The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has projected growth in flights of 40% between 2018 and 2035. So how do we reduce aviation emissions? The global implementation of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) remains low. Meanwhile, Europe’s EU ETS has helped reduce the sector’s emissions by around 17m tonnes of CO2eq per year - but it did not bring a net decrease in emissions. Technological progress … [Read more...]
SAFFiRE: cheap, Sustainable Aviation Fuel from agricultural waste
SAFFiRE (Sustainable Aviation Fuel From [i] Renewable Ethanol) is a 10-ton-per-day pilot plant project. The goal is 7bn gallons of sustainable, low-carbon aviation fuel by 2040. Ryan Horns at NREL explains that the sustainable fuel is made from corn stover, an agricultural waste product, chemically broken down into sugars that can then be converted to fuels. The SAFFiRE process can take advantage of the existing infrastructure of over 200 ethanol … [Read more...]
Aviation policy alert: non-CO2 emissions have up to four times the climate impact
There’s little point designing CO2 policies without knowing what other factors are heating up the atmosphere. So it is with aviation. The non-CO2 emissions (aromatics, NOx, SO2, H2O, particulate matter, etc.) from jet engines have up to four times the effect of CO2. You can see it in the contrail cirrus streaks trailing behind aircraft. Carlos LĂłpez de la Osa at Transport & Environment summarises their recent summit that brought together … [Read more...]
Event summary: “Unlocking the potential of Bioenergy”
Sara Stefanini provides a written summary of our panel discussion held on Thursday March 17th 2022. It’s a full summary of the 90 minute discussion (including audience questions), but it begins conveniently with a summary of the highlights (potential for bioenergy, hard-to-abate sectors, sustainability, policy needs). Those highlights include the need to scale bioenergy up from around 50 EJ today to 150 EJ by 2050; the importance of carbon … [Read more...]
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