The SAF Podcast

The SAF Podcast: National Laboratory of the Rockies - Aligning academia and industry

• SAF Investor • Season 3 • Episode 32

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The final episode of 2025 brings a fresh perspective as The SAF Podcast welcomes its first Academic, Alon Lidor from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory).

Alon shares his fascinating journey from aerospace engineering to sustainable aviation fuel research, including his work on solar-driven thermochemical processes at ETH Zurich and his current role at NLR. The conversation explores his groundbreaking research on chemical looping technology for syngas production, which promises to overcome traditional reverse water-gas shift reaction limitations and significantly reduce downstream separation costs in SAF production.

A highlight of the episode is Alon's insights from interviewing over 80 industry stakeholders through the Department of Energy's Energy I-Corps program. He reveals findings about the SAF industry's biggest challenges, including funding and bankability concerns that outweigh technical barriers, and the underestimated complexity of scaling pilot plants to commercial production.

The discussion examines the crucial relationship between academia, national laboratories, and industry in advancing sustainable aviation fuel technologies. Alon explains how national labs like NLR provide essential infrastructure and expertise to help early-stage companies de-risk their technologies, offering capabilities that would be prohibitively expensive for startups to build independently.

Listeners gain valuable insights into techno-economic analysis, regional policy differences between US incentive-based approaches and European mandate-driven frameworks, and the timeline for Alon's three-year research project developing next-generation SAF production technology.

Thank you so much to everyone that has listened over the last year and some exciting things to come in 2026!

To find out more about the SAF Investor London conference check out the website here: https://www.safinvestor.com/event/148588/saf-investor-london-2026-2/

SPEAKER_00:

Just before we jump into what will be the final episode of the SAF podcast in 2025, I just want to thank everyone so much for listening. We've had some amazing guests come on this year, some notable episodes, including Julia Renaud from Breakthrough Energy, our discussion with Jim Stonecipher about the challenges of Fulcrum Bioenergy, a great discussion with two huge producers. We've had Nest Day, as well as Eco Series, great conversation with Matty Lievenan, and as well as more recently, Diana Burke at Raquel from Alaska Airlines talking about the One World Breakthrough Energy Fund that was launched towards the end of this year. We've got some great things coming next year, including conversations with FedEx. We're going to be discussing future energy global and the growths. We're going to be having them back on the podcast after a few years. And as well, we've also got some great things coming up. We've got our South Investor London conference, where lots of the guests we've had speaking on this podcast will be joining us for our two-day conference in London on the 24th, 25th of February. So if you want to be in the room and discuss all the critical challenges around financing and investing in SAF projects, do make sure you join us there. It'll be great to see as many of you there as possible. And wishing everyone a very happy Christmas, new year, a bit of rest before SAF takes on another huge step in 2026. But for now, enjoy our episode with Alan Ledor from the National Laboratory of the Rockies. And we'll see you all next year. Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of the SAF podcast. And this week, we've taken a slight change of tack. Normally I interview industry players, whether it's producers, investors, airlines, technology providers, and we talk about their propositions and their thoughts on the market. But we've this week I'm delighted to be joined by our by our first academic. I can call you an academic, can't I, Alan?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_00:

So we're delighted to be joined by Alan Ledor from the National Laboratory of the Rockies, which some people might know as formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We're going to say it out in full every time it's referred to in this podcast, um, just so everyone gets it in their mind. Um, Alan, thanks so much for joining us. How are you?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm great. Thanks, Oscar, for having me here.

