A data-driven assessment of whether biofuels can meet global aviation’s energy demand
The aviation industry faces mounting pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a time when air travel demand continues to grow. Biofuels — often touted as a cleaner alternative to conventional jet fuel — capture headlines and policy attention as a potential decarbonisation pathway. But how close are they to powering the global fleet at scale?
A recent analysis by Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado for Our World in Data examines the current contribution of biofuels to aviation and the extent to which they could feasibly replace fossil jet fuel in the years ahead.
The Current Reality: Biofuels Are Present but Limited
Less than 1% of global liquid biofuels are used for aviation.
Despite widespread interest, biofuels currently deliver only a tiny fraction of the energy that commercial aircraft use. In 2024, aviation consumed nearly 3,932 TWh of energy in the form of jet fuel, while total global production of liquid biofuels (including biodiesel and bioethanol) was around 1,400 TWh. Even if all biofuels were repurposed exclusively for aviation, they would supply just over one-third of demand — and that is a theoretical maximum, not a practical scenario.
In simpler terms: the world doesn’t yet produce enough biofuels to meaningfully replace fossil jet fuel, and current production serves other critical uses, especially road transport.
“Most of the world’s liquid biofuels currently go into cars and trucks, not planes.” — Our World in Data analysis.
Why Biofuels Fall Short
Biojet fuel production faces several inherent limitations:
- Production scale: The amount of biofuel the world produces today is far below the energy needed to power aviation alone. To replace all jet fuel with biofuels at today’s scales, production would have to increase almost three-fold, and in some scenarios five to ten-fold under current conversion efficiencies.
- Conversion losses: Producing jet-equivalent fuel from biofeedstocks involves energy losses. Depending on the technology, only 30–80% of the energy in biofeedstocks becomes usable jet fuel.
- Land use constraints: Current biofuel crops (such as corn, sugarcane, and vegetable oils) require substantial agricultural land. Allocating enough land to grow biofuel feedstocks at aviation scales would present major trade-offs with food production, land conservation, and biodiversity — challenges highlighted in Our World in Data’s broader bioenergy research.
Could Waste Feedstocks Help?
One hopeful segment of the biofuel discussion involves waste oils and fats — such as used cooking oil — which do not require additional land or food crops. These waste-based fuels have been used in early sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) trials and can deliver meaningful emissions savings when blended with conventional jet fuels.
However, even in the best estimates of waste fat availability, these feedstocks could supply no more than around 4% of global aviation energy demand — assuming perfect collection and allocation to aviation.
This reinforces a central conclusion: biofuels can play a role in decarbonising aviation, but they cannot do the job alone.
The Broader Aviation Emissions Context
The urgency of aviation decarbonisation stems from its significant climate impact — aviation accounted for about 2.5 per cent of global CO₂ emissions as of recent estimates.
Biofuels and SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) are part of a suite of options being pursued to reduce emissions, alongside aircraft efficiency improvements, hydrogen propulsion, and — for shorter routes — electrification.
Yet, industry stakeholders acknowledge the scale of the challenge. Biofuels alone are unlikely to deliver the deep cuts the sector needs without wider changes in technology, infrastructure, and policy.
Policy and Market Forces at Play
The regulatory landscape is evolving rapidly:
- The European Union has enacted binding targets requiring increasing shares of SAF in jet fuel, beginning with 2 per cent by 2025 and rising significantly by 2050.
- A stand-off between airlines and energy companies over sustainable fuel production highlights supply constraints and pricing challenges, pointing to the complexity of scaling SAF at commercial levels.
Video: How Sustainable Aviation Fuels Work
This video explains the science behind SAF, the different feedstock pathways, and how these fuels can be blended with traditional jet fuel to reduce lifecycle carbon emissions.
Looking Ahead
Biofuels and SAF represent important tools in the aviation decarbonisation toolkit, but they are not a silver bullet. The Our World in Data analysis makes clear that:
- Biofuels currently supply under 1 per cent of aviation energy and would need dramatic expansion to approach broader demand replacement.
- Waste-based feedstocks offer a limited but valuable contribution, likely insufficient on their own.
- A combination of technologies and policies — including hydrogen fuel systems, electrification where feasible, and radical improvements in aircraft efficiency — will be essential for meeting climate targets.
The journey to net-zero aviation will be incremental, technologically innovative, and heavily dependent on coordinated public and private sector investment. Biofuels play a part, but they cannot carry the entire weight of this transition.