Sustainable aviation fuel captured everyone’s interest as the first transatlantic flight is a total success.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is considered by many the way forward to make the aviation industry (almost) carbon neutral. On Tuesday, the first transatlantic flight fully powered with sustainable aviation fuel lifted from the ground in London and landed in New York. Powered by Virgin Atlantic, this test flight was not carrying any passengers.
But what is sustainable aviation fuel exactly? How does the industry hope to cut carbon emissions in one of Earth’s most polluting means of transportation?
In short, sustainable aviation fuel is an umbrella term for many different fuels created through biomass and waste. According to the US Department of Energy site, SAF can be achieved without petroleum-based components, including used kitchen oil, food waste, and woody biomass.
So far, only two companies produce SAF, World Energy and Neste, based in California. Sustainable aviation fuel can be blended with regular aviation fuel with a mix between 10% and 50%. So far, around 46 companies in the aviation industry around the world use SAF in their day-to-day operations.
The historic Virgin flight on Tuesday, however, used 100% sustainable aviation fuel, signaling quick progress in the research and development of this product.
Using only SAF-powered flights would bring aviation emissions down by 94%. As of today, aviation makes up 2% of the global manmade emissions, though it pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
Is SAF really more sustainable?
Several environmental groups have complained that an increase in biomass production and usage would not really fight climate change. Woody biomass, for example, would have to be harvested from the world’s forests, thereby increasing deforestation and posing another environmental issue.
Others argue that commercial costs would skyrocket, posing a risk to the aviation industry altogether and prompting passengers to choose cheaper, more polluting means of transportation.
However, there are also SAF alternatives that don’t use biomass and instead are produced from manmade waste.
Furthermore, research and development on SAF has just started, and will only increase in volume and scale. Much like renewable resources 20 years ago, there’s a good chance SAF starts off as expensive and becomes cheaper as it progresses further.
But this process would also be slow, with the largest airlines pledging to switch to 10% SAF by 2030. This would barely make a dent in the fight against climate change.
The most radical groups demand that flights are simply reduced in number, although this looks like the most unlikely option.