SPEAKER_00:

Excellent. So, what is your background? How did you end up where you are now at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory? I'm not gonna say it full time every time, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no, because then I guess time will find you with the longest podcast ever. Yeah, I can break break a record. My so my background is actually um it's a bit mixed. I I did a bachelor in mechanical engineering and continued for for uh master's and PhD in aerospace engineering. Um, I would say as a disclaimer, I'm not a proper rocket scientist because even though I was I have a PhD in aerospace engineering, I always work in more energy related topics. But in the last in the last couple of years, I sort of turned myself into a half of a chemical engineer, I would say, more by self-learning and experimenting in the lab. Um I've done what is more classical academic route. Following my PhD, I searched for I went for something called the postdoc or postdoctoral um position. It's it's quite common, especially for people who would like to stay in academia, where you you move to another lab, usually also in another country. In my case, I moved to Europe. Um and and you work there becoming, let's say, a more independent researcher before you can potentially either become yourself a professor or go to a national lab, as I chose. And this is where I started to get into uh the chemical engineering industry. I ended up working on solar-driven thermochemical processes. And I say solar slightly different because, right, when when most people, I mean, I guess if I ask you solar, people would say photovoltaics, right? That's solar. But I was in the little the little niche of uh concentrated solar thermal. But instead of using it for power production, we were working on um different thermochemical conversion processes that eventually could be also a precursor to to SAF. So that that's a little bit and and I was five years total in Europe, so 2018 to 2023. Uh I was one year in Germany, uh, funny as it is, in the German Aerospace Center, but they do have an institute of solar research.

SPEAKER_00:

So this is where you are a rocket scientist.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah, I would say if someone would have to push me now about you know low earth orbit and escape velocities, probably I'll fail miserably. Um and and then I moved to uh actually to Switzerland, uh to ETH Zurich, which um I worked in the group of Aldo Steinfeld, and I think you also interviewed Genluca Amrosetti from Sin Helion, right? A couple of months ago. That's the lab, that's the lab where where the technology span off from. So I was in the same lab, but I was uh in a different different time. I was a little bit after they already spun.

SPEAKER_00:

Um amazing, amazing. Um my fear for this podcast has already come true because you've already started using vastly more complex technological and chemical terminology than I would ever understand. So I'm glad we achieved that in the first question. So you're in that you've proves your qualifications, if nothing else.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, but yeah, if I do too much, feel free to know throw a virtual pen at me or anything.

SPEAKER_00:

And because this goes out on audio, Alan's got probably one of the most academic backgrounds. He's just got a whiteboard behind him, so I'm half expecting him to stand up and start writing very long equations on his whiteboard during this conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

I did not think about this, I just grabbed the nearest conference room, but but I'll I'll take the compliment. Um I just said maybe the last oh sorry, I was the last thing because I forgot to mention how I did end up right at NLR, the National Lab of the Rockies. Yeah. So after spending a couple of years, I did I moved here um slightly over two years ago, and I did uh came here to work on again various various research topics um on different chemical conversion processes, whether solar or otherwise.

SPEAKER_00:

So lots of people, particularly that aren't in the US, might not be familiar with what the NLR, the National Laboratory of the Rockies, does, what its purpose is, what it's sort of aiming to achieve. So, sort of, can you give a wider sense of what the institution's doing beyond sort of just just your research?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, definitely. I mean that that's a great question. So, first of all, we are relatively old. Uh originally it was established in 1977, but it was called the Solar Energy Research Institute. Uh so it was a federal research institute that focused on solar energy post you know the oil crisis in the 70s, but very quickly started to expand into other topics, including uh biomass conversion. So during the 80s and 90s. Um I it has been renamed in 1991, I think. I hope I'm doing uh good service if I remember correctly. At 1991, it was designated uh US Department of Energy National Lab and renamed um NREL, our previous name. And you know, it's an interesting structure. So we are what's called a federally funded research development center. So we are sponsored by the US Department of Energy, but we are operated by like an operating company in LLC. So we are not direct government employees. It's it's it's a it's a sort of a private public partnership. So we have some limitations, you know, we cannot compete against commercial entities. Um, a lot of our research is coming from the Department of Energy, but also a lot of it is we help companies, a lot of time early stage companies, to do research, so they would fund us to do some research on their behalf, or we also might compete on more, let's say, competitive grants that when we are allowed to compete against other institutions and universities. Um, and yeah, we are really focused on applied research. I mean, there is also fundamental research here, but we have more large-scale applied capabilities than maybe a single single university professor would have in his lab with a bunch of students.

