The SAF Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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The SAF Podcast

SAF Investor

Leisure

Business

Frequency: 1 episode/11d. Total Eps: 112

Welcome to The SAF Podcast, the only podcast on the internet that exclusively covers sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). So if you want to find out the real issues and challenges are for commercialising and scaling SAF production, look no further.

Every week we will be hearing from senior industry leaders who are actively shaping the future of SAF and aviation.

Hosted by Oscar Henderson and brought to you by the team at SAF Investor. Connect with us at www.safinvestor.com

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Data updated on 29/10/2026

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Alex Zorniger | Power to Hydrogen (P2H2) | Electrolysers and living and dying by the electricity bill

Season 4 · Episode 30

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 • Duration 47:43

Why does eSAF live or die on the electricity bill? Alex Zorniger of Power to Hydrogen (P2H2) explains electrolysers in plain English, and why they matter to power-to-liquid SAF.

In this episode we cover:

Why hydrogen makes up 50 to 60% of the cost of a gallon of eSAF, and why electricity is around 70% of that hydrogen cost
SOEC vs PEM vs alkaline vs AEM: What do these all mean, how each electrolyser works, where each one wins, and what the market share looks like today
Why intermittent renewables favour membrane-based electrolysers, and why SOEC suits steady sources like geothermal
A quick calculation any developer can use to test whether a project’s hydrogen cost stacks up
What bankability means for new electrolyser technology, and why banks want proven scale
How to tackle the the challenge of performance guarantees.
Why pressure and purity matter when integrating hydrogen into the SAF production process

Whether you’re a developer, investor or newcomer to eSAF, this is the essential guide to the technology at the heart of power-to-liquids.

SAF Investor London returns on 23 to 24 February 2027, bringing together the investors and stakeholders scaling sustainable aviation fuel finance. Find out more about the conference here: https://www.safinvestor.com/event/149733/london-2027/

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Stewart Stewart | Nova Pangaea Technologies | Boring is beautiful

Season 4 · Episode 29

Wednesday, October 14, 2026 • Duration 53:39

On this week's episode of The SAF Podcast we welcome back Nova Pangaea Technologies (NPT) for the first time since 2023. 10 months into his role as CEO, Stewart Stewart, we discuss what attracted him to SAF and get some updates from NPT.

We cover a variety of topics including:

Why energy ventures fail: it’s rarely the chemistry, it’s the handoffs between science, engineering, finance and the first commercial plant.
A reminder of NPT's REFNOVA process which turns forestry and agricultural waste into second-generation sugars and biochar. The sugars become ethanol, which goes to SAF via alcohol-to-jet, while the biochar locks carbon into soil, making the fuel carbon negative on a lifecycle basis.
The campaign two at the Wilton demonstration plant in Teesside delivered more than three days of stable, continuous operation, validated externally by Fichtner. His verdict: “boring is beautiful”, since every uneventful hour turns investor imagination into operating data.
We discuss what is next up on the horizon as the NPT scale up continues.
Project Speedbird, with IAG/British Airways and LanzaJet, gives the company a clear route to market and a single killer app. Nova Pangaea provides the ethanol, LanzaJet the alcohol-to-jet technology, and IAG the offtake.
On LanzaJet’s Freedom Pines facility, he’s watching closely but notes Nova Pangaea has fallback options: other alcohol-to-jet plants and road fuels
Stewart argues the industry should reward emissions reduction, not just litres produced. Under the UK SAF mandate, Nova Pangaea can monetise its biochar sequestration through additional SAF certificates, delivering two to three times the carbon impact of other fuels.
Sceptical of shipping feedstock around the world: with around 80% of European used cooking oil and tallow imported from Southeast Asia Stewart highlights HEFA supply security and sees book-and-claim as the more honest decarbonisation route.
Finally we touch on NPT's continual fundraising and how much time this ends up taking from Stewart's schedule.

Check out the full episode to find out all the details.

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Jeffrey Altman | Finadvice | You need a crisis to have the renaissance

Season 4 · Episode 28

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 • Duration 43:17

This week's episode of The SAF Podcast steps beyond SAF to ask a bigger question: what do today's energy shocks mean for investors? Jeffrey Altman, Senior Advisor, Finadvice joins Oscar and suggests the real crisis isn't the price of energy but the price of dependence.

Oscar and Jeff discuss:

Why this energy crisis differs from past ones, and why there's no quick way to decouple our existing energy supply chain reliance.
Hybrid war, and why investors should start pricing in downtime.
The shift from asset-light bets to capital-intensive investment in domestic manufacturing, alternative fuels and critical infrastructure.
Why policy certainty is the biggest lever, and which governments are sending the right signals.
What defence buyers actually want from SAF: reliable, commercially competitive fuel, not subsidy.
How reliance on Asian supply is pushing the case for onshore and nearshore production.
Why family offices could be the Medicis of the next innovation wave.

