, and then moving that to the airport for final uplift. So that has been happening here in the United States for the last four or five years. So there's been good progress made in terms of leveraging the existing infrastructure for that same use.
Jason Jacobs: And what about cost? How's the cost compared to traditional jet fuel?
Jimmy Samartzis: Cost is improving, is what I would tell you. When I first got into this business a decade ago, the volumes of SAF that were being produced were at a pretty high multiple, I think of 3X, 4X, 5X. Pricing and cost has improved quite a bit as our technology and others continue to scale and sort of achieve more traditional refineries scale operations that costs will continue to improve. For us, having a helpful policy environment is quite beneficial. So here in the United States, having the renewable fuel standard at the national level, and then the low carbon fuel standard in California helps us produce a product and get into, into a market that it's almost at parity with fossil based jet fuel, considering the incentives and the market value of those incentives that we can achieve.
Jason Jacobs: And from a skill set and infrastructure standpoint, is it a totally different sport than producing fossil base jet fuel? Or are there a lot of parallels and crossover?
Jimmy Samartzis: I would say that it depends on the technology. Our technology has some traditional refining steps as part of the process. That should be very familiar to folks who come from the petrochemical industry. So for us, as we're building our team in Georgia and expanding our team at headquarters outside of Chicago, a lot of the folks that we do hire come from your traditional oil and gas and petrochemical industries, process engineers and chemical engineers, if you will. So a lot of that is familiar. There are unique attributes to the catalysts that we use in the process and other technologies are a bit different. You have other SAF technologies that use a process called fischer tropsch, and those who are deploying that are tending to focus on municipal solid waste as the feed stock. Getting that feed stock stream to be clean enough, to work efficiently enough within that technology is challenging sometimes, but some companies have made great headway with that.
So lots of optimism, at least on my part in terms of not just our technology, but other technologies that are in the market. One that has been deployed most across the globe is called HEFA Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids, which uses used cooking oil and tallow and other oils as the feed stock has been deployed at commercial scale and Europe, here in the United States and expanding globally. So I think there's quite a bit of optimism in terms of the progress that we're making. And most oil and gas companies have familiarity I would say with the parts of technologies that are being deployed and the talent oftentimes comes from those same industries.
Jason Jacobs: And at least at the corporate level, given that some of those companies are investing in LanzaJet, I would imagine that there's some degree of buy-in there or hedging. I don't know what you want to call it, but in the trenches the people actually doing the work on the traditional jet fuel production side, do they see things like SAF as a threat?
Jimmy Samartzis: I don't think so. I think you've seen most oil and gas majors and most companies participating in what we're all calling this energy transition that's underway. And part of me wants to believe that the pandemic and COVID has caused sort of a renewed focus and interest to accelerate that transition. We've seen a lot of activity over the course of this pandemic. I think a lot of companies have had the opportunity to sort of focus on rebuilding for the future and pivoting a little bit. Yeah. So I'm hopeful that I think most of the major companies out there who are participating in a new transition have created quite a bit of optimism, I would say with their workforce as well, in terms of playing a role in being a part of what's happening on a global basis.
Jason Jacobs: And when you look at what needs to happen for SAF to be widely deployed at a level that is meaningful percentage-wise, and I guess meaningful is a relative term, but you can use your judgment there. But what's the key one or two or handful of things that would be the biggest leverage to accelerate that adoption if they were to change. And what would those changes be?
Jimmy Samartzis: I would say that policy and policy making across the globe continues to be an important lever. So where we have helpful and enabling policies in place, you see a development of the industry happening. So the US is one of those examples. I think Europe is another good example. There are various mechanisms across Europe in particular countries, whether it's a biofuel mandate or places like the UK with the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation that is in place and a heavy focus on waste based feedstocks. I think that's what we're seeing developed there across the globe. There's a strong interest in waste based feedstocks. But anyways, having policies that are supportive and encouraging of developing those industries has proven to be helpful in our overall success.
