to demonstrate performance. We want to ensure that these fuels can be used in today’s engines, today’s infrastructure, and ensure that, again, the safety and performance is there that consumers are going to expect. As Mark touched upon, there is a difference between what we would call renewable fuels and alternative fuels. Renewable fuels -- while ASTM doesn’t have a definition itself yet, we’re working on it -- those would be considered to have some sort of aspect of sustainability to them. (06:36): And that’s more of a regulatory construct that’s different in different parts of the world. Alternative fuels, as Mark mentioned, might more aptly be referred to within ASTM as synthetic. And so we may be looking at ammonia and methanol, which may still be petroleum-derived as an alternative fuel or a synthetic fuel in, say, marine shipping applications. There are fisher tropes fuels that were popular back in the forties during World War II, but they may be derived from coal. And so there may or may not be some aspect of sustainability to those kind of fuels, but they still would be alternative or synthetic fuel that we need to develop those standards for as well.


JP Ervin (07:24): Great, thanks. And I think you both touched on a couple interesting aspects with this topic. It’s interesting because with a lot of ASTM standards, they’re kind of hovering in the background and maybe not everyone knows all the work that goes into making products they buy. Fuel seems like a great example. As you put it, people just roll up to the pump, get their fuel and then go away and maybe don’t know all the intricacies of it. Scott, you also mentioned sustainability, and I think people probably have a sense of why this might matter, but I was wondering if you could both spell out the advantage of using these types of fuels, why people are interested in them, why they’re interested in finding alternative sources, or why sustainability is a factor in this. Why does that matter when we’re talking about fuel?


Scott Fenwick (08:07): Absolutely, and that’s a great point. ASTM is always working to help guarantee the performance, the safety aspect of these fuels. And in some regards, as I mentioned, we’re looking to ensure, or at least define, whether or not we need new infrastructure, new engine technologies with these different types of fuels. And so we’re always evaluating those. The one thing that may be changing faster in the marketplace than the fuels itself is probably the engine technology, at least for on and off-road. So there are lots of emissions after treatment systems, and we need to ensure that there’s compatibility within these systems. There is durability within these systems as we’re looking not just for performance and to be able to drive a mile down the road, but whether these fuels are going to enable that vehicle, that engine system, to last its full useful life while still maintaining adherence to the emissions requirements. And so there’s a lot that goes on in ensuring that these standards, these fuels, are adequate in the marketplace. It’s kind of a chicken-or-egg scenario. We need a little bit of data. So somebody’s gotta be using these fuels already before we can bring that data, that research, back to ASTM to help develop these standards. But we’re trying to stay ahead of the industry as well to develop these standards so that they can be proliferated more and utilized more throughout the world.


Mark Rumizen (09:46): Yeah. Relative to aviation, I think I mentioned when I first spoke that aviation is unique. And ironically, what drove the interest in alternative fuels back in the early 2000’s was two factors. One was environmental, the idea of carbon emissions and their contribution to climate change. But the other driver was supply security, that relative to aviation, because of the military interest in aviation fuel, there was concern about the stability of global petroleum supplies. So those two factors drove the interest in producing fuels from alternative raw materials, not petroleum. And the important thing to understand about aviation fuel is that ‘alternative fuels’ is a misnomer. These aren’t really different fuels or alternative fuels in aviation. Because one of the criteria that we gave ourselves, one of the constraints we gave ourselves, was that these fuels had to be what we call ‘drop-in’ fuels. (10:52):


Meaning they had to be essentially the same fuel chemically, performance- wise, compositionally -- exactly the same fuel. But if you make them from different materials, on one hand, you can address the supply security issue. As Scott mentioned, fisher tropes fuel can be made from coal, of which the US has abundant reserves. The environmental aspect of it is, if you make it from renewable materials, the concept is that you are extracting as much carbon from the atmosphere as you’re putting back in when you burn the fuel. So again, the important point is that with aviation, alternative fuels (or sustainable fuels, whatever you want to call them) are jet fuel. They’re the same jet fuel that is made from petroleum, exactly the same end product. And we address those two drivers by making that same fuel from an alternative raw material. And so you satisfy the drivers for sustainability, which are huge in aviation because there’s a lot of political and general pushback from the public about aviation emissions. (12:00):


