On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we welcome in special guests Dan Szeezil and David Shilliday to talk about sustainable aviation fuels and how we as a company can utilize this technology.
Dan is an offering management lead at Honeywell in our Performance Materials & Technologies (PMT) business. He’s an experienced, advanced biofuels professional with more than a decade of experience working within renewable fuels.
David is the Vice President and General Manager of our power systems business in Honeywell Aerospace. He leads that business unit, which focuses primarily on manufacturing auxiliary power units for aircraft. He’ll also be talking about the latest in sustainable fuels, and how our Aerospace business is leveraging them.
On this episode of Aerospace Unplugged, we welcome in special guests Dan Szeezil and David Shilliday to talk about sustainable aviation fuels and how we as a company can utilize this technology.
Dan is an offering management lead at Honeywell in our Performance Materials & Technologies (PMT) business. He’s an experienced, advanced biofuels professional with more than a decade of experience working within renewable fuels.
David is the Vice President and General Manager of our power systems business in Honeywell Aerospace. He leads that business unit, which focuses primarily on manufacturing auxiliary power units for aircraft. He’ll also be talking about the latest in sustainable fuels, and how our Aerospace business is leveraging them.
Adam Kress:
Well, hello and thanks for joining me for the Aerospace Unplugged podcast brought to you by Honeywell Aerospace. I'm your host, Adam Kress. And this is your behind the scenes look into all things aerospace. Now we have a very cool show set for you guys today. I'm going to be joined by Dan Szeezil, an offering management lead at Honeywell in our performance materials and technologies business. He's an experienced advanced biofuels professional with more than a decade of experience working in renewable fuels.
He'll be our first guest today. Now batting second here in the lineup is going to be David Shilliday. He's the vice president and general manager of our power systems business in Honeywell Aerospace. He leads that business unit, which focuses primarily on manufacturing auxiliary power units for aircraft. He'll also be talking about the latest in sustainable fuels and how our aerospace business is leveraging them.
Now on the topic of sustainable fuels overall, we're going to dive in on how your company might be able to benefit from these fuels and why Honeywell's auxiliary power units have begun to run on them. But before we get started, if you're new to this podcast, don't forget to follow this show and share this episode with someone. We have a great show set for you today. And the next few episodes we have planned also cover some very interesting topics. So without further ado, let's welcome in our first guest, Dan Szeezil. How you doing today, Dan?
Dan Szeezil:
I'm good, Adam. Thank you for having me.
Adam Kress:
All right. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for joining us today. So let's dive right into the topic of sustainable fuels. There's different areas of Honeywell that are working together on this. And this is a good example of it between the PMT business and also aerospace. So let's explore your story a little bit first. How did you get into sustainability and ultimately into sustainable aircraft and aerospace fuel?
Dan Szeezil:
Sure. So I started getting interested in sustainability back in the mid two thousands, maybe 05, 06, as the conversation around climate change started to become more popular and more present in an everyday conversation. And it was my interest in that and specifically in the energy space that brought me towards renewable fuels.
So I was, back in the late two thousands, I was working around industries with carbon credits as well as with renewable fuels. And I found that my background and my interest fit very well with developing new technologies for advanced biofuels in particular. So I worked for a few years for a couple of different companies, but ended up joining Honeywell back in 2014, specifically in our renewable fuels group.
Adam Kress:
So what are some of the issues of traditional fuel that make specifically sustainable aviation fuel kind of a path toward the future?
Dan Szeezil:
Sure. So sustainable aviation fuel is really the hot topic right now across the refining industry and across, I believe the aerospace industry as well. And the main attraction to using sustainable aviation fuel is that it is a solution that is available today for reducing the amount of emissions related to aviation travel.
So the fact that we can produce sustainable aviation fuel today that is effectively identical to it's petroleum counterpart, and can be used as a drop in replacement for petroleum fuel in airplanes right now. So it's really a great method for airlines as well as private aircraft to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that occur during travel. And we have customers today that are operating Honeywell technology to produce sustainable aviation fuel that is being used by airlines today and can be used going forwards.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Let me ask you this kind of from a layman's perspective, why hasn't sustainable aviation fuel been around a long time?
Dan Szeezil:
So it's a relatively modestly new technology. We've had commercial technology in this space for the last six, eight years or so. So the UOP Ecofining technology was originally co-developed with our partner, Eni of Italy. And we started this technology development back in late two thousands, concentrating specifically on renewable transportation, diesel fuel. So strictly for road transport. But as we realized and looked at the process, we also realized that it could be altered for producing sustainable aviation fuel.