SPEAKER_00:

So who dictates, is it up to individual researchers like yourself to decide which what sort of topics are researched, or is there sort of a collaboration with sort of the Department of Energy about areas they they want to be researched or private companies? How does sort of what gets researched get decided?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's an interesting question. So it's a it's sort of a mixture uh of everything. Um we do have programs, sort of like lab-wide programs on on various topics, and some funding might come from sort of direct, you know, discussions and negotiations with the managers in in the Department of Energy. So our program managers would talk to the managers there, and we would get um something called um annual operation plans. So, you know, what is how much budget you get for this topic and what uh areas. But as I mentioned, we also write a lot of competitive grants. Um and we are we cannot maybe um we cannot lead proposals in some specific calls that they want only university or industry to lead, but we can still join as a secondary partner, and we can also lead. So sometimes researchers like me, you know, we have some crazy ideas. There is a uh funding opportunity that you know falls within. So we write the grant, and if we get funded, um, we get the money to pursue it. And then companies, um, it's actually something I only personally only started, I would say, in the couple of months. Uh potentially also what led me to chat with you. But uh I think some people here are we have we have more of a strategic partnership office that they try to uh we have agreements with larger companies such as Shell and Chevron, and we try to do um you know do risking of maybe next generation technology. So it's it's a really mixture of all three of things that you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00:

So how did you end up sort of finding SAF as a as an area of of research? Because we've heard about where your background comes from, and it's not it's mildly related, but it's not sort of directly associated. So, how did you end up sort of doing the current research that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, that that that's a great topic. So um, as I mean, I mentioned I I've done the academic route. Um, I I was finishing my PhD in searching for a postdoc position, and I was actually focused more in Europe than than uh the US. I I had an interest, personal interest always in solar thermal energy, you know, this concentrated stuff with the mirrors. I um I mean I never worked or did any research in it, but I had the pleasure of actually visiting a pilot plant of Bright Source in Israel, where actually I forgot to say this, where I've done my studies, where I'm from. Uh, I had uh just an opportunity to go and visit their plant. So this technology was always in the back of my mind. And then at the end of the PhD, I read those bunch of research papers from you know, from Professor Alder Steinfeld group in ETH Zurich. I said, wow, this guy is trying to use concentrated solar to generate synthetic fuels. And at the time he was leading a large project on SAF. Um, so I wrote to him. Um, you know, we answered, I said, okay, but he told me you need to bring your funding, that's very common in postdoc, you have to be in some sort of a fellowship. Um, I did wrote a proposal. Unfortunately, it was not funded. Um, and this is how I ended up going to Germany. Uh, but I improved the proposal and rewrote it the second year and then was awarded. And that's that's what led me to SAF. I, you know, the funny thing was I I was working for a couple of years in in the lab in in Aldus Group, but I was doing, let's say, much more upstream things. So I was working on a specific process that was uh used to generate SIN gas, so never converting the SIN gas via fissure trope or anything to SAP. I was way more focused on my little problem and a lot of the challenges of how to how we combine it with solar energy. But I ended up picking more interest, I would say, in the chemical conversion process and the downstream from the solar energy, and that's also coming to NLR right now. I do have some research on solar-driven processes, but a lot of research that is on other chemical processes that are not necessarily so yeah, it was a bit of um yeah, interesting path to get to get to SAF.

SPEAKER_00:

