Physical and economic limits of domestic sustainable aviation fuel in Korea: A spatially explicit prospective techno-economic and life-cycle analysis

초록

Assessing the domestic production potential of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), a key measure for decarbonizing aviation, requires considering the spatial distribution of feedstocks, competition with their existing uses, and the evolution of the background energy system together. For Korea, a techno-economic and life-cycle framework couples a spatially explicit facility-location optimization that allocates regional feedstock endowments to refinery hubs, a supply curve that endogenizes competition with existing renewable-fuel obligations as an opportunity cost, and a 2030–2050 prospective ensemble. Two ceilings emerge for domestic biomass SAF: a physical ceiling set by the resource endowment (7.65% of national jet-fuel demand) and a lower economic ceiling set by the volume convertible at a cost below the import backstop (4.68% of the same demand); the 7–10% mandate expected in 2035 is thus unreachable by domestic production alone. Feedstock-competition cost rises as the mandate falls (+210% of the minimum jet selling price at a 1% mandate), because cheap used cooking oil is already fully committed to biodiesel. The variable governing the domestic-versus-import boundary is not domestic feedstock conditions but the delivered price of imported synthetic SAF, and Korea’s grid carbon intensity excludes domestic green power-to-liquid on emissions grounds. A domestic-led regime in 2030 shifts to an import-led one after 2040, a conclusion robust to national grid decarbonization scenarios. All pathways pass international carbon-intensity standards at 74–91% below fossil. These results suggest designing the SAF mandate as two distinct problems: a domestic scale-up policy and an import-security policy. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

키워드