Wisconsin has signed a $120 million tax incentive package for a new sustainable aviation fuel plant that plans to convert timber mill residuals and forest byproducts into jet-grade fuel using gasification and Fischer-Tropsch technology. That is according to Bill Johnson of Johnson Timbers — the local partner on the project — who said the plant is one of the major beneficiaries of a Forestry Revitalization Bill signed into law last week by Governor Tony Evers.
The plant, a joint venture between Johnson Timbers and Germany’s Synthec Fuels, is projected to represent a $1.5 billion investment in northern Wisconsin’s timber and forestry economy. Synthec Fuels, founded six years ago, originally developed hydrogen technology before pivoting to sustainable aviation fuel in the wake of the energy shock triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“We actually worked with this technology in the past during both the Bush and Obama administrations and built a pilot plant utilising similar technologies down in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, using biomass from Wisconsin,” Johnson said, noting the gasification approach draws on more than a century of industrial precedent.
Wood Central understands that the biomass feedstock for the plant would draw primarily on mill residuals, limbs and branches left on the forest floor, invasive species, and standing dead timber — material Johnson described as unmarketable or otherwise undesirable to conventional sawmilling operations. Johnson said carbon credit markets and the SAF plant can operate in parallel, with sequestration programmes targeting productive forests and the plant absorbing waste streams that neither market currently prices.
The $120 million package takes the form of tax credits administered by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, with buyback provisions attached and a requirement that construction break ground before incentives are released. State Representative Chanz Green of Grand View, a co-sponsor of the Forestry Revitalization Bill, said the legislation drew near-unanimous support — with only seven of 133 legislators voting against.
The proposal comes as paper mill closures continue to strip traditional offtake from logging and trucking operators across the Great Lakes states, with Johnson warning that without new industrial demand for low-grade timber, the region’s forestry workforce has nowhere to send the wood. Synthec Fuels cited the established logging and trucking base, forestry industry expertise, and Great Lakes port infrastructure as key factors in targeting Wisconsin for its first United States facility. “Hopefully, bringing this plant to northern Wisconsin will provide jobs and create a little boom town in Hayward,” Green said.