And we we first met when and we had a discussion around the um the research you're currently conducting, and you sort of wanted to get some understanding, and um we had a conversation around the wider SAF market. So, do you want to explain to people what your current sort of research and what that research emphasis is and what you're trying to achieve by you know doing interviews with various sort of much more qualified people than me, I'm gonna add. They didn't just interview me, so it there's lots of other people there that are far more qualified than me. Um, lender perspectives.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I mean I mean, definitely. Yeah, I I would say I probably can divide it into two parts. Um we so I I was part of uh of a Department of Energy program that is called Energy ICOR. The idea it's uh it's an interesting program. It is tailored for national labs, and just to say there are um there are other national labs, 17 national labs in the US, we are obviously not the only one. Um the idea for this program is to uh let national lab researchers such as me um go and talk to the stakeholders in the industry or the sector they are working in to understand are we really working on real-world problems? Are we targeting actual pain points, or are we doing our research in vacuum just working on cool technology? I mean, there are different end goals for this program. The biggest one is really for us to learn to be better researchers by working more closely with the industry because, again, most of our research is applied. I know that there are also like some success stories of I think people that felt they have then such a good business case that they try to they spun out of the national lab, which is also a great win. I mean, the national lab, we can only get so far in the end. We have, you know, someone has to license our technology. We are we're not commercializing it ourselves. But um that was the motivation behind. And I mean, as you mentioned, I've spoken to almost 80 people uh in the process. Actually, also you know, reached out to some of your interview past interviewers, just reach out directly to them, and some were kind enough to grant me, grant me their time.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, let me know the ones that didn't, and I'll get on to them.

SPEAKER_01:

Fair enough, fair enough. We can do it offline. Um, so this was the major motivation. Um, I don't know if you're also interested in a little bit of how it was connected to the actual research, sort of like the technical research.

SPEAKER_00:

Go for it.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so yeah, I'll I'll definitely try to be, and and yeah, you can you know give me a mark if I'm you know doing it too technical, as you as you mentioned. I we we we scientists tend to do this.

SPEAKER_00:

Um people, some people that are infinitely cleverer than I am will find this fascinating.

SPEAKER_01:

I might just have a nap for two minutes, but fair enough, fair enough. Um the main the main project, the main work that has has done, uh brought me to this to this other program I mentioned is um I am working on a specific production technology to produce scene gas. Uh the same right hydrogen carbon monoxide mixture that is uh is a is a uh chemical and fuel precursor. We we have a project that tries to do it in a slightly unconventional way. So and again, I'm I'm sorry, I'm gonna probably throw a couple of technical jargon, but I'll try, let's say, to at least do the the general explanation. I mean, the the the classical pathway of producing syngas is uh is a catalytic pathway, right? I mean, you feed your your feedstock, whether you reform methane or you want to build it, as we know a lot of the e-fuel companies nowadays, right? They want to build it from CO2 and hydrogen, they want to produce thin gas and then go to um to liquid fuels. And all of those are you know catalytic processes in a chemical reactor that more or less I would say run in a steady state process. We are working on something that is called chemical looping. Um we actually break the reaction, the single reaction, into two separate steps and we reconnect them with some sort of a chemical intermediate. Now, I would say like this, it's chemical looping is is old. It's um people have been trying to work on it probably in the last 40 years. And I think there were some advancements, especially on combustion processes, because you can inherently separate and capture the CO2. So that that's that's a nice benefit when you do combustion. The main thing that we I think our main innovation and what's hopefully what you know led us to to be awarded is funding is uh this reverse water gas shift pathway. If you might familiar this uh CO2 and hydrogen that many of the companies, it's it's very challenging. Uh this reaction usually uh it's hard to convert a lot of the CO2. So what's called conversion extent or conversion efficiency is usually low. That's just that's just a thermodynamic limit of this. I mean, the catalyst can help you with you know faster kinetics, more selectivity to all your product, but it cannot change the underlying uh limitations. And when we do it in a chemical looping in the way that we propose, we can overcome those challenges. We can get almost full conversion of every mole of CO2 into carbon monoxide. Um, and we learned, and that's actually by talking to people in the industry, that the separation processes downstream of the reactor are very expensive. So if we can get full conversion, or let's say close enough to full, that one can omit the downstream separation, it's uh it's a significant capital and operating expenses um reduction. So that that was sort of our our motivation um on this project.