I think having technologies that continue to develop and continue to scale to bring cost curves down is also important. So for us, as we get Georgia built and operating and we move on to our next plants, after that, those plants will be larger than the one in Georgia. So we start to see improvement in product costs, as well as we continue to deploy our technology. And I think that's the same story for any other technology company out there. So it's those two things I would say that are going to be the most instrumental in terms of having wide scale adoption of a sustainable aviation fuel.
Jason Jacobs: Is sustainable aviation fuel and ethanol synonymous, or are there a wide range of alternatives to ethanol that could also be used for SAF?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yes. For us, our process focuses on alcohol. It's called Alcohol-to-Jet. ATJ's is sort of a nomenclature for our technology. Ours uses ethanol. The beauty with ethanol is that you can have ethanol made from a wide range of sources. I mentioned LanzaTech, which creates ethanol from recycled carbon. There's in the US a very large corn ethanol industry, in Brazil sugarcane ethanol industry. In Europe you have a forest residue based ethanol developing. So ethanol is a wonderful starting point for a technology like ours, because it's a simple molecule that we can build up into the carbon chains that we want for jet fuel and diesel fuel. We produce both sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. So for us ethanol is a great building block and our process and the efficiency with it gets us to a very high selectivity of the products that we want to produce, meaning sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel.
When you look at other SAF pathways, I mentioned seven other pathways use other feedstock. They can use municipal solid waste, they can use cooking oil, they can use animal fat or tallow and other oil seed crops. So there's really a wide range of technologies out there that use a wide range of feedstock. Feedstock is also an important component to all of our equations and having adequate supply to low carbon feedstock is important for the low carbon fuel that we ultimately want to produce. So there is a broad range of feedstocks, increasingly there's a scrutiny on the life cycle impact of those feedstocks and how that then also shows up in the process for producing sustainable aviation fuel and then the final product. So for us a focus on ethanol, but also a focus on waste based upon all, because that ultimately gets us the lowest carbon intensity SAF product that we can produce.
Jason Jacobs: And what's your dream scenario in terms of what percentage of jet fuel comes from SAFS and what percentage of that LanzaJet is powering in what timeframe?
Jimmy Samartzis: [laughs]... That's sort of the magic ball, right? If you sort of had that and could answer that. I think our industry, meaning aviation as a sector, has gotten really serious about addressing its carbon emissions. There's no shortage of interest and effort across the globe right now to decarbonize the sector. I'd love to get to 50% of aviation jet fuel use is through SAF in order to enable the industry to achieve its goals. And having that impact sooner rather than later, is absolutely critical based on what we're all facing as a global society or with climate change. In terms of LanzaJet, I think we have a very optimistic future. Our technology works really well. It works efficiently and it's focused on the aviation sector. We produce 90% of our product is jet fuel and 10% is renewable diesel.
That is unique in the industry. Whereas most other technologies and processes produce much less quantities of SAF and they produce more quantities of diesel and they produce other products as well, we designed this technology with aviation in mind, and it is built to support the aviation sector, both from a GHG profile, as well as the way that we do it, which is being able to deploy it across the globe with local and regional feedstocks because ethanol is so widely available. So percentage-wise, I'd like for that to be a large percentage, but we'll see what the future holds.
Jason Jacobs: The big, bold net zero commitments from the airline industry credible?
Jimmy Samartzis: I do. I think the partners that we have who are also making those commitments are very serious about achieving it. It's not just for show and it's, I think those are sincere commitments.
Jason Jacobs: How far along are they in their actual plans for how?
Jimmy Samartzis: Yeah. You know, I think I look at one of our partners, British Airways, which has been, I would say at the forefront of making investments and trying their best to help develop these technologies. They've invested in us, they've invested in one of our competitors as well. They've invested in a hydrogen fuel airplane company. They're putting their money in to help accelerate the development of these technologies. My former employer and the place where I developed my interest and certainly had my impact over the time that I was there was United Airlines, which has been quite bold about its ambitions more recently.
And they were making many of the right investments. And I've been the largest consumer of sustainable aviation fuel to date. They help get the world energy plants off the ground in California, which has been producing sustainable aviation fuel since 2016. And they've made other commitments and investments as well. So companies that are out there making those commitments are also showing up with investments. They're also in a tough spot because airline aviation sector in general is it's tough in terms of the economics of the sector. I think the last handful of years have been quite positive for the industry on the whole, but airlines manage every penny. So having jet fuel that is more expensive than what they can buy as fossil jet fuel puts them in a difficult spot. So we need to do our part as well and bringing the costs down. And there are airlines who are willing to participate early on in the process to help us get to scale, which will bring the cost down. And I find that to be encouraging.
