The SAF Podcast

Why does eSAF live or die on the electricity bill? Alex Zorniger of Power to Hydrogen (P2H2) explains electrolysers in plain English, and why they matter to power-to-liquid SAF.  In this episode we cover: Why hydrogen makes up 50 to 60% of the cost of a gallon of eSAF, and why electricity is around 70% of that hydrogen cost SOEC vs PEM vs alkaline vs AEM: What do these all mean, how each electroly...

On this week's episode of The SAF Podcast we welcome back Nova Pangaea Technologies (NPT) for the first time since 2023. 10 months into his role as CEO, Stewart Stewart, we discuss what attracted him to SAF and get some updates from NPT. We cover a variety of topics including: Why energy ventures fail: it’s rarely the chemistry, it’s the handoffs between science, engineering, finance and the...

This week's episode of The SAF Podcast steps beyond SAF to ask a bigger question: what do today's energy shocks mean for investors? Jeffrey Altman, Senior Advisor, Finadvice joins Oscar and suggests the real crisis isn't the price of energy but the price of dependence. Oscar and Jeff discuss: Why this energy crisis differs from past ones, and why there's no quick way to decoupl...

Certification has a reputation for being complicated. Dario Formenti, senior systems manager - sustainable fuels,  International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) thinks that's overdone, and explains why. On this week's episode of The SAF Podcast, Oscar and Dario cover why certification is far more than a stamp on paper. It underpins market access, compliance claims and the...

This week Oscar is joined by Manshu Agarwal, CEO, HutanBio a UK based company aiming to commercialise the use of Algae as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel production.  Manshu has watched the algae story play out once already. A chemical engineer by training, he cut his teeth at Sapphire Energy and then Synthetic Genomics — two ventures that between them raised hundreds of millions of doll...

On this week's episode of The SAF Podcast, Ryan Jackson, CEO, Cielo Waste Solutions joins Oscar to discuss the company's project platform to constructing SAF projects.  Jackson unpacks Cielo's flagship Nahoonai project, developed in partnership with the Lheidi T’enneh First Nation through Tano T’enneh Enterprises — a co-ownership structure he argues de-risks permitting and helps unl...

This week Khaled, Ramon and Miguel of Hydrocarbon Engineering join Oscar on The SAF Podcast to tell the story behind their accidental discovery: a reactor built to  produce bio-oil that, instead, yielded a diesel-like hydrocarbon in a single step.  Years of reverse engineering later, the Valencia-based team has turned that anomaly into a feedstock-agnostic, single-stage hydrothermal process for pr...

For the third year running, Oscar sits down to unpack the 2026 SAF Market Outlook report once again with Mark Kelly (ICF) and this year with Iris Warnaar (SkyNRG). The headline numbers: SAF demand is forecast to reach 12.8 million tonnes by 2030 (3.6% of jet fuel) and climb past 190 million tonnes by 2050, though US policy headwinds have pulled the near-term forecast down from last year's pro...

James Hygate, CEO and founder of Firefly, returns to The SAF Podcast for the first time since December 2023 — and a lot has happened. James brings his characteristic blend of technical depth, founder candour, and big-picture ambition to a brilliant wide ranging discussion.   James opens with a comprehensive update on Firefly's progress: the selection of Turkish engineering firm Altaca as thei...

In this episode, Oscar is joined by two guests at the heart of Europe's eSAF scale-up effort: Amy Herbert, Arcadia eFuels, and Thomas Engelmann, KGAL— both key figures within Project SkyPower, the industry coalition to the European Commission to put in place the conditions needed to bring eSAF projects to final investment decision. Amy opens with an overview of Arcadia eFuels and its flagship...

Getting fully behind World Cup fever, SAF Investor is running The SAF World Cup. Gathering experts from different countries, we will be running a knock out style bracket to find the most promising SAF country in the world. Decided by popular vote! Whether it is policies, access to capital, offtakers, feedstock access, infrastructure expertise all these will be key discussion points.  Join for a bi...

In this episode, we sit down with Dan Sutton, CEO and co-founder of Syntholene, to explore their geothermally integrated synthetic fuel production technology currently being developed in Iceland. Dan explains why geothermal energy is such a compelling foundation for eSAF production, how Syntholene's solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) technology — integrated with Iceland's abundant heat...