SPEAKER_00:

That's that's fascinating. I mean, you you hear a lot about, and it's not the first time reverse water gas shift has come up on this podcast. We've had a few different guests who have been exploring that, and we've discussed many times the efficiency of reactions and the amount that catalysts can speed up or streamline these production processes. Um, I'm curious about your with with your conversations with you know the 80 industry players that that you've got that you've interviewed, what are some of the big sort of takeaways that you've you've sort of have come out of all those conversations with things that potentially you might not necessarily have been so aware of being coming from the academic sphere or things that actually with you coming from the academic sphere you think actually might you might be able to synthesize and help the industry with as it's still developing?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean that that's a great question. And I think so. Some of the things we learn might have been, you know, more more known to some of your I mean to most of the people you interviewed at our industry, but um this was the first time where I really try to think about okay, the whole process, not just you know, my little step in the entire process chain. And I mean, I would just mention, and again, I'm I'm I'm of course happy to talk more if you find it interesting, but part of our research is also doing technoeconomic analysis and you know to try and evaluate. So, anyway, the project was already sending me in this mind shift, but to actually talk to companies, you know, staff companies, investors, other stakeholders. Um, I didn't realize that, you know, over 90%. I mean, I quantified, you know, at the end with a bunch of scientists, after all, we also quantified uh the what we learned. Over 90%, so that more than 70 people that we interviewed mentioned that the biggest adoption barrier is actually the funding and the right and the bankability, because in the end, this is such a long way and such an expensive way to build a chemical plant that this is really they say like this is the largest adoption barrier. Um, which again, for me coming from uh from an academic background, is like, no, the technology is the limit, right? Um but this was uh I would say important for me, and I think also important for my colleagues that were in the in the field, and maybe a message for if any academic colleagues who listen is you know, try to think about. And the other thing is I was I was surprised, uh, people really say is the scale up, right? Going up to this integrated pilot plant. I mean, I was always thinking, okay, if you solve the underlying technical challenge, I mean, scale up should be straightforward. We know how to do it, right? But apparently not. Every time it's a new thing, right? There are new challenges, and when you scale up new technologies, you have unknown challenges. So those I think were the two biggest, biggest takeaways from all this conversation, which I did not know when I stepped into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You mentioned the technoeconomic analysis portion of the research you do. Has those finding or will those findings do you think sort of sort of implicate themselves into how you do that sort of technoeconomic analysis, what you're sort of looking at, the the sort of the breadth or the scope of what you're looking at? Do you foresee them changing?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I think the good thing is that we've done this sort of in parallel. I mean, the project is already one year, so we started last last October, but things you know always take time to start. And I should also mention, so uh we are leading, like the NLR are leading the project. So I'm what's called the BI, the principal investigator, but we do have partners. We do have some academic partners like univers, like Georgia Tech and um and also University College Cork in Ireland. Um but we also have industrial partners, and one of them is actually Lydian. I I'm not I don't know if you're familiar with Lydia and they're an uh an if you company from Massachusetts. I mean, maybe maybe could be a potential future interview for you, but um they're doing the catalytic reverse for the gas shift, but having them helping us in a and do not just helping us, really doing part of the technoeconomic analysis and really looking on the entire process, you know, the entire sinkas to liquid fuels and and helping us in developing models that are more realistic with you know proper cost correlations, making sure that we are not omitting units. Um it drove up our cost predictions, but I think it added up to our credibility that you know if we show and we hope to publish this work soon because we are still I mean we're gonna publish it um in in the academic literature, but hopefully also maybe people of the industry would be interested. It's definitely, I think, improved the the quality of our our technoeconomic analysis. Um so yeah, that that that was really I was on the spot.