Check out this episode if you want to to hear a deeper discussion around current energy constraints and how to restructure them.

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Dario Formenti | ISCC | "It is not just a stamp" Busting SAF certification myths

Season 4 · Episode 27

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 • Duration 42:04

Certification has a reputation for being complicated. Dario Formenti, senior systems manager - sustainable fuels, International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) thinks that's overdone, and explains why.

On this week's episode of The SAF Podcast, Oscar and Dario cover why certification is far more than a stamp on paper. It underpins market access, compliance claims and the credibility SAF needs to scale. They also discuss:

How ISCC handles e-SAF and RFNBOs, including its pre-certification framework for early movers
Where ISCC PLUS, the credit transfer system and combined audits fit in
The push for EU RED and CORSIA dual conformance
Book and claim, and how to guard against double counting
How to prepare for an audit
Where certification is heading over the next three to five years

Dario is a chemist who has worked in ISCC's aviation and maritime team since 2022. If you produce, trade or buy SAF, this one is for you.

Certification is the bedrock on which a trustworthy SAF industry is built. Understanding the key factors behind strong traceability is vital and check this episode out to get up to speed.

If you enjoyed this, check out our free newsletter which you can sign up receive here: https://www.safinvestor.com/newsletter/

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Manshu Agarwal, HutanBio: Algae's one in a trillion chance for success

Season 4 · Episode 26

Wednesday, September 23, 2026 • Duration 50:02

This week Oscar is joined by Manshu Agarwal, CEO, HutanBio a UK based company aiming to commercialise the use of Algae as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel production.

Manshu has watched the algae story play out once already. A chemical engineer by training, he cut his teeth at Sapphire Energy and then Synthetic Genomics — two ventures that between them raised hundreds of millions of dollars chasing algae biofuels, only to run into the same wall: the biology simply wasn't good enough to get costs down. Now at HutanBio, he's back for round two, armed with what he believes is the missing piece.

That piece is Spherica — an entirely new class of algae, discovered after HutanBio's founder spent a decade bioprospecting the oceans, screening a trillion organisms to find roughly 400 candidates and one genuine outlier. Spherica has a thick cell wall and packs around 300 thylakoid layers versus the 6-10 found in typical strains — translating into three times the oil productivity.

Agrawal walks through why that matters commercially: HutanBio is targeting under $1/litre at small scale and around 40 cents/litre (roughly $62/barrel) at full scale, using vertical, low-footprint photobioreactor systems developed first in Malaysia and now being scaled toward coastal deserts, starting with an MOU in Oman.

He's candid about algae's credibility problem after two decades of hype and underdelivery — but argues the underlying case, heavy transport still has no cost-competitive liquid fuel alternative, hasn't gone away, and that Spherica is the platform that finally gives algae a real shot at cost parity.

Check out the full discussion on your usual podcasting platforms.

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Ryan Jackson, Cielo Waste Solution: Show me the carbon credits

Season 4 · Episode 25

Wednesday, September 16, 2026 • Duration 46:24

On this week's episode of The SAF Podcast, Ryan Jackson, CEO, Cielo Waste Solutions joins Oscar to discuss the company's project platform to constructing SAF projects.

Jackson unpacks Cielo's flagship Nahoonai project, developed in partnership with the Lheidi T’enneh First Nation through Tano T’enneh Enterprises — a co-ownership structure he argues de-risks permitting and helps unlock financing through Crown corporations like the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

Alongside the favorable terms this partnership opens up Jackson discusses the project's revenue model and why Canada is in his mind the best place to develop a project, thanks to the stackable federal and state level credits available. This means Cielo can plan to sell their SAF at parity with Jet A1 and then generate the majority of its revenue through these credits.

We finish the episode by evaluating the realistic decarbonisation targets for aviation to achieve as well as the big challenges that the SAF industry is trying to solve.

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Hydrocarbon Engineering: The accident that revolutionised (SAF) brewing

Season 4 · Episode 24

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 • Duration 47:33

This week Khaled, Ramon and Miguel of Hydrocarbon Engineering join Oscar on The SAF Podcast to tell the story behind their accidental discovery: a reactor built to produce bio-oil that, instead, yielded a diesel-like hydrocarbon in a single step.

Years of reverse engineering later, the Valencia-based team has turned that anomaly into a feedstock-agnostic, single-stage hydrothermal process for producing SAF, renewable diesel and other hydrocarbons — one that removes the need for a separate hydrogen source entirely.

