8/15/2023 0 Comments Reduce carbon emissions![]() T&E has warned against setting targets for clean aviation fuels too high, due to concerns over a lack of sustainable options in the short term. "We're moving towards a more circular economy." "There are competing uses for it and not a lot of availability, because who knows, in 2030, how much waste we will actually produce," says Jo Dardenne, manager of aviation at the Brussels-based non-profit Transport and Environment (T&E). And as countries aim to establish more sustainable economies, making biofuels in this way could become more difficult. The vast majority of sustainable fuels used in aviation today come from advanced waste biofuels, but there is demand for this from other sources such as cars, trucks and ships. The reason so little is currently used is that these fuels are both expensive and have very limited supply. Several EU countries have already set blending mandates for SAFs: the Netherlands, for example, has said 14% of its aviation fuel must be sustainable by 2030. In 2019, 13 million gallons (50 million litres) of SAFs were used in flights, just 0.01% of global aviation fuel, meaning the industry missed a goal set in 2010 to reach 6% use by 2020. But the reduction in emissions each of these sustainable fuels offer compared with fossil jet fuel varies depending on how they are made and sourced. Some are already certified for use in aircrafts up to a 50:50 blend with fossil jet fuel. Known together as sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), these have similar chemistry to conventional jet fuel, and can be blended with fossil fuels and used on conventional planes without needing any new onboard technology. A recent paper from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) found that at most 5.5% of aviation fuel in the EU could come from sustainable sources by 2030, largely from advanced waste biofuels.Īlongside advanced waste biofuel, the other main short-term sustainable alternative to fossil jet fuel is synthetic fuel made using electrochemical reactions between water and captured carbon. The problem is that it takes time, investment and technology – as well as a strong policy push – to swap out a fuel as ubiquitous as kerosene. These fuels are made from recycled waste such as used cooking oil, industrial waste and agricultural and forestry residues.īut industry-wide, the production of alternative fuels remains miniscule. So that's what we started focusing on."Įleven years on and SkyNRG is one of a handful of companies supplying "advanced waste" biofuels to airlines. "But we knew that whatever happened, someone needed to get the fuel and get it into an aircraft and sell it. Little was known at the time about how to do this, says Maarten van Dijk, one of the three and managing director of SkyNRG. In 2010, a venture founded by Dutch airline KLM and several other partners began one of the first efforts to develop more climate-friendly alternatives to conventional kerosene. Companies like Airbus have grand plans to develop hydrogen planes within 15 years, for example, but what can be done in the shorter term to curb the aviation industry's impact on the climate? Can we find alternative fuels to burn in our aircraft or even change the way aircraft fly so they are kinder to the planet? If the world hopes to limit global warming by meeting the ambitious cuts in carbon emissions set out in the Paris Agreement on climate change, aviation will need to move away from fossil fuels completely in the long term. But bar gradually rising efficiency in planes, little progress has been made so far on how to actually decarbonise aeroplanes ![]() All this means that we need to start doing far more on aviation emissions, and fast. With Covid-19, flights and passenger numbers plummeted, but the number of people flying is expected to return to 2019 levels within a few years and continue to grow. By 2019, it accounted for 2.5% of the world's CO2 emissions. Between 20, there was a 5% average rise in flights per year. Just one flight can emit as much CO2 as many people do in a year, and the number of flights globally is expected to grow at an alarming pace over the coming decades.Ĭompared to other sectors, aviation is a relatively small contributor to global greenhouse emissions, but it is also one of the fastest growing. This is why flying individuals, or goods, around the world is so very energy intensive – and so terrible for the climate. A Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet carries 63,000 gallons (240,000 litres) of jet fuel, equal to about a 10th of an Olympic sized swimming pool, and burns through it at a rate of 4 litres (0.9 gallons) per second. Aircraft use an incredible amount of fuel. ![]()
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