A technical meeting involving scientific leaders from Acelen Renewables Acelen Renewables, the Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Corporation (Embrapii) and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) kickstarted the macaw palm technological development project to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) diesel or 'green' diesel, thermal energy, and other high-value-added co-products. The open innovation partnership aims to contribute to the domestication of macaw palm, the subsequent implementation of commercial groves, and the optimal use of their fruits (shell, pulp, endocarp, and kernel) through more effective processes to extract high-quality oils and generate bioproducts. The five-year-long project was negotiated in two technical cooperation agreements between Acelen Renewables and Embrapa Agroenergy, whose investments total R$ 13.7 million, and funded by Embrapii and the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). It also involves the scientific contribution of four other research centers: Embrapa Cotton, Embrapa Forestry, Embrapa Mid North, and Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology. Acelen Renewables’ endeavour is designed to support the Brazilian energy transition process by offering renewable fuels on a large scale and with clear environmental and social guidelines, as it aims to create decarbonized production systems in semi-arid areas, creating new economic alternatives for vulnerable communities and reusing industrial effluents. It is expected to create 90,000 direct and indirect jobs and generate R$ 7.4 billion in annual income for the populations involved. According to the head of Embrapa Agroenergy Alexandre Alonso, Acelen Renewables’ initiative is extremely important as the demand for advanced biofuels will grow exponentially in the coming years as the pressure for decarbonization also grows. “The country has the opportunity to become a producer and global supplier of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and green diesel (HVO). That requires investments in R&D, both in raw materials (such as macaw palm) and in new bioprocesses, as well as in modeling,” he remarks. Victor Barra, Agribusiness director at Acelen Renewables, states that the macaw palm domestication project can transform Acelen Renewables, whose mission is to become “the largest and most competitive producer of renewable fuels, in an integrated model ranging from the macaw palm seed to fuel,” and turn into the Brazilian leader in the global energy transition market. About Acelen Renewables Acelen Renewables was created to accelerate the global energy transition with renewable fuels to be produced from renewable raw materials fully cultivated in degraded pastures in Brazil and thus offer an innovative sustainable response to climate change and for the future of the planet. In the next few years, the company will initially invest over US$ 3 billion in the first model project in Brazil, with the aim of reaching the annual capacity of 1 billion liters of SAF and HVO (green diesel) and creating an innovative, competitive and fully integrated model "from seed germination to fuel distribution, turning into a vector of sustainable development". Acelen Renewables intends to develop the project in semi-arid areas and enable cultivation to be extremely efficient in oil production, “to avoid taking areas that are assigned for food production.” Victor Barra stresses that the agro-industrial process has to be highly competitive both in terms of costs and of carbon footprint. The choice of macaw palm, a plant with high energy density and high capacity for carbon sequestration, tends to that prospect. It is estimated that 60 million tons of CO2 will be removed from the atmosphere every year, and emissions of the gas will be reduced by 80%, on top of the recovery of degraded areas Therefore, he insists that the crucial issue for the success of the endeavour is to obtain production systems that result in high oil yields per hectare and effective industrial processes to extract those oils. “What we observe in nature is that the plant has a floral primordium for each leaf it emits, and it produces 15 leaves a year on average. At least twelve of them should turn into fruit bunches to be harvested. However, we usually see palms with only 3 or 4 bunches. The physiology of macaw palms has to be well studied to unblock such bottlenecks and enable the high fruit or oil yield per hectare that the project requires,” he explains. In spite of that, he believes that domesticating the plant is not the project’s biggest challenge: “Solving the plant’s agronomic issues is just a matter of time for us, given the competence public agricultural research has already demonstrated, of which Embrapa is one of the exponents, combined with Acelen Renewables team's expertise,” he asserts. For him, the greatest challenge will be processing the fruit for oil extraction and the full use of the remaining biomass so that no waste is generated while value is added. It is fundamental that the entire production chain obtains the necessary certifications for the foreign market and makes the products highly