![\"INDIA-CLIMATE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784476693_365_0x0.jpg\")
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To go with Climate-warming-UN-COP21-India,FOCUS by Trudy Harris In this November 6, 2015 photo, an Indian farmer feeds a controlled fire of spent rice stalks as he prepares the field for a new crop in the southeastern part of the state of Punjab, some 120 km north of New Delhi. India’s capital, with 18 million residents, has the world’s most polluted air with six times the amount of small particulate matter (pm2.5) than what is considered safe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The air’s hazardous amount of pm2.5 can reach deep into the lungs and enter the blood, causing serious long term health effect, with the WHO warning India has the world’s highest death rate from chronic respiratory diseases. India, home to 13 of the world’s top 20 polluted cities, is also the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind the United States and China. In Delhi, the air pollution is due to vehicle traffic including cargo trucks running on low-grade diesel, individual fires that residents burn in winter, crop being burnt by farmers in neighboring states, and construction site dust. Burning coal in power plants is also major contributor that is expected to increase hugely in the coming decades to match electricity needs of the ever-growing city and its booming satellite towns. AFP PHOTO \/ ROBERTO SCHMIDT (Photo by Roberto SCHMIDT \/ AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to coordinated strikes by the United States and Israel, India lost access to 40-50% of its crude oil supply. This caused historic shockwaves across its economy, including fuel price spikes<\/a>, domestic fuel shortages<\/a>, unsustainable government spending<\/a>, and airline service reductions<\/a>. <\/p>\n It was also a stark reminder of why the country embarked on \u201cbuilding [a] self-reliant India<\/a>\u201d in 2020, including reducing import dependence and strengthening domestic supply chains.<\/p>\n New India Energy & Climate Center and Energy Innovation analysis<\/a> finds an unexpected way for the country to do just that: Turning two of its most abundant resources into an economic opportunity. <\/p>\n Combining agricultural residue with the world\u2019s cheapest green hydrogen could unlock sustainable aviation fuel production at costs lower than oil-based jet fuel as soon as the 2030s. Producing power-and-biomass-to-liquids SAF could cut costs, reduce exposure to volatile fossil fuel price spikes, and slash the climate impact of air travel.<\/p>\n Cheap SAF could take flight with government, investor action<\/p>\n The research suggests in the near term, PBtL SAF could position India as the world\u2019s lowest-cost supplier of regulated SAF while providing an energy-secure hedge against crude oil shortages and price increases. Over the long term, a mature PBtL SAF industry could undercut fossil jet fuel prices and eventually serve all of India\u2019s aviation demand\u2014all while slashing the air pollution choking India\u2019s cities and creating new economic opportunity in rural communities.<\/p>\n This transformational opportunity will not take flight on its own. Government support is essential to bring stakeholders together, reduce risk for first-of-a-kind projects, connect PBtL SAF to regulated markets in India and abroad, and quickly scale the industry with financial incentives. Investors and developers who get in early will benefit from the lowest-cost SAF globally, without the feedstock supply risks and high costs that have plagued other SAF production methods.<\/p>\n Comparison of projected Indian power-and-biomass-to-liquids (PBtL) sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production costs for a project commissioned in 2030 vs. historical Indian and European Union (EU) jet fuel market prices, historical and average EU SAF market prices, and projected imported Indian fossil jet fuel prices.<\/p>\n Energy Innovation and India Energy & Climate CenterIndia\u2019s emerging strategic advantages<\/p>\n India\u2019s SAF opportunity connects two ongoing national trends. First, India is delivering the world\u2019s lowest green hydrogen prices<\/a> as its plummeting solar and battery storage costs<\/a>\u2014driven in part by strong solar resources and low labor costs\u2014unlock cheap, clean production.<\/p>\n Green hydrogen prices have fallen rapidly in recent auctions led by India\u2019s government-owned corporations, from $4.67 per kilogram in June 2025 to $3.23\/kg in February 2026. Government financing support, independent forecasts, and our own analysis of producing hydrogen strictly from solar and battery storage all suggest Indian green hydrogen can achieve costs under $3\/kg by 2030\u2014a benchmark that would enable PBtL to consistently outcompete other SAF production technologies.<\/p>\n Second, India is home to immense quantities of agricultural residue, much of which is currently burned to clear fields between crop cycles. These fires choke its cities with smoke, causing an estimated<\/a> 44,000 to 98,000 premature deaths annually and contributing to India having 17 of the 30 cities<\/a> with the world\u2019s worst air pollution.<\/p>\n What has historically been a public health crisis could soon enable an economic boon. Emerging platforms like BiofuelCircle could help coordinate farmers and supply chain partners to collect, densify, store, sell, and deliver this surplus residue. New large buyers of biomass pellets will increasingly have access to year-round supply, and their purchases will help prevent devastating air pollution while boosting farmers\u2019 bottom lines.