For the 100th episode of The SAF Podcast, we're joined by Mikala Grubb, Senior Vice President of Technologies, Topsoe — one of the world's leading catalysis and technology companies, whose technology produces an estimated third of all the SAF available globally today. We start with feedstocks — why the constraints on used cooking oil and animal fats are tightening, what a post-2030 feeds...

Adam Forsyth, founder of Longspur Capital joins for the latest episode of The SAF Podcast. A leading voice in clean energy investment, we explore how sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) fits into the broader energy transition — and what it will take to unlock the capital needed to scale it. Adam draws on decades of experience across equity research, corporate finance, and clean energy advisory to unpa...

In this episode, we sit down with Alasdair Lumsden, co-founder of Carbon Neutral Fuels, to explore how taking a screwdriver to a VCR led to his time in tech entrepreneurship, which eventually ended up in the world of sustainable aviation fuel.  Alasdair walks us through the company's Power-to-Liquid e-SAF project, Project Starling — a commercial-scale facility planned for Workington, Cumbria,...

This week's episode sees Vinesh Sinha, CEO, FatHopes Energy, joins Oscar Henderson for a conversation on the SAF Podcast.  Vinesh Sinha dropped out of university in 2007, inspired by a Top Gear episode, and built FatHopes Energy into one of Southeast Asia's most sophisticated sustainable fuel feedstock operations — with a digital traceability platform years ahead of the competition. In t...

In this episode of The SAF Podcast , Oscar is joined by Shubhda Kaushik, managing director & chief executive officer, Alternative Energy Company, to explore what it really takes to move sustainable aviation fuel projects from ambition to final investment decision. Drawing on experience at Standard Chartered, Bain and McKinsey and Maersk, giving her a rounded perspective across finance, strateg...

Noaman Al Adhami, UK Country Head at Alfanar Projects, is this week's guest on The SAF Podcast.  He joins Oscar for a discussion into Lighthouse Green Fuels — one of the UK’s most closely watched sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) projects. We begin by looking at why Alfanar chose to initially focus SAF production in the UK and the decisions around site selection. We then explore what it takes t...

In this episode of The SAF Podcast, Oscar is joined by Patrick Sieb, Managing Partner at Climate Tech Partners, for a conversation on what it really takes to finance and scale sustainable aviation fuel. From Series A climate tech investing to corporate-startup partnerships and the infrastructure challenges behind SAF production, Patrick shares a practical investor’s view on how promising technolog...

In this episode of The SAF Podcast, Oscar is joined by Nico Nicholas, Co-Founder and CEO of Zeero Group, for a discussion on the commercial and strategic realities of scaling the Hydrothermal Liquefaction SAF pathway. The conversation goes beyond the technical basics to look at how waste-to-fuel projects are financed, how they can be tailored to local infrastructure needs, and why collaboration ac...

In this episode of The SAF Podcast, host Oscar is joined by Maria Whittaker, Corporate Responsibility Officer at Abra Group — the airline group behind Avianca and GOL, serving nearly 70 million passengers across Latin America. Maria unpacks the unique challenges and opportunities of scaling sustainable aviation fuel in a region where aviation provides essential connectivity, fuel costs represent u...

Kenneth Hill, BioCarbon Strategies joins us for this episode of The SAF Podcast as we knee deep in the alphabet soup of North American tax policy.  Ken brings unique insight as a former U.S. Department of Energy financing official who worked on projects like Montana Renewables and Gevo, combined with current experience vetting SAF projects and advising investors on bankability across the US, Canad...

This episode of The SAF Podcast sees Jan Toschka, CEO at Zaffra, join Oscar for a wide ranging discussion on the potential of eSAF and the Power-to-Liquid pathway. Jan brings 27 years of energy sector experience—including leading Shell Aviation as its president—to his role building Zaffra, a 50/50 joint venture between Sasol and Tops. Together, they're leveraging their technology expertise an...

In this episode, we dive deep into the financing challenges and solutions driving the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry forward with Mahesh Roy, Programme Director, SAF at the Green Finance Institute.  Mahesh shares his unique journey from accidental banking career in Australia to leading green finance initiatives across the UK and EU. He explains what makes SAF fundamentally different from...

In this episode of The SAF Podcast, host Oscar sits down with Chris Chaput — a former Northwest Airlines executive, Morgan Stanley investment banker, and airline restructuring specialist — to unpack how DG Fuels is not just developing a SAF project, but a SAF platform. We cover: DG Fuels' gasification-to-Fischer-Tropsch technology and their patented 97–98% carbon conversion efficiency How str...