And starting with in 2010, 2011 timeframe, we worked specifically with the ASTM accreditation partners to certify sustainable aviation fuel for use in commercial aircraft. And this led to the development of the first commercial aviation fuel facility in the world, which is based just outside of Los Angeles. And this facility uses the Honeywell technology for producing sustainable aviation fuel.
The difference between sustainable aviation fuel and traditional petroleum jet fuel is that we're using 100% renewable feed stocks as the basis to convert those into jet fuel. So the technology that we use is actually quite similar to traditional petroleum refining technology. But we're actually starting with a completely different feed stock. And those are typically sustainable feeds such as used cooking oil or animal fats, and sometimes also crop based oils like soybean oils or canola oil.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Well, that was my next question, what exactly goes into the sustainable fuel? And you kind of just answered that, but then who else is producing this? Is this an exclusive Honeywell thing?
Dan Szeezil:
So we offer what we believe to be the best technology in this space, but there are some other alternatives as well as a number of new developments in this area that start with a different type of feed stock than what we're using commercially today. So there are a couple other producers right now that produce modestly small volumes of sustainable aviation fuel in different locations around the world. But we do expect to see a significant increase in the amount of production capacity going forwards, because it is such a high interest topic, both in North America as well as in Europe.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So what would it take if I'm an airline or maybe a private jet operator, if I wanted to switch over from traditional fossil fuels to sustainably aviation fuel?
Dan Szeezil:
So from an operations' perspective, there's nothing. So it's really a drop in replacement for up to 50% of the current aviation fuel blend. And honestly, because the supply is in such limited amounts today, reaching up to those higher blend levels is not really an issue.
I think what would be involved is that you would have to make arrangements with a producer of the sustainable aviation fuel and arrange for a purchase contract directly from them or from one of their supply partners in the space. So there are a number of active participants today that are working with a couple of the current producers to be able to bring sustainable aviation fuel to a number of airports worldwide.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So what do you think it'll take to get to more toward mass adoption of this technology?
Dan Szeezil:
So there's a couple of things and they're actually occurring right now. So I think number one, has been a real change in the interest in sustainability around aviation travel. And I think this has occurred from a grassroots level, both by the passengers, as well as by the airlines themselves. And their interest in using these types of fuels has generated interest from the petroleum refiners as well as independent project developers to begin developing projects to produce [inaudible 00:07:37].
And so that together has I think, created an atmosphere here where we're seeing at Honeywell a lot of different interests around the world, from people who want to build new facilities to produce sustainable aviation fuel. And I think there's twofold benefits to that. One of course, is that we bring more sustainable aviation fuel to the marketplace, but two, we potentially are able to reduce the cost of sustainable aviation fuel to make it more usable by airlines worldwide.
Adam Kress:
Okay. That's great. You touched on this just a little bit earlier, but one more question. Can you talk a little bit about the Ecofining process that was specifically developed?
Dan Szeezil:
Sure. So the Ecofining process was originally developed with our partner Eni of Italy. And it was originally developed specifically for transportation road diesel. It is similar, but not the same to a traditional hydroprocesing technology that you would see when processing petroleum fuels. So what we were able to do is with some slight modifications to that process and how that process is operated at refineries, you can actually change the types of products that come out of the back end of our technology.
So instead of producing, for example, 100% renewable diesel fuel, you can alter that to produce maybe 50% diesel and 50% sustainable aviation fuel. Or potentially change the process to produce 100% sustainable aviation fuel. So it's something that we've put into commercial practice now five years ago, and continue to modify and improve to reduce the operating cost for as well as creates the amount of sustainable aviation fuel that can be produced.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Excellent. Well, Dan, it's been a pleasure and it's been very educational. I appreciate you taking the time with us today.
Dan Szeezil:
Great. Thank you, Adam. Appreciate the time.
Adam Kress:
Second up on the show today is Dave Shilliday. I have some interesting questions for you here on the heels of what Dan just taught us. But let's start a little bit about just hearing about your background, how you came to Honeywell and talk a little bit about the business that you lead.
