Aviation's answer to climate change

A desire to fly versus environmental guilt

Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash

This is clearly a hangover to last week’s letter and my continuing regret about flying to America. What a selfish little turncoat I turned out to be.

My birch stick flagellation has at last produced something more helpful, as I explore what the aviation industry is doing to resolve climate change?

I’m grateful to a podcast transcription from the New York Times, sponsored by British Petroleum, which covers an interview with Willie Walsh, Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Nicolas Chretien, Head of Sustainability and Environment at Airbus.

Willie Walsh, don’t I know him?

Originally a pilot for Aer Lingus, he quickly became an active union member of the Irish Airline Pilots' Association (IALPA). His meteoric rise to Chief Executive saw a switching of sides, to solve Aer Lingus’ loss making business. He axed 2,500 jobs.

He’s more famous for trying to do the same at British Airways, hacking away costs at another heavily unionised carrier. He was accused of going too far during a 2017, Bank Holiday IT meltdown at Heathrow’s Terminal 5. It stranded many passengers and had commentators accusing Walsh of stripping out too much cost, replaced with over zealous outsourcing to India.

A lack of impartiality

The podcast is a bit of a love-in. The three companies involved all have vested interests and don’t ask any awkward questions, especially to the questioner, who works for BP.

Walsh appears to believe he’s pulled a green rabbit out of the hat, because IATA passed a resolution in October 2021, approved by all its members, to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

They’re clearly smart enough not to ignore growing concerns. They’re still a high-growth industry, driven by burgeoning populations around the globe. 70% more passenger traffic is forecast to fly by 2050. They’re also stuck with long lead times, preventing them from improving plane efficiency every couple of years unlike the car industry. And they recognise the need for a global energy solution which dramatically reduces carbon emissions.

Walsh and IATA’s rabbit has been to persuade the industry to get onboard before it’s too late. Better to be seen taking the lead now, than face government intervention restricting growth and the personal rationing of flights later.

If this was more than a self-interested, profit at all costs, cosy chat, someone would have quickly reached the conclusion that one way to solve some of these problems, would be to limit passenger numbers by increasing the price of a ticket.

Interestingly, the recent pandemic created an unexpected benefit in this regard. Airlines took the opportunity to retire a lot of their older-generation aircraft early, because of the severe downturn in demand. These older crocks would otherwise, have continued to carbonise our skies for a further 5 years.

Net zero aviation

There are 4 contributing factors which might eventually help clear our consciences, assuming it’s not too late. Improve operational efficiency, which includes electrifying everything on the ground and smarter routing in the air. Switch to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), as well as build the next generation aircraft which can cope with 50% or more SAF in the tank and manage residual emissions.

Single European Sky?

One operational efficiency is a change of thinking amongst European countries. CO2 emissions could be reduced by as much as 12% with the introduction of a Single European Sky.

The air-traffic control system in Europe is old and inefficient. It’s a fragmented network of providers, preventing aircraft from flying at more efficient altitudes and more directly, shortening distances. It’s equivalent to having borders in the air and to date, there has been a lack of political will to address this across Europe.

Interim solution with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)

80% of the CO2 that planes produce comes from flights longer than 1,500 km. To hit net zero emissions by 2050, there needs to be a huge increase in the production of SAF, around 300 million tons by the target date. At the moment, every litre of SAF is already used on commercial flights, but the volumes are tiny.

SAF is produced from a variety of sustainable resources, know as feedstocks. It includes, forestry, agricultural and domestic waste, used cooking oil, CO2 and green hydrogen (the one produced from electrolysis, not splitting methane). Producers say they don’t use soy and palm oil, because of the high rates of deforestation associated with these crops.

British Airways and Velocycs

There are signs of investment and production of bigger volumes of SAF in the UK.

Velocycs is developing a facility in Immingham, North Lincolnshire in partnership with British Airways which will convert 500,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste into fuel for planes every year. Production is expected to start in 2027.

The waste is treated to produce a solid recovered fuel (SRF), which can then be converted into synthesised gas. It’s a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide but may contain CO2 and methane. The gas is then ready for conversion to a hydrocarbon liquid which will be stored onsite in tanks before distribution, where it will be mixed with aviation fuel made from traditional fossil fuels.

Department of Transport grants

The Velocycs project was awarded a £1.9m Green Fuels Green Sky grant by the government (Johnson not Truss, obviously).

Other smart decisions have been taken with a number of other companies which all focus on organic waste and its conversion. This represents effective recycling of carbon residues into SAF. Many focus on household and commercial waste, one is sewage sludge and another direct air capture technology, combined with hydrogen from electrolysis.

Whether the British government is doing enough with only 6 projects is hard to say. Presently, the cost of SAV is 3 times more expensive than jet kerosene and none of these projects will start delivering volume, if at all, until nearer 2030.

Zero emission tailpipe emissions

The ultimate goal is to move from net zero to zero emissions. Electrification is always going to be of limited value to aviation because of the poor relationship between the potential energy available and weight needed to deliver it. But who’s to say that there won’t be a dramatic breakthrough in battery technology at some point which overcomes the density issue?

Other eggs are in the hydrogen basket with Airbus having an A380 technology demonstrator, using hydrogen, in the air, sometime before 2030.

This is a much bigger leap, requiring huge investment and infrastructure to make hydrogen available at every airport. There is also the significant problem of ramping up green hydrogen production to commercial levels.

My assumption when I started researching this article was the industry is bound to be in protective, greenwashing mode. The triangle of vested interest is fuel producers (the oil industry), aircraft manufacturers and government. The key to achieving net zero as quickly as possible, as always, falls squarely on the latter. So much could be done with government incentive, something the US is doing far better than the EU apparently, when it comes to SAV production.

Yes, the UK is doing something, but the scale of the investment is a rounding error compared to the profits that energy companies have been making. If ever there was an opportunity to help grow the economy, here’s a winner.

A mature industry, with guaranteed rising passenger numbers over the next 50 years, harnessed with a significant carbon problem, which can no longer be swept under the carpet.