Sustainable Aviation Fuel Is Not a Novelty. It Is Part of California’s Energy Resilience Strategy
For too long, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) has been viewed primarily as a climate initiative or a niche aviation fuel. That framing misses a much larger point: SAF can also play a meaningful role in improving California’s fuel supply resilience and easing price pressure across the broader energy system.
California operates within one of the most constrained fuel markets in the world. Limited refining capacity, dependence on imports, and infrastructure bottlenecks all contribute to higher volatility and higher costs for consumers.
Increasing in-state SAF production can help address those pressures. In fact, California has enough SAF production capacity to meet roughly 35% of San Francisco Airport jet fuel demand, said another way, that same capacity could replace 60-70% of our current jet fuel imports.
My analysis suggests that fully utilizing California’s current in-state SAF production capacity could reduce the cost of gasoline production by roughly 20 to 40 cents per gallon by increasing supply flexibility and reducing reliance on higher-cost imports.
Those changes matter because fuel systems are interconnected.
When more jet fuel demand is met through in-state SAF production, conventional refineries gain greater flexibility to optimize gasoline production. In addition, SAF production yields co-products such as renewable naphtha that can be blended into the gasoline pool, further expanding supply.
The result is a more flexible and resilient fuel system overall.
This is particularly important during periods of geopolitical instability or supply disruption, when global jet fuel markets can tighten rapidly and place additional pressure on California consumers.
SAF is not a silver bullet, nor is it a substitute for broader energy planning. But it is a practical and scalable tool that can strengthen fuel supply resilience while supporting California’s long-term energy and climate objectives.
The conversation around SAF should move beyond symbolism and focus instead on system-wide benefits: greater flexibility, improved resilience, and lower volatility in one of the nation’s most challenging fuel markets.
For Californians, that can translate into something tangible: a more stable energy supply and less pressure at the pump.