At cruising altitude, the molecule does not remember the cane field.
It behaves like jet fuel because it has become jet fuel: a chain of carbon and hydrogen built to remain liquid in the cold, carry immense energy in little mass and burn inside the engines already hanging beneath the world's wings. Its carbon began months earlier in Brazilian sunlight. Sugar became alcohol; alcohol became ethylene; ethylene became the longer hydrocarbons an aircraft requires.
The chemistry is called alcohol-to-jet, or ATJ. Every important step already works. Ethanol is dehydrated, the resulting molecules are joined together, hydrogen is added and the liquid is separated into useful fractions. The certified product can be blended with conventional aviation kerosene and pumped into existing aircraft. The grand aviation transition will begin inside familiar engines.
Brazil enters this race carrying an industrial system built across half a century. It grows highly productive sugarcane, ferments ethanol at continental scale, powers refineries with bagasse, moves liquid biofuel through an established market and regulates carbon by measuring the full lifecycle. What began as an answer to the oil shocks of the 1970s is becoming an answer to the hardest transport problem of the 2030s.
ParallaxSee forecasts that by the end of 2035, Brazil will possess the world's largest operating sugarcane-ethanol ATJ industry, with at least one billion litres of annual nameplate capacity and regular commercial supply to domestic or international aviation. House confidence: 76%.
The first Brazilian SAF plants will use several raw materials. Oils, animal fats and refinery co-processing will establish the market. Sugarcane ethanol will then supply the route that can grow beyond the limited pool of waste oils. By 2035, airplanes will run on sugar—and Brazil will own the most complete industrial path from field to wing.
01 — Brazil has already rehearsed this transition for fifty years.
In 1975, Brazil launched Proálcool, the National Alcohol Programme. The immediate purpose was energy security: replace imported petroleum with a domestic fuel fermented from sugarcane. The programme created crop science, mills, standards, distribution, vehicle engineering and the political habit of treating liquid fuel as something that could be cultivated as well as drilled.
The early system suffered shortages and abrupt policy changes. Brazil responded by making ethanol flexible. Modern flex-fuel cars can accept any mixture of petrol and hydrous ethanol, allowing millions of drivers to choose at the pump. Anhydrous ethanol also became a permanent component of Brazilian petrol. The result is larger than a collection of distilleries. It is an ecosystem in which farmers, refiners, engine manufacturers, fuel distributors, regulators and consumers already understand a renewable molecule.
The Brazilian Energy Research Office describes sugarcane ethanol as the central biofuel in the national energy matrix and as a precursor for advanced fuels through the ATJ route. Its official outlook expects total ethanol supply to rise from roughly 40.3 billion litres in 2026 to 50.5 billion litres in 2035. EPE's 2035 socio-environmental energy assessment, in Portuguese
This history gives Brazil an unusual form of readiness. A country starting from zero must build feedstock supply, fermentation capacity, technical standards and public acceptance together. Brazil begins with all four. Its task is to add the final chemical staircase between ethanol and aviation kerosene.
The strategic lesson of Proálcool is now visible. Energy systems reward accumulated competence. The cane varieties, yeast management, pipelines, laboratories and fuel law created for road transport can be redirected towards aircraft without waiting for a new national industry to appear. Brazil's old ethanol machine is the first half of a future aviation refinery.
02 — Jet fuel is a problem of molecular architecture.
An aircraft requires a demanding liquid. The fuel must contain enormous energy for its weight, flow at temperatures far below freezing, remain stable in storage and ignite predictably inside a turbine. Batteries can power small aircraft and short journeys. Long-distance flight still rewards the compact chemical energy of a hydrocarbon.
Ethanol contains carbon and hydrogen, but its molecule is small and carries an oxygen atom. ATJ reconstructs it.
First, a catalyst dehydrates ethanol into ethylene by removing water. Next, oligomerisation joins short ethylene units into longer chains. Hydrogenation saturates and stabilises those chains. Fractionation then separates molecules by size: lighter material becomes naphtha, heavier material can become renewable diesel and the middle range—approximately the chains required by aviation—becomes synthetic paraffinic kerosene.
A technical platform maintained by Brazilian university and government partners describes the ATJ sequence and its possible feedstocks, including sugarcane, corn, cassava and lignocellulosic residues. The process is already recognised under ASTM D7566 and Brazilian fuel rules. Brazilian Green Energy Intelligence System on ATJ, in Portuguese
The decisive word is drop-in. A certified ATJ component can enter the aviation system through the infrastructure that already exists. Current standards permit ATJ synthetic paraffinic kerosene in blends of as much as 50% with conventional fuel. ICAO's approved SAF conversion processes
That compatibility compresses the transition. Airlines can buy lower-carbon fuel before they buy a new generation of aircraft. Airports can blend and distribute it before they rebuild their energy systems. Manufacturers can test higher concentrations while conventional fleets consume the first commercial volumes.
