Jet Fuel

Explore the fuel price and emissions intensity of jet fuel.

Jet Fuel

Key Assumptions

The data and estimates presented here are based on the following key assumptions:

• The conventional jet fuel price is estimated from the 2018 transportation jet fuel price from Annual Energy Outlook 2019 (EIA, 2019). Prices are converted from dollars per gallon to dollars per gasoline gallon equivalent using the lower heating values of gasoline (112,194 Btu/gal) and petroleum ultra-low-sulfur jet (123,041 Btu/gal) from the GREET model (Argonne National Laboratory, 2018). The Transportation ATB does not provide plant metrics for conventional jet fuel because the price is based on current market values and not on modeled costs with specific plant design assumptions.
• Fuel production estimates for alternative jet fuel are based on analysis from Tao et al. (Tao et al., 2017) and Zhang et al. (Zhang et al., 2018). These references describe pathways to alternative jet fuels that are approved for blending up to 50% of the final product (ASTM D7566-19b, 2019). Emissions estimates are based on the range pathways from Han et al. (Han et al., 2017), which assumesd corn and corn stover feedstock. Note that Han et al. (Han et al., 2017) only provide emissions estimates for CO2e emissions, so other air emission estimates are not provided here.
• Emissions estimates for conventional jet fuel are from GREET 2018, using the petroleum ultra-low-sulfur jet pathways. The well-to-wake estimate assumes a single-aisle passenger aircraft (e.g., Boeing 737).
• The biogenic carbon in a biofuel such as the alternative jet fuel pathway is considered carbon-neutral in the GREET model, as the biogenic carbon is assumed to be sourced from the atmosphere during biomass growth. Per GREET model convention, the biogenic carbon credit is allocated to the well-to-tank phase of the biofuel life cycle, which often results in a negative well-to-tank CO2e emissions value after taking into account greenhouse gas emissions associated with all upstream activities (e.g., farming, land use change, feedstock transportation, and biomass conversion to biofuel).
• The data downloads include additional detail on assumptions and calculations for each metric.

Definitions

For detailed definitions, see:

Alternative jet fuel

CO₂e emissions

Conventional jet fuel

Coproducts sales revenue

Fixed capital investment

Fixed operating cost

Fuel price

Mature industry feedstock production cost

NO_X emissions

Other (non-feedstock) variable operating cost

PM emissions

Power sales revenue

Scenarios

SO_X emissions

Throughput capacity

Total product yield

Well-to-tank emissions

Well-to-wake emissions

References

The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.