Limitations to sustainable renewable jet fuels production attributed to cost than energy-water-food resource availability

This research focuses on the sustainability aspect of the renewable jet fuel (RJF) production, which is a critical issue in view of the growing interest of applying RJF to decarbonize the aviation sector. In view of the conflicting requirements in natural resources for producing RJF, we introduce the Global Biojet Fuel Sustainability Index, a holistic 25-indicator sustainability index encompassing the four domains of energy-water-food (EWF) nexus and governance, that measures the potential impact of RJF productions on 154 countries through the oil-to-jet, alcohol-to-jet and gas-to-jet conversion methods.

The index is specific to the RJF industry and serves to complement the existing United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. From the findings, we rank the sustainability index score by countries based on the composite index scores of the four domains. The sustainable index model provides insights on how RJF affords the aviation sector a clean slate in determining the manner of development in a sustainably and equitable manner, while also marching towards the long-term goal of carbon neutrality.

This set of data details the model, equations and dataset used in the study.