A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

After years of development, LanzaJet has begun production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at its $300 million Freedom Pines Fuels facility in Soperton, Georgia. This marks a major achievement for the company, making it the first to produce SAF at a commercial scale using ethanol as a feedstock.
While most SAF produced commercially thus far has been through the bio-oil HEFA pathway using used cooking oil, fats, and grease as feedstocks, LanzaJet’s proprietary next-generation alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) technology represents a new avenue for the industry. The ATJ process—or ethanol-to-jet as it is sometimes called—converts low-carbon alcohols, like ethanol, into a synthetic aviation fuel that meets the same performance standards as conventional jet-A.
It is designed to work with a broad range of feedstocks such as agricultural residues, energy crops, municipal solid waste, and captured carbon to deliver “significant” lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions reduction over petroleum-based fuel. At full capacity, the facility will be able to produce 10 million gallons of renewable fuel a year.
The technology was developed in 2012 in partnership with Pacific Northwest National Lab, and the production pathway was approved by ASTM (the regulatory body for fuel safety) in 2016. The first commercial flight on ATJ fuel was by Virgin Atlantic in 2018.
“This is an important milestone for LanzaJet and our investors, and it’s a major win for global aviation—perhaps serving as a beacon of hope for the future,” said company CEO Jimmy Samartzis. “We’re now in a unique position with technology and operational know-how to shape this global industry in the decade ahead.”

News about environmental issues relating to aircraft operations, including noise issues, emissisions, and regulations. See Fuel for biofuel.

LanzaJet Starts SAF Production at Georgia Plant

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News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

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