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. The um the sort of the nature and the relationship of academia, the research labs, industry, from your sort of conversations that you've had and sort of undergoing this, do you think there's sort of how do you see the relationship between the two? Do you think there's sort of scope for there to be more integration between the two to help develop this market? Because there's a lot of people trying to develop their own, you know, technologies, and there's a whole industry that's trying to be developed. I'm just curious about how you s foresee current and future dynamics between industry and academia sort of developing as sort of the industry develops.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I mean that that's a great question. I I think that you know some of it is also I I would divide a little bit between maybe academia and national apps. So I would start maybe with academia, I was, you know, I was there uh quite quite a long time. A lot of the benefits of academic research is that we can we can a little bit you know zone out. We don't have maybe the normal external stresses that that people in the industry has, you know, shareholders, investors, those, you know, tough milestone. I mean, we have our own, you know, let's say academic milestone, a PhD student want to graduate, they need to publish papers. There is, but you can really dig deep into a technical problem, trying to understand the underlying you know, physical phenomena, you know, why it's why a lot of times, like you know, in the industry, it's more right, we need to get it work. In academia, it's like, wait, why does it work? Or why does it I mean sometimes even if something works, it's like okay, it works, but I don't know why. So it's it's I haven't finished my my research. And it's I think it's really helpful for you know sparking innovation, right? Sometimes I mean, I know, I think I know personally about two or three, you probably know more, right? Some of those if you're or staff companies, they're even commercializing um ideas or technology that's started in in universities, right? Some sometimes is direct spin-off, sometimes maybe they just license it. But you did, I mean, you had to have this underlying academic research, you know, the bunch of the professor and the students and the postdocs just trying something slightly wacky in the lab and really sometimes putting you know years into you know one specific catalyst, one specific reaction, one specific material. So I think that's one role that is really important in the the academic research can help the the stuff industry and the sector. And if if I and maybe something that is sometimes too obvious is also maybe training the next generation of engineers and scientists. I I would say for national labs, I think it's it's slightly different. I mean, we do all of the above to an extent, as I mentioned. I mean, we do it also, you know, like our own research. But you know, we we have a lot of capabilities that are much larger than a national than uh than university. Um you know, in some cases we have like megawatt scale equipment, or we have like here uh actually at NLR we have an integrated biorefinery facility that is now being revitalized to also accommodate e-fuel. So, you know, we can do thermochemistry, electrochemistry, we can we can work with companies that that do already uh pilot scales, and and yeah, and we also have expertise, you know. People here in you know, in university, you have turnover. I mean, the professor is the only fixed thing in university. The student graduates, goes to the industry or to his own postdoc, and and knowledge is always lost. I mean, there is each professor try to deal differently. We have experts at the national labs that work 10, 15, 20 years. Uh, many of them even came from the industry, so they're already bringing maybe 10 years of industrial experience. Um and I think we can help the early stage companies derisk their technologies when they can use our infrastructure because you know it's so expensive, right? If you want to demonstrate a chemical process, just just the the auxiliaries, right? Like, you know, the different gas analyzers and and piping and all those things. And and and and we have it here. And I mean, that's actually part of part of the work that we are doing, is is working with early stage companies uh where they can test in our facilities.