David Shilliday:
Excellent. So I'm Dave Shilliday. I lead the power systems business for Honeywell Aerospace, without a doubt, the coolest portfolio of business we have within aero. It includes our legacy auxiliary power business, think of secondary power, as well as power generation, things like generators, power distribution. It also includes a lot of interesting stuff that we're going to get to here shortly.
Adam Kress:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Shilliday:
Before I came to Honeywell Aerospace, I was an engineer in the automotive industry for about a decade, doing, working on some disruptive technology there.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Great. We're going to talk a lot about APUs today. I know within Honeywell, APU is an acronym that everybody knows, but for those, the listeners out there who may not know what an APU is, where it is on a plane and where it does, why don't you just break that down for us a little bit?
David Shilliday:
Sure. An auxiliary power unit in its simplest form is power on demand. So whether the application is emergency power needed for some specific part of the mission or a secondary source of power, if you just need to run the avionics or a particular part of the aircraft, when the engines aren't running, it provides that solution for you. Typically, in your air transport aircraft that most of us fly on it's in the tail cone of the airplane. And you can feel it running when the aircraft is cool here in the Phoenix tarmac.
Adam Kress:
Yeah. That's keeps you hopefully not too sweaty when you board the plane and it's 110 degrees. [crosstalk 00:11:03]
David Shilliday:
And if you're miserable on those flights, feel free to encourage them to run the APU. We're big fans of that.
Adam Kress:
If they're being cheap. Yeah. Turn on the APU. All right. Well, tell us a little bit about the technology Honeywell is working on to promote sustainability, particularly with APUS and other power systems?
David Shilliday:
Yeah. So when I think about it, we put it in sort of three buckets relative to timeline. And so right now there are solutions we have. Our current set of production APUs can all run on 50% sustainable aviation fuel. Step one is moving all of those APUs to be able to run on a hundred percent sustainable aviation fuel. That's using the existing technology. We've got tens of thousands of our APUs out there in the fleet. That's an immediate benefit you could make without a significant change to that hardware.
We also have reliability and fuel efficiency upgrades for those same APUs. Again, tens of thousands of them out there in the fleet. You can improve reliability, you can improve fuel burn today with some software changes. So that's just low hanging fruit that we can go make the world more sustainable today. Next phase you've got things we're doing such as electric propulsion. We have a cooperation with a company called Denso in Japan, where we develop electric motors, gear boxes, and propulsion systems for new UAM and UAS vehicles.
So think of a completely green new aircraft, whether you think about Lilium or Joby or Archer, some of these vehicles you've seen out there in the press. We're providing the propulsion solutions for those aircraft. Next, and I've got way too many of them is hybrid, hybrid electric.
Adam Kress:
Yeah.
David Shilliday:
As we think about aircraft architectures moving away from traditional gas turbine power, to more of a mix of gas turbine and electric power, we have hybrid solutions that the power systems team is developing. And last but not least, so exciting, fuel cells. So within the power systems portfolio, we acquired a company called Powered a Man that has experience in both developing fuel cells and integrating fuel cells into aerospace applications. So as I said, without a doubt, the coolest portfolio within aero.
Adam Kress:
Okay. If you turn back the clock a little bit, what were some of the reasons why we decided to start running APUs 50% on the sustainable fuel? What was the impetus for it all starting?
David Shilliday:
Yeah. So we could see back when these APUs were to designed that this was a need that aviation was going to have to move towards a greener solution. So we designed with that in mind. What's happening right now is that regulation and necessary and appropriate market pressures are accelerating that drive towards more sustainable solutions. So we clearly had that objective early on and really it's the market catching up with that need.
Adam Kress:
Okay. So how has that impacted that kind of ground swell, particularly within aviation with kind of some external pressures you see in the press and stuff with a push toward greening and being more sustainable, how has that affected the work that you and your team do within Honeywell? And how has that maybe pushed development toward things like fuel cells and sustainable aviation fuel?
David Shilliday:
To some extent it accelerates it because there's funding available and customer adoption and has moved in, right?
Adam Kress:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Shilliday:
We've had these solutions for a number of years. Part of it is that customers are saying, "Maybe I'm going to move that new aircraft architecture up some amount of time because I see an immediate need, or I see some regulatory pressure pushing me there."
The more interesting element is we're also seeing some of the virtuous circle where the more bandwidth and the more technology development you do in green solutions, the more it opens the aperture, right? You start to get scale, you start to get manufacturing and technology expertise in these areas, and suddenly the art of what's possible expands on us. So we're also starting to feel the second order effects of work that's been done before.