Jason Jacobs: And if one is looking just through a hat of caring about climate change and health and wellbeing of humans and other living things in the longterm versus let's say a paper net, zero commitment. Are things like offsets either in the aviation community or otherwise, are they helpful or hurtful to those de-carbonization efforts?
Jimmy Samartzis: I think in the absence of having the ability to take action in direct ways like some are doing with SAF or another technologies, high-quality carbon offsets are also a tool in the overall tool kit. That is a lever that the aviation sector has at its disposal, and some are using. I tend to favor... Not just because of where I sit, but even at my time, when I was at United Airlines directly in the industry, playing a significant role in motivating the development of new technologies and new industry. That is where the most impact can ultimately come from is by changing the emissions profile in the first place. So I think all of it is helpful. I tend to be biased towards action and towards direct action. I don't know if that answers your question [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: It does. And I guess my last question is just given that I'm not an expert, and I'm trying to ask you all these questions in your area of expertise. If there are people listening to the show, and I'm not talking about the internet trolls, but more the thoughtful, reasonable people who might disagree kind of thing who might listen and say, "Oh, well, that was great, but why didn't Jason ask about this? Or why didn't Jason ask about that? I mean, gosh, he had to push him on this thing." I mean, what would the critics say? And again, not the troll critics, but the reasonable informed people who might disagree about SAF, that I haven't asked you about.
Jimmy Samartzis: Hopefully they can, after listening to this discussion and seeing what's happening in the industry, hopefully there's a realization that this is real, that it is happening and that it has been happening. And that sustainable aviation fuel is a very good solution in the near term and in the longterm. In my opinion at least, the days of having strong critics from a decade ago I think have evaporated. You've seen major oil and gas companies, major fossil industry companies who are pivoting and who are incorporating these technologies into their operations, into their plants and who are investing in companies like us. I think that we also have made excellent progress in validating the life cycle, greenhouse gas emissions reductions. And not just CO2, but sulfur and particulate matter and soot and contrails at the end of the day, that research and that proof has happened and is hopefully those who questioned the validity of the environmental impact can see the evidence that we've now have proven.
And I think in terms of other technologies, it's always fun and easy and interesting to focus on the bright, shiny new object. I think hopefully there's a realization that action today is absolutely necessary and that we need to maintain the focus on what we can do today while at the same time improving on technologies for the future. But it's easy to see folks get excited about what's ahead 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, when that may be too late when it relates to climate change. So we tend to have an opinion that not just to the business that we're in, but just based on what's happening in our global society, that action today is absolutely necessary. And SAF is a great solution for that.
Jason Jacobs: And for anyone listening that is interested and inspired by what you're doing, where do you need help, or what kinds of people would it be helpful to hear from?
Jimmy Samartzis: I'm happy to hear from anyone and everyone, but we are building the team across the globe and not just here in Chicago and in Georgia, but in Europe and elsewhere. So having folks that have been interested in this space and we have the background in chemical engineering or other forms of engineering are absolutely helpful. Those who have an interest in policy I'd love to hear from you as well. And then certainly just the average person flying, right? We all have the opportunity to take action and airlines need to hear that their customers care. They're hearing about it from corporate customers who fly on them, but I think it's going to be important for the individual customers who are flying on airlines to also make their carrier of choice know how important climate change is to them.
Jason Jacobs: And anything I didn't ask you that I should have, or any parting words for listeners?
Jimmy Samartzis: No, I think this was great. Thanks for having me on, and I appreciated the opportunity to talk with you, Jason, and you know, looking forward to what the future holds for all of us.
Jason Jacobs: Great. Well, thanks so much, Jimmy. I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and best of luck to you and the whole LanzaJet team.
Jimmy Samartzis: Thanks very much.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note, that is .co, not .com. Someday we'll get the.com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter @JJacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