<\/p>\n India\u2019s sustainable aviation fuel opportunity.<\/p>\n Energy Innovation and India Energy & Climate CenterIndia could produce the world\u2019s cheapest, most scalable sustainable aviation fuel<\/p>\n SAF demand is large and growing, but conventional production struggles to keep pace, and newer pathways are expensive. Most of today\u2019s SAF comes from waste oils that are running up against supply constraints. SAF technologies that use ethanol, biomass, or hydrogen with captured carbon remain too costly for widespread commercialization.<\/p>\n Agricultural residue and green hydrogen are both expensive in most of the world, but India\u2019s advantages mean these feedstocks complement each other to deliver lowest-cost SAF production. Traditional ways of converting agriculture residue into SAF typically cannot use most of the residue\u2019s carbon but supplementing it with green hydrogen can greatly boost total fuel output.<\/p>\n Strong regulatory demand for SAF in Europe opens up the market for Indian PBtL developers. SAF can also be a domestic hedge against highly volatile crude oil prices, mitigating pain from a Strait of Hormuz closure-level event.<\/p>\n In the 2030s, Indian PBtL SAF may beat fossil jet fuel on cost outright, helped by its resistance to monetary risk: PBtL SAF can be produced from domestic feedstocks through long-term, domestic, rupee-denominated contracts, providing greater cost certainty. By contrast, fossil jet fuel is largely derived from imported crude oil, which is subject to global price volatility, commodity price inflation, and a relative strengthening of the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n PBtL can also produce SAF at a lower carbon intensity than alternative pathways without relying on food, feed, or energy crops that contribute to land use change. And it offers the best outlook for scale, as it is not overly reliant on biomass, electricity, land, or water.<\/p>\n Summary of power-and-biomass-to-liquids\u2019 (PBtL) advantage over competing sustainable aviation fuel production pathways, including hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), alcohol-to-jet (ATJ), biomass-to-liquids (BtL), and power-to-liquids (PtL).<\/p>\n Energy Innovation and India Energy & Climate CenterA plan in need of pilots<\/p>\n Growing markets for surplus agricultural residue, falling green hydrogen costs, rising SAF mandates, and an urgent need to diversify from crude oil have provided the conditions for domestic SAF production to thrive.<\/p>\n But PBtL needs pilots: Literally in first-of-a-kind projects to demonstrate proof-of-concept and metaphorically in leaders who can navigate the beginning of a new industry. This potential won\u2019t be realized without targeted policy and investment.<\/p>\n Indian policymakers should help coordinate agricultural residue delivery partners, green hydrogen developers, SAF equipment suppliers, state oil companies, and airports, providing viability-gap support to de-risk early-stage PBtL projects. The country can learn from prior successes helping bridge early commercialization gaps for other clean energy technologies like batteries and green hydrogen.<\/p>\n India can further catalyze deployment by strengthening guarantees for long-term demand through higher SAF blending mandates, working with other jurisdictions like the European Union to ensure Indian SAF projects would be eligible to satisfy regulated demand abroad, and providing incentives for PBtL SAF deployment.<\/p>\n Investors can get in on the ground floor to support the lowest-cost SAF globally, avoiding the supply risks afflicting conventional waste oil-derived SAF and the regulatory compliance risks of emerging SAF pathways that depend on land-hungry food crops. <\/p>\n The market opportunity is enormous: India\u2019s vast agricultural residue supply suggests PBtL SAF could feasibly meet India\u2019s 2050 domestic aviation market in its entirety.<\/p>\n Levelized cost of power-and-biomass-to-liquids (PBtL) sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mapped against India\u2019s busiest airports (2030).<\/p>\n Energy Innovation and India Energy & Climate CenterNo time like the present to shore up energy security<\/p>\n SAF is usually seen as a way to reduce climate pollution. But the Strait of Hormuz closure shows the risks of tying a nation\u2019s fortunes to the whims of the global oil market.<\/p>\n India can take control of its energy future by seeding a power-and-biomass-to-liquids SAF industry. By combining policy leadership and savvy investment, India can unlock domestic, clean, cost-competitive aviation fuel while turning a crop fire-fueled air pollution nightmare into an economic dream for its rural communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To go with Climate-warming-UN-COP21-India,FOCUS by Trudy Harris In this November 6, 2015 photo, an Indian farmer feeds a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4386,20420,114,2084,1435,49706,85,207,46,70033,14387,72243],"class_list":["post-549208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-agriculture","tag-aviation","tag-business","tag-climate","tag-energy","tag-green-hydrogen","tag-il","tag-india","tag-israel","tag-saf","tag-solar-energy","tag-sustainable-aviation-fuel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}