Forecasts produced by the Ministry of Defence indicate that sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will remain significantly more expensive than conventional jet fuel for the foreseeable future.
In a written parliamentary answer to Conservative MP Richard Holden, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said modelling by the Royal Air Force and the MOD’s Directorate of Analytics estimates the price of aviation fuels from 2025 through to 2040.
The projections suggest conventional aviation turbine fuel, commonly known as Jet A-1, will cost around $0.56 per litre in 2025. The forecast then fluctuates before gradually rising to around $0.69 per litre by 2040.
Sustainable aviation fuel is projected to remain far more expensive. The MOD estimates SAF will cost approximately $1.62 per litre in 2025, increasing gradually to around $1.81 per litre by 2040.
That leaves a persistent price gap between the two fuels. The modelling suggests SAF will cost just over $1 per litre more than conventional aviation fuel throughout the period covered by the forecast.
According to the figures, the difference is estimated at $1.06 per litre in 2025, narrowing slightly to around $1.02 per litre in the late 2020s before rising again. By the late 2030s and into 2040, the projected gap reaches around $1.12 per litre.
Pollard said the estimates were based on analysis conducted by the RAF and MOD analysts, although the figures remain subject to change due to market volatility.
“The Royal Air Force in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence Directorate Analytics are able to provide an estimated cost of the price per litre of both Conventional Aviation Turbine and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) in each year from 2025–2040,” he said.
“However, the data in the below table is subject to change dependent on market fluctuation of fuel costs.”
The minister also noted that the figures are expressed in US dollars per litre, reflecting how oil and aviation fuels are typically traded internationally. The eventual cost to the UK would depend on currency exchange rates at the time of purchase.
The projections illustrate the cost challenge associated with moving aviation fleets towards lower-carbon fuels. Sustainable aviation fuels are designed to reduce lifecycle carbon emissions compared with conventional kerosene, but they remain considerably more expensive to produce and supply. For military aviation, the cost differential could become a significant factor if large-scale adoption of SAF is pursued across combat aircraft, transport fleets and training platforms in the coming decades.
Worth it for operational independence.
The quicker we got off oil the quicker we can stop giving a f**k about the Middle East, Russia and the USA. I started driving an EV last year, it’s great. Zero worries at the pump for me now. Panels on my house charging it up right now.
China is doing this rapidly now for security reasons. Yet the Daily Mail is obsessed with the UK continuing to buy dinosaur juice form unstable regimes, I wonder if it has anything to do with the financial interests of those unstable regimes and the ownership of the Daily Mail 🤔
Without oil the world cannot produce: Plastics and polymers, synthetic fibers, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, industrial products, fertilizer, computers, etc. Oh, and that EV you are so proud of. A Tesla requires 4,800 liters of oil to manufacture. Good old Jim. He wants the world to revert to the Stone Age.
Not sure if you have access to Google but if you type in it you will find that every product you claim needs oil has a synthetic alternative. I’m not sure why you think fertiliser needs oil. Can you explain?
I presume you mean natural gas. Hydrogen derived fertiliser also already exists.
The petrol requirements to make a Tesla are zero. You’re quoting an energy equivalent figure in litres of petrol. Can I tell you how much electrical energy equivalent is required to make 4,800 litres of petrol?
Just a guess here but do you read the Daily Mail yourself?
You know plastics are made from oil yes?
Obviously not, judging by the chest puffing on display from “Jim”.
Yes, but they can be made from other stuff. Furthermore, we can make oil using electricity, water, and CO2.
Chemists these days, very inventive!
Personally Jim I go with a hybrid at the moment. The next generation of batteries are likely to charge in minutes, maybe 1000 miles on a charge, last far longer than the car, fail to burst into flames and be made of cheap materials. When these come in I would expect there will be little interest for any of the electric cars on the forecourt at the moment they will be in demand thoughout the world to cheaply replace petrol, diesel and electric 1.0 even in third world countries. Until that point my hybrid will do nicely.
Aviation really is not the starting point for saving the plannet. I think that the military should focus on providing military kit to deter wars thus saving the plannet.
I agree that the carbon impact of fighter jets is the last thing to worry about for the environment. However, I think the point about security is important.
Widespread war in the middle east and an aggressive Russia would leave us dangerously exposed to fuel shortages for the military, however north sea production in peacetime is environmentally awful and also deprives us of the possibility of using those reserves later.
A low-level production of synthetic fuels would ensure military independence and potentially generate valuable IP. I suspect the cost of fuel is a pretty minor expenditure for the armed forces – i doubt doubling the cost would have a massive effect (especially if the money comes from an environment budget!)
well done! change has to start somewhere
likely that these alternative fuels will also see a decrease in price as they become more widely available and consumed
China is still building Coal Fired Power Stations for use at ‘peak times’ – so for that read ” when they need to use them to maker all our ‘Zero Carbon’ Goods”. I wonder where they get all their Coal & Oil from…..still as long as they can continue to produce ‘stuff’ for us then we are all good.