Brazil therefore does not need to invent an ethanol-burning airliner. It needs to manufacture a certified hydrocarbon from ethanol reliably and cheaply. The wings remain. The engines remain. The carbon begins in a different place.
03 — Sugarcane brings its own energy into the refinery.
The advantage begins after the cane is crushed.
Sugar juice enters fermentation. The fibrous remainder, bagasse, enters a boiler and supplies heat and electricity. Straw can provide additional energy or become a source of second-generation ethanol. Fermentation releases a concentrated stream of biogenic carbon dioxide that can eventually be captured or combined with low-carbon hydrogen. Vinhaça and other residues can yield biogas, fertiliser and process energy.
An integrated plant consequently behaves less like a single-product factory and more like a biological industrial park. It produces sugar, ethanol, electricity and valuable carbon streams while reusing the energy stored in the plant.
This integration appears in the lifecycle figures. The International Civil Aviation Organization assigns integrated sugarcane-ethanol ATJ a core carbon intensity of 24.1 grams of CO₂-equivalent per megajoule. ICAO adds 8.7 grams for estimated indirect land-use change in Brazil, producing a combined default of 32.8 grams per megajoule against a fossil-jet baseline of 89. That is an estimated 63% lifecycle reduction under a framework that counts cultivation, processing, conversion, transport, combustion and land effects. ICAO default lifecycle emissions
The same chemical conversion performed beside a high-carbon electricity grid or a fossil-heated ethanol plant produces a weaker result. Location changes the fuel. Brazil's renewable electricity and bagasse-powered mills allow the conversion stage to inherit the low-carbon structure of the feedstock system.
Individual mills can perform better than the default. Research using operating data submitted under Brazil's RenovaBio programme found substantial variation in ethanol carbon intensity, demonstrating that efficient farming, shorter transport, renewable process energy and careful treatment of coproducts can push the best plants far below the average. Lifecycle emissions of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol using RenovaBio data
This will create a valuable new competition among mills. The cheapest litre of ethanol will no longer always be the most desirable input. ATJ refiners selling into carbon-regulated aviation markets will pay attention to the verified history of each litre. Brazilian sunlight becomes more valuable when the paperwork can prove where its carbon travelled.
04 — Oils will open the market; alcohol will give it scale.
The first large wave of SAF uses a route called HEFA: hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids. Refineries turn used cooking oil, animal fat and vegetable oil into aviation hydrocarbons. The equipment is relatively mature, which makes HEFA the practical bridge from a tiny demonstration market to dependable industrial supply.
Brazil's official 2035 plan reflects that beginning. Its named projects include HEFA facilities proposed by Acelen and Petrobras, renewable fractions produced through co-processing, and a planned 420-million-litre annual ATJ unit at Petrobras's REPLAN complex. Taken together, confirmed projects are projected to supply around 1.7 billion litres of SAF a year from 2030 and 2.8 billion litres in 2035. PDE 2035 Biofuels Supply, in Portuguese
HEFA provides speed. ATJ provides the larger resource base. The global supply of waste oil and animal fat cannot expand alongside aviation indefinitely; the same materials are sought by road-fuel, chemical and food markets. Purpose-grown oil crops add land and traceability constraints. Ethanol production already operates at a scale measured in tens of billions of litres in Brazil and the United States.
The next project pipeline is beginning to recognise that distinction. JetBio proposes a São Paulo ATJ refinery using low-carbon sugarcane, corn and waste ethanol, with initial production targeted for 2030 and planned output above 770,000 tonnes a year. Its final size and schedule remain project claims until finance and construction are complete. Its proposed scale nevertheless reveals what developers now believe the Brazilian ethanol system can feed. JetBio project
Brazil is also connecting its ethanol producers to foreign ATJ projects. A government-announced agreement involving Raízen supplies first- and second-generation ethanol for conversion into aviation fuel, creating a route through which Brazilian carbon performance can enter overseas fuel markets before every upgrading plant is built domestically. Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy on the Raízen ATJ agreement, in Portuguese
The industrial sequence is clear. HEFA establishes blending, certification, contracts and airport handling. Ethanol exports establish feedstock credibility. Domestic ATJ plants capture the higher-value conversion step. By 2035, Brazil will sell the finished molecule.
05 — Brazil possesses enough ethanol to make the forecast physical.
A forecast about industrial leadership eventually reaches a pipe diameter.