So if you make these fuels from crops or materials that take carbon out


of the atmosphere, the company I work for (Air Company) we have a technology that actually takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, combines it with hydrogen gas and converts it to a liquid jet fuel, the same jet fuel that was made from petroleum. But the idea is, you took carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to make that fuel. So again, for aviation, unlike Scott’s comments about engine design and everything else, our focus is on a drop-in fuel because there’s 10,000+ big airliners out there. The economic capital tied up in those airliners is enormous. And the design life of an airliner is 30 or 40 years. You can’t change the legacy fleet to operate on a new fuel, you need to make a fuel that fits. And that brings us back to drop-in fuels. That’s why aviation is really unique. When we talk about alternative fuels or sustainable fuels for aviation, the hardest thing to grasp is that if you put them in a beaker and analyze them, it would be exactly the same fuel.


Scott Fenwick (13:22): That’s a great point, Mark. And JP, one of the other things to consider is that, you know, when ASTM committees meet and discuss these standards, changes and revisions, we’re looking at certain aspects. We’re talking about the sustainability and greenhouse gas reductions of some of these fuels. ASTM has committees looking at that, but committee D02 doesn’t necessarily evaluate that. We are more performance-driven. So as Mark said, it’s very critical that these are drop-in fuels that can be used for the aviation industry, today’s engines, today’s fueling infrastructure and such. But when we do begin to evaluate these renewable and alternative fuels, some of them as components in the fuel may have additional benefits. Now it may or may not be sustainable, it may or may not provide additional lubricity to the fuel, it may reduce the sulfur content, which has an impact, again, on engine performance and on the emissions as well. There are lots of ways that the committee and the industry is evaluating these fuels, although from a regulatory perspective, the word ‘sustainability’ and ‘greenhouse gas reductions’ are really a regulatory issue and not necessarily performance-related. So while that’s in the back of our minds when we’re talking about these fuels and these standards, it may not just be at the forefront when we are considering developing the standards themselves.


JP Ervin (15:06): Great. And so I guess to follow up on that last point, what I wanted to ask about is how ASTM is involved in this kind of emerging market, because with fuel, from what I’m hearing from both of you, there’s a lot of history there. There’s a lot of practices that are well established in the case. Mark, you mentioned that there’s a giant fleet out there that you can’t just recall tonight and switch over. So I was curious how ASTM is looking at this field of all these emerging types of fuel dealing with various aspects of legacy technologies. How are you all looking at what’s going on in the world and evaluating it in terms of deciding what is worth time for standards, what needs standards, what stance should we take toward this and that fuel?


Mark Rumizen (15:54): In aviation, currently, there are a lot of national or political activities or regulatory activities to impose. In the case of Europe, there are carbon emission mandates. In the case of the US, there are carbon emission incentives specifically for aviation fuel. So that is driving the activity to introduce new types of raw materials and methods to make these fuels. And what ASTM does is, ASTM gathers the industry experts and with aviation fuels, there’s really two stages to that. The first stage is that the engine and aircraft manufacturers, who have the expertise and frankly the most responsibility to ensure safety of their aircraft and their engines, they are the first stage of the review of any pathways: jet fuels that are made from new raw materials using new processing techniques. So the engine aircraft manufacturers are the first stage of the review process, and it’s a very, very in-depth review where they’re looking at all the properties and the composition of these fuels made from these new pathways. (17:07): And I can’t emphasize enough how rigorous, disciplined and deliberate this process is to make sure that when these pathways are evaluated, and when they finally come to ASTM and we go through a balloting process and we create a specification that controls them, to make sure that they’re consistent with what was evaluated. That’s what an ASTM spec does, when we create the spec, we’re sure that this new synthetic aviation turbine fuel, is going to be just as safe and perform as well, or as Scott even mentioned, perhaps a little better than conventional jet fuel. So ASTM brings this community together to implement this very, very rigorous process. In fact, the aviation regulatory authorities like the FAA, which everybody is aware of, IA in Europe, they are partners in this process, but they are primarily observers where they let the industry do this in-depth evaluation because they’re so confident in the processes that ASTM has developed to control aviation fuel. So a very, very disciplined, rigorous process, and we ensure the fuel is safe at the end of it.


