
Photo: Credit Kevin Hackert - Unplash
Multiple approaches to green hydrogen are only one example of the innovative technology that airlines and start-ups in the sustainable aviation fuels market are still investigating.
Compared to other forms of transport, air travel presents a particular challenge regarding carbon emissions since it requires a great deal of energy to get an aeroplane off the ground.
Combustible fuel is still the primary means to fly, at least for longer flights, despite technological advancements in electric automobiles, boats, and trains. The extra mass necessary to go electric isn’t an insurmountable technical barrier. There is currently no feasible alternative to fuel for flights of any length, which accounts for 80% of all emissions.
However, the sector has a relatively low carbon impact compared to others.
As the aviation sector recovers from the pandemic downturn, climate researchers predict that worldwide air travel will triple in the decades ahead, an increase predicted before Covid but may be mitigated by the rise of video conferencing. Analysts point out that freight flights do not depend on business class and that passenger traffic will recover more slowly than expected. That raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of aviation’s attempts to reduce carbon emissions. Analysts say the sector should be more concerned with reducing its proportion of emissions than it is with using its existing share as an excuse to act more cautiously.
In contrast to the auto industry, where electric vehicles have been in development for a decade, and the power generation sector, where significant investments in renewable energy sources have made them cost-competitive with traditional sources, the aviation industry is still testing out new fuel technology. The airlines are investing in electric batteries because they have some use on shorter regional flights and in urban travel.
However, while aviation is a challenging sector when it comes to net-zero targets, some critics argue that the industry has been too reluctant to pursue climate solutions. The pandemic did not assist the aviation industry, and even its detractors admit that it would have been impossible to anticipate a flood of investment into new technology in the past few years, given the greater urgency of addressing other severe financial concerns. Test flights using sustainable aviation fuels have been conducted, and contracts with sustainable aviation fuel manufacturers are piling up.
As part of their efforts to comply with the nett zero carbon mandate, numerous airlines have entered into agreements with biofuel-producing companies to acquire large amounts of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). It has “ambitious” climate goals, one of which is to have zero glasshouse gas (GHG) emissions by a target date.
To date, American Airlines is the only U.S. airline to report utilising more than 1 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel in 2021 and the only airline in the world to have its intermediate GHG emissions reduction objectives validated by the Science Based Targets project.
A growing feedstock is the first step in making low or zero-carbon SAF. Farms that implement carbon sequestration using regenerative agricultural practices. Precision pesticide and fertiliser applications are also used on these farms to lessen their environmental impact.
Biofuel producers will use feedstocks like field corn to make ethanol. Ethanol may be refined into a chemically indistinguishable fuel from conventional jet fuel.
Synthetic aviation fuels (SAFs) are chemically indistinguishable from standard airline fuel; however, their production process is significantly different (and greener) than traditional fuels. Unlike electric vehicles (EVs), however, there is much debate about which SAF approaches will be the ultimate winners and what trade-offs need to be made today to support current technologies in development.
While the aviation industry is testing out different technological techniques, the feedstocks that go into sustainable aviation fuels are not generated at a scale that comes near global jet fuel needs. Future optical concerns may centre on using feedstocks derived from the food industry.
“Probably in the long term — in many decades — we will discover an optimal form of sustainable energy, but in the transition, the rapid option is to utilise the SAF, and they are accessible today,” Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said during a panel discussion at Britain’s five-day Farnborough International Airshow.
The Inflation Reduction Act has provided a significant boost to green hydrogen technology. Still, other technical alternatives to sustainable aviation fuels can decarbonise planes without extending the usage and dependency on present fossil fuels.
The most significant barrier to expanding these operations and SAF production has not been a lack of scientific knowledge, but rather a lack of financial incentives.
Green hydrogen techniques aim to remove carbon dioxide from the air and combine it with green hydrogen to produce kerosene that can compete with conventional jet fuel. KLM’s Boeing 737 made its maiden flight from Amsterdam to Madrid using a blend of standard jet fuel and 500 litres of synthetic kerosene produced by oil giant Shell in February 2021.
By stating that the current global SAF supply could operate a fleet the size of Delta’s for one day, the airline measured the scope of the challenge ahead after signing the largest U.S. aviation deal yet for green hydrogen-produced fuels with Louisiana-based DG Fuels, which uses waste CO2 as a feedstock.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are further down the innovation curve because of their longer development period and the government regulations to encourage widespread adoption in the transportation industry.
However, not everybody agrees that SAFs are the answer, especially considering the sector’s recent expansion. In response to the industry’s focus on SAFs at the recent Farnborough International Airshow, environmentalists and climate activists urged the industry to “get serious” and present more substantial climate solutions. Alternatives to SAFs that have been advocated include slowing economic development, decreasing the number of people travelling, and decreasing the number of flights.
Source: CNBC