Modern ATJ designs optimised for aviation yield roughly 0.56 litres of SAF from one litre of ethanol, although the precise result changes with technology and the desired mix of jet fuel, diesel and naphtha. A Brazilian assessment of biofuel pathways uses this ratio when modelling sugarcane ATJ. Biofuels in Brazil: Aligning the Energy Transition with Nature and Society, in Portuguese
At that yield, the forecast threshold of one billion litres of annual ATJ capacity requires approximately 1.8 billion litres of ethanol. That equals about 3.5% of the EPE's projected 2035 ethanol supply. Even the deliberately extreme exercise of producing all 2.8 billion litres in Brazil's official SAF outlook through ATJ would require around five billion litres of ethanol—approximately a tenth of projected national supply.
The actual system will use a portfolio. HEFA, co-processing, ATJ and eventually fuels derived from residues, gasification and captured carbon will operate together. That lowers the amount of ethanol required and allows each region to use its strongest resource.
Ethanol supply is also changing. The EPE expects corn ethanol to account for a growing portion of national output, particularly in the Centre-West, while sugarcane remains the largest source. It projects around 33 billion litres of sugarcane ethanol, 16.3 billion litres of corn ethanol and roughly one billion litres of second-generation ethanol in 2035. The second-generation litre is especially important: it is produced from plant material already collected by the mill, allowing fuel output to rise without a corresponding expansion of cultivated area. EPE's 2035 ethanol supply scenarios, in Portuguese
The economic system can allocate ethanol among cars, chemicals, exports and aircraft through price. Aviation will pay more for exceptionally low carbon intensity because each verified reduction helps satisfy legal obligations. Road transport provides a vast balancing market when aviation demand fluctuates. Sugar production gives integrated mills another outlet.
This flexibility is Brazil's quiet advantage. A dedicated new feedstock industry must predict one future perfectly. A Brazilian mill can direct its carbon towards the product that values it most.
06 — Brazilian law has turned low carbon into a product specification.
The Fuel of the Future Law gives the industry a buyer before every refinery exists.
Under ProBioQAV, airlines must reduce lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions from domestic operations beginning in 2027. The statutory path reaches 3% in 2030, 8% in 2035 and 10% in 2037. International operations face the separate CORSIA system administered through ICAO. Brazilian Law 14,993 establishing ProBioQAV, in Portuguese
The Brazilian target measures emissions rather than imposing one simple blend percentage. That design rewards performance. A litre with a strong verified lifecycle reduction fulfils more of an airline's obligation than a litre made through a carbon-intensive route. The market therefore values bagasse-powered processing, efficient farms, renewable hydrogen, second-generation ethanol and short logistics chains.
It also gives regulators room to improve the system. Carbon-intensity certificates can follow fuel through a book-and-claim market even when the physical SAF is concentrated at a few airports. Airlines can contract long-term supply. Refiners can finance a plant against a visible compliance schedule. Producers can compete on both price and carbon quality.
Brazil's Energy Research Office estimates that the announced SAF capacity expected by 2035 would satisfy, on average, around 66% of the combined reduction requirements associated with ProBioQAV and CORSIA across the decade. That gap is an investment signal. Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy summary of the 2035 biofuels outlook, in Portuguese
The global market supplies a second signal. The European Union requires a growing SAF share at its airports, reaching 6% in 2030 and 20% in 2035. The United States has targeted three billion gallons of annual domestic production by 2030. Asian aviation hubs are establishing their own requirements. European Commission on ReFuelEU Aviation US Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge
Brazilian ATJ does not need every litre to remain in Brazil. A certified low-carbon fuel can travel towards the market offering the strongest contract. Domestic law builds the first floor; international mandates build the export tower.
07 — The price premium is the construction budget for a new industry.
Synthetic aviation fuel currently costs more than petroleum kerosene. The premium pays for young conversion technology, expensive capital, small plants, hydrogen and feedstock that already has other buyers.
Brazilian academic work places the gap inside a range that industrial learning can attack. A process simulation from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro examined an ethanol ATJ plant using Aspen Plus and estimated promising fuel-price cases between approximately US$1.86 and US$2.57 per kilogram. UFRJ, “Technical and Economic Evaluation of Aviation Fuel Production from Ethanol,” in Portuguese
A study of integrated Brazilian production pathways estimated a minimum selling price near US$0.85 per litre for first-generation sugarcane ATJ, compared with about US$0.54 for fossil fuel in its assumptions. The sugarcane route produced the lowest estimated SAF selling price among the configurations tested. Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel in Brazil: Techno-economic and Environmental Assessment
Another Brazilian optimisation study used historical sugar and ethanol prices to ask when an integrated mill would rationally switch carbon into jet fuel. Existing ATJ systems often require a substantial premium; emerging systems narrow it. The researchers also found value in a flexible upgrading plant able to respond to changing commodity prices rather than forcing the mill into one permanent product slate. The Case for Biojet Fuel from Bioethanol in Brazil
These findings identify the levers that will move before 2035. Larger plants spread capital across more litres. Better catalysts increase the jet fraction. Integration supplies heat and electricity internally. Long-term airline contracts reduce financing risk. Higher verified carbon savings increase compliance value. Coproducts create additional revenue.
