Revealed: the world-first plan to turn worn-out British tyres into jet fuel

aeroplane fuelled by tyres

In its faltering battle to cut carbon emissions, the aviation industry has stumbled on a novel solution – jet fuel made from thousands of worn-out British car tyres.

Attempts to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from recycled Dunlops, Goodyears and Michelins are being pioneered from the unlikely setting of Sunderland docks, where the Norwegian company behind the venture is about to build its first factory.

Wastefront plans to process 80,000 tons of tyres a year by heating them to 500 degrees in four so-called pyrolytic modules, to be located on a former oil-storage site within the dock complex that’s been unoccupied for two decades.

The pyrolytic modules each contain two “reactors” that will heat the tyres without using oxygen, in much the same way that charcoal is made. The intensity of the heat will break down the tyres into their constituent parts, giving off oil, soot and gas.

It is the oil that can then be used as the raw material, or feedstock, for making SAF, while the gas will be used to power the process, making it energy efficient.

“People assume that tyres are recycled, but they’re not,” says Vianney Valès, the company’s chief executive. “They’re sent to Asia and incinerated. Burning them is like setting fire to paper and calling that recycling. It’s a crime, in a way.

“What we’re planning will not only help the aviation industry but it’s also going to recover other substances that can then be reused by the tyre manufacturers themselves.”

Wastefront reckons it could scale up the process to 20 modules that would consume all of Britain’s used tyres and produce 110,000 tons of SAF a year, satisfying 1pc of overall the country’s aviation fuel demand.

That might sound small but it would represent about 10 times the volume of sustainable fuel currently available in the UK and mark a significant step towards meeting the target of using 10pc SAF in aviation by 2030 – a goal airlines are required to reach under the Government’s net zero plans.

Carriers worldwide are currently struggling to make headway in increasing their use of SAF, let alone make meaningful progress toward a mandated goal of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

One of the biggest barriers to airlines abandoning kerosene, or jet fuel as it is known, is the lack of suitable feedstocks that can be used to make greener fuels. About 80pc of SAF is currently produced from used cooking oil, most of which is exported from Asia to refineries in Europe and the US.

There’s a limited supply of both cooking oil and refinery capacity, however. Much of the biofuel that is produced using this method also goes to other industries, often being turned into biodiesel for trucks.

Such is the shortage of cooking oil that unscrupulous exporters in Malaysia and China are sending virgin palm oil for processing into SAF, it was revealed last week, something that could actually increase carbon emissions by accelerating deforestation in the tropics.

Other feedstocks have significant shortcomings. Sugarcane and corn can be fermented into ethanol and other alcohols, which are then shipped for conversion into SAF. But refineries must be located close to where the crops are grown, making production expensive.

Synthetic SAF, seen as a longer term solution, uses a feedstock of so-called green hydrogen, which is synthesised using renewable electricity. However, it is so energy intensive to make that each site might need a nuclear reactor to be viable.

Valès, a former Shell executive, says: “The oil industry has been experimenting with cooking oil since 2006 and the limitations are becoming clear. It’s vital that we have alternatives, but alcohol-to-jet is costly and nowhere near becoming mainstream, and synthetic fuel is even more problematic.

“So we are left with solutions like ours, where the technical complications aren’t too great and the cost of production is very low, if we’re going to bridge the gap between what cooking oil can do and the mandate that the aviation industry has been set.”

Given that modern tyres are partly manufactured from crude oil rather than rubber, the green credentials of the process aren’t as immediately clear as, say, vegetable oils.

However, Valès says that half of a modern tyre’s mass still comes from a rubber plant, while the rest, though derived from crude, qualifies as recycled carbon that’s accepted as a sustainable feedstock under UK regulations.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 330 airlines, said access to additional feedstocks would be welcomed by the aviation sector and that the principles of the tyres-to-oil process are well established.

The tyre-to-oil process wasn’t previously practical because there was no established market for it.

That has changed in the last 18 months, with the process now qualifying for certificates under the Government’s renewable transport fuel obligation. This requires suppliers of petrol and diesel in the UK to also include a certain percentage of renewable fuel. It means tyre-to-oil producers now have a market into which they can sell.

An artist's impression of what Wastefront's Sunderland plant to turn used tyres into aviation fuel will look like

Wastefront will source its pyrolytic modules from East Asia, while other equipment designed to enhance the end product will be imported from Germany and the US.

Valès says Britain was the obvious candidate for Wastefront’s first factory because of the Government’s established timetable for increasing the use of SAF and the parallel development of a regulatory regime to accompany that transition.

Britain also has large volumes of worn out tyres, 80pc of which are currently sent abroad to countries such as India where they are incinerated in highly polluting cement plants or even disposed of in landfills, according to Valès.

Wastefront looked at a number of locations, but Sunderland stood out because of its experienced engineering workforce and the enthusiasm of the local authority-owned dock company.

The plant is scheduled to commence construction next month and enter production early in 2026 with a single module, before the other three come on line in the following 18 months.

The company aims to do its own refining in Sunderland once well established but is currently in talks with a number of major oil firms to secure initial refining capacity in the UK.

Valès splits his time between Britain’s former shipbuilding capital, now home to the country’s biggest car plant, and Biarritz in his native France. He claims to be personally attracted by the northeast’s combination of heavy industry and proximity to unspoilt countryside, including the Northumberland National Park.

Wastefront had originally planned to transform tyres into fuel for road transport but, given the car industry’s progress with electrification and aviation’s thirst for sustainable fuel, it decided to switch focus to SAF a year ago.

Valès says: “We always wanted to do SAF when we grew up, if you will, but last year we decided that we were ready, so let’s not wait and go down the gasoline route, let’s do it now.”

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