They discuss the ambiguity of self-assessed TRLs, early interest from British Airways/Iberia, a build-and-license commercialisation strategy, and their target of bringing SAF production costs down to around $1,500 per tonne, against today's $6,000–$9,000 range, as they push from TRL 6 towards a first commercial plant at a biomethane site.

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Iris Warnaar, SkyNRG and Mark Kelly, ICF: SAF Market Outlook 2026

Season 4 · Episode 23

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 • Duration 58:07

For the third year running, Oscar sits down to unpack the 2026 SAF Market Outlook report once again with Mark Kelly (ICF) and this year with Iris Warnaar (SkyNRG).

The headline numbers: SAF demand is forecast to reach 12.8 million tonnes by 2030 (3.6% of jet fuel) and climb past 190 million tonnes by 2050, though US policy headwinds have pulled the near-term forecast down from last year's projections. On supply, 2030 capacity now stands at 18.5 million tonnes, creating a brief surplus before the market tightens again — and Asia has overtaken every other region to lead the global pipeline, largely to feed European demand.

The conversation digs into the HEFA feedstock constraint that still hasn't gone away, genuine, if modest, progress on eSAF and alcohol-to-jet and China's evolving role as both supplier and its own energy security case study.

The episode closes with the third section of the report, a proper stress-test of the energy security argument that's dominated SAF conversations all year: real driver of investment, or narrative running ahead of the economics? Iris brings the optimism, Mark brings the risk register, and between them the picture that emerges is "positive but uneven" — with plenty left to sort out before the 2027 report rolls around.

If you have not already read the full report you can find it here: https://skynrg.com/2026-saf-market-outlook/

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James Hygate, Firefly: "You can't not do it, if you know how to do it"

Season 4 · Episode 22

Wednesday, July 8, 2026 • Duration 44:25

James Hygate, CEO and founder of Firefly, returns to The SAF Podcast for the first time since December 2023 — and a lot has happened. James brings his characteristic blend of technical depth, founder candour, and big-picture ambition to a brilliant wide ranging discussion.

James opens with a comprehensive update on Firefly's progress: the selection of Turkish engineering firm Altaca as their HTL technology partner, the securing of a site at an existing refinery in Harwich for the downstream hydrotreating facility, and supply agreements with water companies including Severn Trent and Anglian Water that already cover more feedstock than the first facility needs. He also touches on the significance of the Boeing investment, the Builders Vision backing, and the ongoing Series B round that Firefly hopes to close shortly.

James also shares his observations from a recent visit to Shanghai on the pace of Chinese SAF and renewables infrastructure development, the implications of used cooking oil supply being internalised within China, and what lessons — if any — Western developers can draw from "China speed." We also explore the trajectory of the wider SAF industry, James's concerns about policy wobble and its chilling effect on infrastructure capital, and a frank view on whether some SAF projects are gaming mandates rather than genuinely pursuing decarbonisation.

Throughout, James returns to the thread that has defined his 20-year career in low carbon fuels: the only thing worth doing is something that can move the needle on climate change. For Firefly, that means wet-waste-to-jet at gigaton scale — and James believes the technology stack to do it is now in place.

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Amy Herbert, Arcadia eFuels & Thomas Engelmann, KGAL: Breaking the eSAF deadlock

Season 4 · Episode 21

Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 49:04

In this episode, Oscar is joined by two guests at the heart of Europe's eSAF scale-up effort: Amy Herbert, Arcadia eFuels, and Thomas Engelmann, KGAL— both key figures within Project SkyPower, the industry coalition to the European Commission to put in place the conditions needed to bring eSAF projects to final investment decision.

Amy opens with an overview of Arcadia eFuels and its flagship Project Endor in Denmark — one of the most advanced eSAF projects in Europe, with FEED complete, permits secured, and an offtake agreement on the verge of being signed. Thomas explains KGAL's role as an infrastructure equity investor — with a stake in Project Endor — giving him a view of the eSAF financing challenge.

The conversation digs into Project SkyPower's ten-point recommendation letter to the European Commission, with a particular focus on the proposed double-sided auction mechanism and the role of H2 Global as a market-making intermediary. We explore why this instrument is seen as critical to breaking the chicken-and-egg deadlock between offtakers and producers — and why the timeline for getting it in place is a source of real concern, given that the 2030 eSAF mandates are fast approaching and greenfield refineries take years to build.

We also have a frank debate on airline competitiveness and the level playing field argument, whether eSAF is being treated fairly given that new fossil refineries would face comparable economics, why renewable electricity cost — not policy complexity — is a fundamental driver of eSAF pricing, and why the question isn't really whether to be optimistic about 2030, but what Plan B looks like if Europe fails to act.

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The SAF Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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The SAF Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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