So your one ov the fortunate upper middle class who doesn’t live in a flat or small terrace house with no chance of fitting solar and even if they could the extremely long payback time mean its hardly a something they want to invest in. But let’s say they did they can’t park our side of thier house because there not enough parking. The new build flats on the corner with not enough allocated parking put paid to that. Or if the can the partners van needs to go there because they need to onload tools every night so they don’t get robbed cos the government no longer considers it worth classing tool theft as crime. Some of people have working class lives to live.
When you pay for fuel you’re really paying for energy. The cost advantage of fossil fuel is down to the fact that it represents the distilled energy of the sun over many thousands of years. If you want to produce ‘synthetic’ fuel then you need to input the energy necessary to construct polymer chains from small molecules, which means that the cost of production can only hope to compete with the cost of refining oil if the energy input is essentially free. Fortunately the MOD can afford to switch to massively overpriced fuel because it’s being properly funded by the Treasury and isn’t in any financial difficulties at all…
That is the correct analysis.
I’m all for EV’s and cutting carbon footprint etc but I cannot for the life of me understand this one. It would be far cheaper to keep a strategic reserve of aviation fuel like we used to in the cold war.
The amount of electrical energy used to make the synthetic fuels is loopy.
ATM we need to focus on the fundamentals of people, platforms and effectors….until such time as someone has the guts to actually spend the monies required to sort the massive mess out. And that will mean cutting some expensive niche capabilities as well as spending a lot more money I am afraid.
So continue the great con, even for the military. With all these “green” taxes and legislations we should be world leaders in the sustainable field by now, so what’s gone wrong? Why do we pay so much? And why are we so reliant as a nation on others?
I’m not completely against being more eco friendly if it creates jobs over here and benefits our lives immensely but I fear we have fallen victim again to the great Westminster scam of paying more for little/nothing in return, and the military should have access to the best materials for the lowest possible price green or not.
It’s because in the 1980’s under thatcher we took the very short sighted approach of scrapping our nuclear program and dashing for gas. It saved a few quid back in the day but that’s about it. Natural gas prices set electricity auctions over 80% of the time. Wind, Nuclear and solar have the lowest marginal prices of any UK electricity source.
It’s worth noting though that the UK prices are almost the highest in Europe (third last year) the main issue is European energy costs in general. Europe is a continent blest with amazing weather and productive agriculture. But it’s a small densely packed continent with little in the way of energy that can be extracted. Almost all energy reserves in the west are exhausted and what’s in the east is controlled by a dictator bent on doing us harm.
It’s no accident that the two cradles of modern civilisation (western Europe and east Asia) are starved of resources because people spent thousands of years mining them out.
Best way to get beyond this is exactly what we are doing and what we did do before the discovery of North Sea oil.
Build our as many domestic energy sources as we can, that means restarting our nuclear program with some of the best engineers in the world at RR and tapping the seas around us that have the worlds greatest wind energy reserves. All this has been going on for some time and will increasingly have a major effect in the next ten years on prices just as natural gas is running out in the USA (like happened to us)
We can even take advantage of the nice long western peninsula we have running to Cornwall and the dry East Coast regions for solar which are some of the best resources available in Northern Europe as well.
Great post thank you 👍
So the usual problems then in the fact that we suffer from short sightedness? When you look at the likes of china and how fast they are moving to green energy we in Europe must look so third world to them.
China has 1200 coal power stations in operation and accounts for 95% of the world’s current construction of new coal power station builds. Yes they installed record breaking solar and wind but there coal plant construction is also record breaking. There carbon emissions are slowing but this is more to do with the construction sector slowing so steel and cement production has dropped both f which are high carbon industries.
China is no.1 in EV production, 1 in solar, 1 in wind and soon to be no.2 in nuclear and has enough under construction to become number 1.
You might wish to revise what you are saying about Thatcher.
She has actually recognised the issue of pollution and further had committed to a plan of building one nuclear power station per year….until it was cut for cheaper short term electricity in the dash-for-gas.
It is all in The National Archives if you care to look.
Thanks SB!
It’s great when someone supports their post with facts. It’s a great pity we can longer post web links. The UKDJ has been greatly diminished since that change. Hard facts trump unsupported/misinformed opinion any day of the week.
From BBC 4:
“TNA provide extensive, declassified documents from 1979–1990 covering Thatcher’s strong support for nuclear energy as a clean, safe alternative to fossil fuels. Records detail her push for new Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) stations, privatization plans separating nuclear from other generators, and reactions to security issues.”
