34 | Flight International | 28 January-3 February 2020 flightglobal.comENVIRONMENT
C
ommercial flights could be fully
powered by low-carbon fuels by
2050, according to the former chair
of the UK Committee on Climate
Change, but only if the right regulatory frame-
works are put in place and airlines accept the
cost penalty, in addition to agreeing to buy
sufficient volumes to enable production to be
scaled up.
In a keynote speech at the Royal Aero-
nautical Society’s Greener by Design confer-
ence in London in early November, Lord
Adair Turner, who now chairs the Energy
Transitions Commission (ETC) – a group
specialising in the decarbonisation of hard-to-
abate sectors – also urged the airline industry
to set more ambitious carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions reduction goals.
The target set by IATA a decade ago calls
for a 50% reduction in net aviation CO2 emis-
sions by 2050, relative to 2005 levels, and
carbon-neutral growth from 2020.Are biofuels
the future?
“The target for 2050 should be a 100% re-
duction,” says Turner, adding that this should
be “possible” to achieve without relying on
carbon offsetting. The route should instead
involve electrification of short-haul flights
and a shift to 100% drop-in low-carbon fuels
for long-haul flights, he adds.
As things stand, aircraft electrification
efforts are still in their infancy and the use of
sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is restricted
both by a 50% blend limit with conventional
jet fuel and negligible supplies. Biofuels cur-
rently represent less than 1% of the world’s
total jet fuel supply. Nevertheless, the avia-
tion industry has “got to do something radi-
cal” to address its growing emissions prob-
lem, Turner believes.MORE FLYING
“Aviation is going to be a tricky sector of the
economy [to decarbonise] because demand is
very likely to increase. Once people get to a
middle income, one of the things they want to
do is fly as much as they do in [the USA] andEurope. This could increase aviation emis-
sions by 83% by 2050 in a business-as-usual
scenario,” he warns.
“This is a sector where we don’t see enor-
mous potential to reduce demand. Yes, you
can shift short routes to rail; yes, you can
video conference; yes, you can have higher
prices; and yes, you can have better air traffic
management – but it’s difficult to believe you
can reduce demand by more than 15%.
There’s some mileage there but it’s not the
complete answer.”
Switching over to alternative fuels will be
expensive, however, with biofuels costing up
to three times more than conventional kero-
sene. But as the ETC points out in a 2018 re-
port on decarbonising aviation, the addition-
al cost is a pill that might have to be
swallowed if the airline industry wants to
continue growing.
“Given that biofuels and synfuels [synthet-
ic fuels] are the only technically feasible way
to decarbonise aviation... [their use] will nec-
essarily entail accepting this cost penalty,”
says the report. The price differential between
conventional and low-carbon fuels will prob-
ably be in place “for many decades”, making
aviation “one of the most expensive sectors to
decarbonise in the global economy”.
However, any subsequent rise in air fares
“would not produce a dramatic reduction in
demand for air travel, given the high-income
elasticity and low-price elasticity of consumer
behaviour”, according to the report.
“If it came down to a 25 cent per litre differ-
ence, this would add $40 to a 6,500km
[3,510nm] journey per passenger, which
doesn’t seem like a high price to pay to decar-Aviation is one of the hardest industries to decarbonise – not
least because demand for air travel is likely to increase – but
political backing for sustainable fuels could have a big impact
Less than 1% of total jet fuel
supply comes from biofuelsKERRY REALS LONDONShutterstock