Flights at O’Hare International Airport will soon be partly powered by lower-emission fuel made from leftover fats, oils and grease.
Sustainable aviation fuel is set to be available for use by carriers that fly in and out of the busy airport, after Chicago-based United Airlines became the first to purchase the fuel at O’Hare, the carrier announced Wednesday. The fuel is seen as key to meeting the aviation industry’s goals to cut emissions.
Purchase of the fuel was touted as a win by Gov J.B. Pritzker at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. The governor, who is in contention to be a potential running mate in Vice President Kamala Harris’s bid for president, presented a unified front with state political leaders and United Airlines President Brett Hart as the two highlighted the collaboration of business and politics to pass a state tax credit for sustainable jet fuel that they said made the purchase possible.
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United purchased up to 1 million gallons of fuel from producer Neste to be sent to O’Hare this year, with the first delivery expected in August. A blend of the sustainable fuel and conventional jet fuel will go into the general supply at O’Hare, where it will be available to all carriers at the airport. For now, sustainable fuel must be combined with conventional fuel for use in commercial aircraft.
Sustainable aviation fuel is in use elsewhere, and the Neste fuel alone is available at at least 25 airports globally, according to the company. For United, O’Hare will be the fifth place the carrier has purchased sustainable aviation fuel, after airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Amsterdam.
“It sounds like science fiction, but when blended with conventional jet fuel SAF can be used right now with the same fuel systems and aircraft everyone is using today,” Hart said. “That’s why SAF is among the most impactful and scalable solutions to decarbonizing commercial aviation.”
Aviation makes up 2% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, and 12% of transportation emissions. In the U.S., use of sustainable fuel jumped to 15.8 million gallons in 2022, data from the energy department shows, but still accounted for less than 0.1% of the jet fuel burned by major U.S. airlines.
United said sustainable fuel can lower greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 85% when the entire life cycle is taken into account, including how it’s made and how it’s delivered to airports. But the fuel is expensive. And the industry has a long way to go to meet goals to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which the energy department has called “aspirational.”
In June, for example, flights out of O’Hare generated an estimated 994.9 million kilograms of carbon dioxide on their journeys, according to aviation analytics company Cirium. That’s the equivalent of driving 236,799 gasoline-powered passenger cars for one year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In the meantime, both Hart and Pritzker said Wednesday the aviation fuel purchase was a step forward, and was enabled by the sustainable fuel tax credit, signed into law in 2023, that allows carriers to earn a credit of $1.50 per gallon purchased.
When it comes to clean energy and transportation innovation, Pritzker has tried to position the state as a hub. That has included a focus on electric vehicles, such as a tax credit deal to bring electric school bus- and truck-maker Lion Electric to Joliet. The plant has been operating below capacity, and the company announced layoffs Wednesday.
Pritzker doubled down on that message Wednesday, saying more widespread adoption of sustainable fuel would allow more capacity at O’Hare.
“This is a demonstration of how sustainability does not have to come at the cost of convenience, of growth or modernization,” he said.
Hart, for his part, praised Pritzker, saying they shared a common purpose.
“It is a model of what it looks like when business and government and legislature and a state and a city work together hand in hand,” he said.