Adam Kress:
Okay. Makes sense. If you were to kind of almost act as a spokesperson for the entire aviation industry, from a greening and sustainability perspective, what do you think are the most important things to focus on that would really make an impact?
David Shilliday:
So number one, is how do we make the current fleet more efficient, right? How do we take those tens of thousands of aircraft that are flying today and make them more fuel efficient, whether it's through use of a hundred percent staff or flight efficiency upgrades that allow them to be efficient in the path from point a to point B, that allows them to burn less fuel?
All those things we can apply without a step change in the hardware that's being used. And so at a time when airline costs are very sensitive, right? It's squeezing more out of the fleet we've got. Then it becomes about what's the timing of those next aircraft, and how do we make sure that our solutions that are going to be significantly disruptive in that area, right? Moving towards those guidelines, those 2050 targets of emission free aviation, how do we make sure that we have the right technologies available to support those future aircraft?
Adam Kress:
Okay. I know recently the FAA awarded about 20 million in grants that would help reduce emissions and improve air quality at airports across the country. So what are some of the types of things that those funds are earmarked for and what kind of impact can they make?
David Shilliday:
Yeah, so some of what they're using it for are the things I described such as more efficient flight planning, which again, I think is... It's very, very simple, right? If you spend less time getting from point a to point B, burn less fuel. We think that's a great solution.
Adam Kress:
Well, let me interrupt you real quick. A lot of people probably don't realize this, or maybe they've experienced this while they've been flying. Sometimes you're circling, sometimes there's heavy traffic. What are the main causes for not just getting directly from point A airport to point B airport, where's the waste in there?
David Shilliday:
Often it can be weather and some things that are more difficult to manage, but they do have flight optimization, things that can work around weather. And second is management at the airport, right? How do we keep aircraft from backing up so that the planes can take off and land as scheduled. So whether it's flight efficiency solutions or air traffic management solutions, both of those things really keep you from having to waste time and fuel in the air.
Adam Kress:
Do you think you'll see an increased, I guess, amount of whether it be funding or external pressure, that's going to be filtering into the aviation sector to help these green and sustainable efforts?
David Shilliday:
Yeah. Going back to some of that money that's been earmarked, whether it gets applied to those flight efficiency efforts, whether it gets applied to the changes that might be required to move fuel delivery systems at the airport towards a hundred percent sustainable aviation fuel, whether it's tax incentives so that it brings down the cost of using sustainable aviation fuel. All those things really will help accelerate this within the market. So I think all of the regulatory commitments and the dollars they've put behind it will help move all of those solutions along faster.
Adam Kress:
Okay. We've talked about sustainable aviation fuel, other technologies that will help reduce emissions and things across aviation. But if we look at Honeywell and its sustainable goals as a whole, I know the company has made a pledge to operate sustainably by 2030, which is barely eight short years away. Talk a little bit about the company's goals and how all this aviation technology you plays into it?
David Shilliday:
So I think at its heart, you get people spending more time and attention on sustainability as a topic. And the more smart people we have thinking about the art of the possible there you get into that virtuous circle that I described, where new ideas that come through our own experience or through those people who help us achieve our own goals as a company, then grow to the next solution and the next solution.
So everything builds upon that and helps open the art of the possible. So that, along with the fact that our engineers, our business people start to focus on it as a key priority for the company, which again, like anything else, the more time and attention you give it, the greater the impact you find.
Adam Kress:
Okay, excellent. We've covered a lot, but any last thoughts?
David Shilliday:
Yeah. Just one. And it's going to seem very intuitive, but one thought that constantly occurs is these sort of bandaid type solutions. There are a lot of things you can do that feel good, sort of short term. A lot of what we're focused on from a technology perspective is not only how do we squeeze more out of the existing infrastructure, but how do we build that bridge towards very sustainable outcomes so that we're not doing things that look good for a couple years or a few years, and then end up in a landfill? What we want to do is invest in those solutions that 20 and 30 years from now, really we look back on and say, those are the foundation for how we got to these sustainability goals.
Adam Kress:
All right. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming today, Dave, very interesting conversation. And thanks to all our listeners for joining the podcast today as well. I hope you learned something new on this episode of Aerospace Unplugged. Thanks again to Dan and Dave for being here with us and we'll catch you on the next episode. Have a great day.