SPEAKER_00:

Presumably it's cheaper as well, because you don't have to build all your own equipment and set up these small scale plants if you can go in and just use stuff that's already there at your at your lab.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I would say so.

SPEAKER_00:

Unfortunately, really expensive to use stuff at your lab.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we are not cheap, unfortunately, because we have some overheads.

SPEAKER_00:

Neither's building a plant, to be fair. That's not cheap either.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. And I think um we also look at it as different business models. I mean, sometimes we have project partners. You know, we are really we are a partner, maybe a company would lead it, but sometimes we a lot of our facilities are user facilities that you can really just, you know, you just pay NLR to gain access. Maybe you cover the technician time, but um, I mean, I see I see a lot of companies doing it, so it means that again it has it has to have some economic value. And even if you're expensive, as you said, it might still be cheaper than building your own lab from scratch, like you know, a small chemical lab from scratch if you are an early stage company.

SPEAKER_00:

So there's probably other benefits like streamlining workforce. You don't need extra people if you know to build this extra infrastructure. Speed, you don't have to actually build this infrastructure, it's there. You've you've you've got the you can get the data that you need to from the lab to potentially find more investment or bring on other partners or work out, iron out the cracks of any technology. There are a lot more sort of other benefits than just the cost aspects of it being able to use a national laboratory.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think so. And and you know, I'm this is, I mean, there is a person or multiple people here that manage this, but we even have sort of an incubator style program. So I know Annual has or are called NLR, sorry, are collaborating with with Shell uh through this Shell Game Changer powered by NLR and I think with Cheval Studio, and I'm sorry, I might, you know, might forget one or two others, where those companies apply, and right if they are awarded, they do get the money from this incubator plan. But some of this money is just saved to come and come and use our capabilities and also to get technical expert assistance. So um, yeah, I think as you said, it has it has a lot of benefit, mostly for the early early stage startups.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to go back to your vast interviewing and ask you if you noticed any regional nuance, whether there are any differences depending on where you were talking to people, whether it was you know some people in the US versus Europe, there was a little bit of discrepancy or um anything that you noticed around where people were coming from and their thoughts and attitudes around developing the SAF industry?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, that that that that's a great question. I would say that we we focused mostly on North America and Europe, just because those were the interviews we were able to get. Uh we were able to talk to one chemical company from Asia and also we spoke with someone that was originally, I mean, he worked in in South America, but yeah, the most of the focus was Europe and and North America. I I found out that I mean that the change was less, I think, about where the company or the person are located, because they treat the SAF industry as a global industry. Um, what I definitely learned a lot from them, which again might be a bit more aware, you know, people listening to the podcast might be more aware, but for me was was something I haven't thought about is how they look at the markets right differently in in Europe versus versus the US, whether it's um more mandate-driven in Europe, right, with a refueled EU and in the US, that there are still some incentives in place um for some technologies. I forgot who the person was, but um they definitely mentioned that uh they think incentive-based might be limited as you progress forward, because you know, if if if if a government sort of feels they have to put you know the hand in the pocket and and give credits, if an industry becomes too large, it's hard to keep keep this while obviously, right? Like the mandates were uh something that you try to to try the companies to meet regulatory standards. Um but yeah, it was interesting because people wherever they were, they usually gave us the same division, not connected to where their company is, I think because of the global nature of of the um of stuff. Yeah and they're in an industry.

SPEAKER_00:

That's in that's interesting. I think it's it's like hits on a very sort of classic, the classic carrot versus the stick methodology of arranging policy to support industry growth, and it it's something that industry is almost obsessed with is structuring the policy to help build out this market. And it's interesting that coming from the the research side, it wasn't something that was so obviously apparent because of your dealing more with the the technical as opposed to the the business and the the market-driven stuff. So it goes to show the the idea of what you're saying about academia doing it potentially doing their research potentially in a silo and not being alive to the the big industry sort of topics and talking points that you know that lots of producers and other industry stakeholders sort of live and breathe by.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. And I mean I would say that's I'm really now a proponent of this of this energy icko program because I mean, even if you know I would keep working at NLR, I'll keep doing research here, and even if you know I will retire from here and never be in the industry, I still think just this dialogue, this sort of discovery process, um, I'm sure would help me be a better researcher. So I think you know, people in academia that has opportunity, and I would just say that the NSF, the National Science Foundation, do have a similar program for university professors. So I definitely think it's it could be a great opportunity. I know it's a it's a burden, you know. We got like nine or ten weeks to do it, and it's not like I could put all of my normal research on hold, so you know, usually it came on top of it. But still, this little nine, ten weeks of bootcamp, I think, was extremely eye-opening. And in in the end, it will help me be a better researcher, also, not to work in vacuum or in this silo, as you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00:

The um the policy conversation is was interesting and is quite quite current because the when we're recording this, I don't know when we're gonna publish it. The um there's a bill that's gone into Congress, the House of Representatives called the Securing America's Fuels Bill, which basically is trying to bring the incentive, the tax credit for producing SAF back up to$1.75 and extending the um eligibility timeframe to 2033 as well. So, although earlier this year there was a settlement on policy, there's been another bill that's been added to the mix to go back to the higher level of incentive to producing SAF and extend the um the eligibility period longer than had been signed into law previously. So it goes to show this is very much an alive and ongoing conversation around policy, and even though things do get passed into law, it doesn't mean that something else won't be passed into law soon after. So it's um so I think it that also indicates that there is important to have dialogue to be constantly following things because it is such a fast-moving space, the sustainable aviation fuel industry. There's new technologies cropping up everywhere, there's new policies going in everywhere, there's new financing mechanisms that are being creative. So there's so much that needs to be followed constantly to be able to sort of keep up with what everything that's going on globally.