For more specific documentation, searching for “nuclear” in the PREM 19 (Prime Minister’s Office) files on the TNA website which include Cabinet papers, minutes, and personal correspondence.
Google is great! People should use it more often, lol.
Agreed I had done the TNA search on their catalogue which is called Discovery but couldn’t see a way of linking to or posting the output.
As you say search PREM19 and then limit the search to Nuclear or AGR to narrow the output down to manageable numbers of files.
👍
There is no shortage of oil. We can increase drilling as we see fit. ‘sustainable fuel’ is another green scam meant to make someone very rich at the detriment to everyone else.
there is the case of climate change, so something needs to be done. drilling more will only exacerbate the current problem
I suspect quite a few here don’t believe that’s a real thing, mate.
The carbon footprint of UK military aviation is tiny.
ATM RAF/RN don’t have the cash to function by having enough spares or flying hours.
Yes, use EV’s for travel – where appropriate – but don’t cripple the rump of military flying by using SAF.
When things are this financially tight keeping a barely functional military going is all that can be achieved.
UK particularly RN are in a terrible state of readiness compared to even 6 years ago things have shot downhill at pace. Some of that is bad management and most of this a total inability to get money from Treasury for the basics of having a fleet that doesn’t fall apart.
People can believe it is a real thing whilst finding the lengths to which we are being driven to ‘net zero’ at the expense of our Economy- whist directly funding others , and the prospective impact on National Security perplexing/galling/incomprehensible.
These are not mutually exclusive positions.
Yeah I agree average carbon footprint of someone living in the UK compared to say Rwanda is 80-140 times higher and yet successive governments have advocated moving millions of people from low carbon places to the UK which is high carbon. Perhaps instead of growing the economy through migration we should have focused on productivity if they really cared about climate.
The warped thing is I can see the Govt, the current Govt at least funding this in some vain attempt to save the planet. Probably at the expense of the planes they put it in.
Sustainable fuel isn’t sustainable
The irony of ‘sustainable fuel’ being used in an aircraft that is dropping/firing lethal munitions is not lost on me.
Well buy loads of that then to hit our Green targets, you could not make is up, the brain washed looey toons running the place. Are there an sustainable bullets or bombs? Miliband and idiots like him doing well.
I presume this means that the Virgin Oil exports from the Indonesia region will skyrocket… At least Proper fuel we can make locally, synthetic, not so.
You should have the capability to produce SAF it should be a strategic investment. Storage only gets you so far. We have always been beholden to others to where we get out natural resources and since we no longer do adventurism we are not really in control. it’s clear we are no longer strategically as close to a friend’s across the pond and they may not help us out.
I have always thought the ‘green agenda’ has been mis-sold to certain sections of the population who do not care about being green.. Duel marketing and education on the benefits beyond green might have changed the current rejection of some pretty sensible policies to gain some level of energy independence.
It’s as if our political master do not want to make hard decisions and just want to keep the loudest voices happy.
“We have always been beholden to others to where we get out natural resources” Deep vein Coal (produced the best navy/ships in the world pre WW1) North Sea Oil , North Sea Gas? We also had one of the best Nuclear Programs in the world up to the 80’s. Blame Thatcher for closing profitable pits, Energy privatisation , and for undermining our Nuclear Program (ironic as she was a Chemistry Graduate). The Green Party of the 80’s can also claim a share of the plaudits for their ‘influence’ on the destruction of our Nuclear power capability. Funny how we seem to be travelling down the same path now where Solar & Wind are our Saviours (yeah right) and RR’S SMR Nuclear program is being blocked again . Strange how Miliband is promoting Chinese Nuclear Power influence in the UK again isn’t it.
Just remember Polanski is an idiot (useful or not) and Miliband is a subversive Marxist- in a worrying position of ‘power’ (ironically)
Whilst I agree that this should be developed for and investigated , for commercial , and import/export flights , I do not agree that this should take the place of military grade oil for aviation.
Our military budget is stretched enough as it is without blowing it on ‘green’ oil that currently costs over a $1 more per litre – and will continue to do so well into the mid century.
By all means the UK should look to develop an alternative supply of oil , and/or develop ‘green’ oil within the commercial sector- but this must not be to the detriment of either our Defence Budget, or our military doctrine.
Just remember Miliband is a Marxist.
The problem is going green in the commercial sector is costing billions and making business uncompetitive. Everyone bangs on about net zero because the argument is if UK demonstrates net zero then others will follow but here’s the reality no one will follow if you destroy the economy and in the process your armed forces. Surely if we ended up net 5% or net 10% but its a model even poorer nations could follow the net global impact would be far higher. But no one on green bandwagon wants to have that conversation or entertain it which is illogical.
It’s OK as we’ll only have half the number of aircraft.