Scott Fenwick (18:21): I would add that, you know, ASTM is, is well positioned to be the leader in global standards development because of the process that’s involved. As Mark mentioned, the way we bring data to the table, we discuss it,


we ballot it. If there’s any dissent, we’ve got to go back and consider that and bring back whatever might be needed to be more convincing. But I think the other thing to consider is, any country throughout the world has the ability to set standards themselves. They have their own regulatory authorities, their own standards development groups. But in doing so, if they set a standard that may be overly restrictive, too tight, well then, you’re setting yourself up for a more expensive fuel that you may or may not be able to obtain. Now, I want to make sure everybody understands: from a technology perspective today, just about anything is possible, we can develop fuels that most people wouldn’t even imagine could be used as a fuel. (19:23):


The problem is, you want to ensure that they are cost effective as well. Nobody wants to begin paying $8 or $9 a gallon for gasoline tomorrow. And so we’re always considering that as well. What is cost effective to implement? And so within ASTM, this open consensus standardization process that we have, we invite people all over the world. And so committee D02 covering fuels routinely (we meet twice a year) is getting representatives from 40, 50, 60, 80 countries around the world that participate in this process. And so while it’s easy for those of us in the US to think about the fuels we use and the fueling infrastructure that we’re familiar with, you have to keep in mind that may or may not be the case in other countries around the world. And so we invite them and bring them into the process to talk about what they need, what they currently have, the issues they have, what works well, what doesn’t, so that we can tailor these standards again, to be more performance related. To provide a benefit whether you’re Southeast Asia, Central Africa, or North America. (20:44):


These standards are meant to be relevant for all, because fuels are a globally traded commodity today. And we want them to be able to work in these engines, these applications all around the world, no matter what geography, no matter what season.


JP Ervin (21:01):


What do you both see as the potential upside of some of these emerging, renewable, alternative types of fuels? I’m gathering from talking to you both, from learning about this topic, that there’s a lot of complex stuff that has to happen. Both of you mentioned costs. Mark, you mentioned the process. There’s also the political backdrop to some of this stuff. There’s the consumer confidence backdrop. So I know it’s going to take a while, whatever happens, but what do you all see as the potential upside in changes that might come about from some of these technologies, whether that might be in 5, 10, 20 or however many years?


Scott Fenwick (21:37):


From my personal perspective, I think that the data we generate today, the confidence we generate today, will help towards the next generation of fuels no matter what they might be. People are always looking ahead as we should have a 3-year outlook, a 10-year, maybe even a 50 or 100-year outlook for where we need to be. The biggest issue I think we face today is that there aren’t enough resources to completely replace petroleum fuels. We’re just not there yet if we want to be cost competitive. And so doing what we can today to make the fuels better, to ensure performance is there while generating that next generation of data on fuels, whether or not those become components in today’s fuels or they actually do become complete replacements, I think is yet to be seen. Certain applications may be quicker to adopt new fuels than others. And by that, I mean we’re looking at fuel standards for on-road, those cars and trucks running up and down the interstates. Off-road applications, whether those are agricultural or construction equipment, that kind of equipment may be slightly


different. Railroads, locomotives, marine applications. And again, for marine, are we looking at blue water ships sailing across the ocean? Are we looking at tugs and ferries on the inland waterways? And ASTM is going to continue to work to ensure that those are all meeting consumer needs.


Mark Rumizen (23:13): Yeah, and I mentioned earlier about the two major drivers to look at alternative or synthetic jet fuels as being supply security and the environmental benefits. But in addition to those, the ASTM process has enabled or cause the aircraft and engine manufacturer fuel specialists to coalesce and come together in a much more productive manner than they had in the past. And because we now have this large group of virtually all engine aircraft manufacturers, and we’re, we’re doing in-depth studies of candidate fuels and existing fuels, we’re developing a much deeper technological basis for understanding the relationship between fuel composition, chemistry and performance of engines and airplanes. And this knowledge is going to apply to even issues that might come up with conventional jet fuel. So we’re developing this technological understanding, and it’s really, really impressive the way it’s involving now. If any question comes up with jet fuel, whether it’s petroleum derived or synthetic, the group will get together and discuss it. (24:25):


This all started a result of the ASTM process to bring everybody together in the spirit of a collaborative or a consensus-based process. The other thing I want to mention about what makes aviation fuel unique is the


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