SPEAKER_01:

No, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I I agree. I I would say that I don't want it you know to be heard as like I'm saying, you know, every professor has to start being, you know, like a mini mini entrepreneur. I I I mean, as I as I said before, I think this um this sometimes um less strings-attached type of research is also what sparks innovation. But I think in this in-between space where someone is doing a bit more applied research, it's really important to know the field that your research would be or potentially would be applied to, because then you you you went one step beyond you know the fundamental research of I just try to understand this reaction or this material or this phenomena, and I want I want something to be you know a technology or a device, so you have to learn where do you live, and that means exactly the companies, the players, the the policies, the the challenges, um, because it can just allow you to be a better, better researcher when you when you when you do your work.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So just before we wrap up, give what what's the sort of timeline for your for this research project? When's when are you looking to sort of publish findings and sort of a rough timeline on sort of how it's it's all sort of progressing and eventually wrapping up, or is there a timeline and it'll sort of be done when it's done?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I mean there is, it's it's a great question. Um, it clearly shows you haven't spoken to many academics. You know, when you ask him about the research and you say I'm just about to wrap up, you know, it's gonna run another 30 minutes probably. Um but uh yeah, no. I mean, jok jokes aside, I would say it's a three year project, so we are funded for three years. It is sort of like this DOA grant is gated. We have three budget periods, so we have to pass sort of a go-no-go between uh each year, and we we pass the first one, so we are now in the second. Um, it's it's an applied research, but we also have some fundamental aspects. Um, this chemical looping process I mentioned. We are exploring new materials. So we started with materials that are known. Um, we and we've done a lot of this in the first year. Um, we are now building a small bench top experimental demonstration, something that you know is is really small. Um, my postdoc, as we speak, is you know, really living in the lab, building and and uh assembling everything. And we hope to run the first experiments. I would say, if we are lucky by the end of the calendar year, if not maybe in January. Um we did develop this robust technoeconomic analysis framework I mentioned, working closely with with Lydia and with our partner. Um, and we have our first predictions, which also showed us where the most expensive pieces of the plant. So now in the next year, we're gonna try to zone in on those and try to optimize the design. And the biggest thing, which should be finished in slightly less than two years, we're actually gonna demonstrate a pilot scale, but only the reactor of the singles production step. So it's not gonna be an integrated pilot, but it's gonna be uh something, you know, like a two-meter reactor. It's it's not a bench top. Um and we are right now doing the sort of preliminary engineering design. I have to also engage external vendors. I mean, it's not something we manufacture in-house, but um, we do use the expertise to do all the you know the design. Uh, we we narrow it down to two concepts, and right now we are trying. So I would say that the timeline is this year, I think we will start to publish our first technoeconomic analysis results and the bench top experimental results while working on the prototype. And then third year, which should be, I mean, we work here on fiscal year, so saying October 2026 to September 2027, the last year should be where we are gonna run our prototype reactor at NLR. And we really hope that this would you know demonstrate it in such a level that potentially someone would you know pick it up, you know, whether it's our partner Lydian or someone else. Um, but that that that is as much as we could advance it, I think, here in the lab. Bigger than this, we have to have a company.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome, Alan. Thanks so much for sharing something a bit different, giving us a slightly different perspective on how SAF's developing, what you're sort of researching, and how you sort of think about the market and how things are progressing. And I I think it's it's been quite refreshing to have a change of perspective, and I hope everyone listening enjoyed it as well. So thanks very much for giving up your time.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you very much, Oscar. Appreciate it.