competitive. Therefore, in his opinion, the project’s reach transcends local expectations and benefits: “The domestication of macaw palm is not a project of a single company, or even of a single country, but a project for the world,” he concludes. Challenges Embrapa Agroenergy researcher Simone Favaro, who will coordinate the project, reports that in Brazil there are three naturally occurring species of macaw palm: Acrocomia aculeata, prevailing in the savanna-like cerrado in central Brazil; Acrocomia intumescens, which occurs in the Northeast; and Acrocomia totai, which is found in areas of the states of Paraná, São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and in the Pantanal biome. The project will focus on the first two species, as they have already adapted to the areas of interest for Acelen Renewables, which operates in the region between Bahia and northern Minas Gerais. Macaw palm has been the object of studies by Embrapa and other public research organizations like the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), and some important advances have already been achieved. According to the researcher, a significant barrier in commercial plantations was producing seedlings, as the natural germination rate of the seeds was extremely low: only 5% of the seeds. “A protocol by UFV solved this, and today it is possible to germinate up to 95% of the seeds,” Favaro celebrates. She also mentions advances like the development and approval of the Agricultural Climate Risk Zoning (ZARC, from the acronym in Portuguese) for the crop, which recommends areas with lower climate risk to exploit macaw palm in a rainfed system and provides access to Proagro and rural insurance subsidies, providing greater security for businesses. There are also plant diversity assessments of native populations for the implementation of an active germplasm bank, with over 100 different accessions to allow for breeding and genetic improvement programs, and even the development of a computer tool – MacView – to identify, count, and georeference the best native macaw palm plants. However, Favaro warns that there are other major challenges. She points out that the second major barrier to implementing commercial plantations is the availability of homogeneous high-yield materials obtained through conventional breeding, as cross-pollination between flowers of the same palm can generate significant plant variability in terms of fruit yield, with some yielding less than desired. Hence she expresses the ambition to develop future protocols to obtain clones of the best palm trees to ensure that plantations are established with only high-yielding plants, as it is being done with oil palm. In both cases, it will be necessary to develop and adjust analytical tools and use them in both native groves and existing commercial plantations to select high-yield plants that will parent genetically improved plants. Once high-yield plants are obtained, implementing economically viable plantations will require the design of production systems for macaw palm, defining plant spacing, fertilization, water management, and other crop practices. As Acelen is interested in using degraded semi-arid areas, the project also intends to investigate the possibility of implementing integrated macaw palm-crop and macaw palm-livestock systems. Simone Favaro also observes that when fruits are left on the soil for a long time before being picked up, their pulp and kernel tend to undergo a fermentation and oxidation process that impairs oil quality. The project is going to invest in harvest and post-harvest logistics to prevent such damage. According to her, the technological development of the project’s industrial segment also poses major challenges, the most significant of which is the creation of more innovative processes for pulp and kernel oil extraction, aiming to increase not only oil extraction rates but also its quality. “But oil represents only 10% to 20% of what macaw palms offer us. The remaining 80% can be countless high-value-added co-products, such as pulp and kernel meals for food products and endocarp for energy generation and biochar. The pulp and kernel oils, which have distinct properties, can have numerous applications other than fuels, such as in the food segment, both as cooking oil and to manufacture chocolate, ice cream, fillings, and margarines,” she points out. In the market for renewable chemicals, they can be used to produce shampoos, moisturizers, soaps, and makeup. They can also be used to make paints, varnishes, and lubricants. Moreover, the pulp and kernel can be used in animal feed and in flours for human consumption. The shell can generate thermal energy, the endocarp (coconut) can be transformed into activated charcoal for filters and into biochar (used in soil improvement and carbon capture), and industrial effluents can produce biogas and fertilizers. The project will also conduct cross-sectional studies like the economic feasibility of cropping, carbon inventories in groves and plantations, and lifecycle analyses. “There is a long road ahead,” Favaro signals. “The agro-industrial development of macaw palm is just at the beginning,” she concludes.