The EPE now provides a public Portuguese-language tool allowing investors to vary feedstock cost, capital, carbon intensity and market assumptions for Brazilian HEFA and ATJ projects. That is a small institutional detail with large meaning: SAF has entered the country's ordinary machinery of project appraisal. EPE's techno-economic SAF evaluation tool, in Portuguese
Price parity is not the starting gun. The mandate, carbon value and export contract allow factories to start above parity. Every operating plant then teaches the next one how to become cheaper.
08 — The winning fuel will carry proof from field to wing.
Brazil's leadership will be built on measurable cultivation rather than the generic colour green.
Sugarcane expands through several possible channels: higher yield on existing plantations, replacement of low-productivity pasture, multiple use of residues and movement into new land. Each path carries a different carbon result. ICAO's default already assigns Brazilian sugarcane ATJ an indirect land-use value, ensuring that displaced activity enters the calculation rather than disappearing outside the refinery gate.
The strongest growth path gathers more energy from land already inside the productive system. Better cane varieties raise sugar per hectare. Precision application lowers fertiliser and diesel use. Mechanised collection brings more straw within reach while leaving enough to protect the soil. Second-generation fermentation converts part of the bagasse and straw into additional ethanol. Biodigestion transforms vinhaça into energy and fertiliser. Integrated crop planning places expansion on degraded pasture and away from native vegetation.
EPE's socio-environmental assessment expects second-generation ethanol and residue use to expand over the decade. It also identifies water, effluent management, biodiversity and territorial organisation as issues that must be tracked as production grows. The same report estimates that ethanol use avoided 65.3 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2024 compared with petrol, evidence of the national system's existing scale. EPE's socio-environmental assessment, in Portuguese
The commercial consequence will be radical transparency. A refinery will need to know which mill produced its ethanol, how the cane was cultivated, what powered fermentation, whether land conversion occurred and how the finished fuel reached the airport. Satellite land records, RenovaBio certification and CORSIA-approved sustainability schemes will become part of the product.
That traceability favours Brazil when it is enforced. The country contains both the agricultural risk and the monitoring capacity. It has decades of crop records, a national biofuel carbon-accounting system and world-class satellite observation. A producer who protects native vegetation and lowers process emissions can turn environmental performance into export revenue.
By 2035, a litre of Brazilian aviation fuel will arrive with two specifications. One describes freezing point, energy and composition. The other describes the history of its carbon.
09 — By 2035, Brazil will own the shortest route from sunlight to flight.
The United States will build more SAF capacity across several technologies. Europe will create one of the world's largest mandated markets. Asian hubs will combine imported feedstocks, refining and airport demand. Brazil's leadership will be more specific and more durable: the most complete sugarcane-ethanol ATJ system.
It begins with tropical photosynthesis and ends with an internationally certified hydrocarbon. Between them stand familiar Brazilian institutions: cane breeders, mills, fermentation engineers, Petrobras refineries, Embraer laboratories, the ANP, the EPE, airlines and ports. Few countries can place the biological, chemical, regulatory and aviation pieces inside one industrial geography.
The International Air Transport Association estimates that Brazil's sustainably sourced sugar-based ethanol and oil feedstocks could provide a much larger SAF potential than the projects currently scheduled, allowing the country to become a net exporter. IATA on Brazil's SAF opportunity
The forecast does not require that every Brazilian flight carry pure renewable fuel. Current blend rules, refinery schedules and the wider portfolio of SAF routes will continue evolving. It requires something more consequential: that Brazil establish the world's largest operating industrial capacity dedicated to turning sugarcane ethanol into aviation hydrocarbons, exceeding one billion litres a year by the end of 2035.
That threshold can be reached by a handful of large plants. REPLAN provides an announced foundation. A project approaching JetBio's proposed scale would cross much of the remaining distance. Export demand provides buyers; Brazil's growing ethanol supply provides feedstock; the legal mandate provides a schedule.
When the first century of powered flight began, Brazil helped imagine the aircraft. In the next chapter, it will supply the molecule.
At cruising altitude, the engine will make no distinction between carbon lifted from a well and carbon harvested from a field. The atmosphere will. By 2035, Brazil's most successful energy experiment will leave the road, enter the refinery and take flight.
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