Pragmatic assessment of meeting the 2030 U.S. sustainable aviation fuel goal

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production is essential for decarbonizing the aviation sector in the short and mid-term as well as maintaining the global competitiveness of U.S. airlines, supporting job creation, and ensuring U.S. energy independence. The near-term U.S. SAF target, set by the SAF Grand Challenge, is 11.4 billion liters (3 billion gallons) of domestic SAF production by 2030, with a minimum 50 % reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. In 2024 U S. SAF production was less than 2 % of the stated goal, demonstrating that the remaining production growth is significant. Barriers to scale-up include technological readiness, feedstock availability, and delays in facility development. This study uses a database of U.S. SAF production announcements to assess the feasibility of attaining the 2030 targets by analyzing production potential, construction paradigms, feedstock availability, and CO 2 abatement cost. Our analysis indicates that the hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids pathway will dominate U.S. SAF production through 2030, with notable contributions from alcohol to jet and co-processing. However, probable U.S. production of SAF is predicted to fall short of the current goal by 3.6-billion liters although there are scenarios that meet the goal. Existing U.S. policies favor on-road transportation fuels and are insufficient to drive necessary SAF production scale-up. Additional measures, such as non-government scope 3 emission purchases, long-term incentives, a national low-carbon fuel standard, or volume mandates, are options to close the gap. These measures are needed to ensure the profitability of SAF production and competitiveness with renewable diesel. • U.S. SAF production will be dominated by HEFA through 2030. • SAF production in the U.S. is expected to fall short of the near-term goal of 11.4 billion L/yr. • Further growth of the nascent SAF industry will require additional supportive measures.