ICCT: Achieving net-zero aviation carbon emissions by 2050 requires all new aircraft to emit net zero CO2 after about 2035
22 July 2024
To achieve the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) goals of net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050, all new aircraft delivered after about 2035 will need to emit zero net CO2 emissions throughout their operational lifetimes, according to a new report from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).
The report, “Lifetime emissions from aircraft under a net-zero carbon budget”, assesses whether current manufacturer delivery projections are consistent with the net-zero carbon target by 2050 set by airline and aircraft manufacturers. It also explores how aircraft production, sales, and usage cycles are linked to emissions.
In the report, the ICCT models lifetime CO2 emissions from the 2023 global fleet and new aircraft deliveries through 2042 under three decarbonization scenarios: a business-as- usual (Baseline) scenario and scenarios that include the aggressive implementation of two key mitigation measures—sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs; Optimistic SAF) and the use of SAFs and fuel efficiency improvements (Optimistic SAF + Fuel Efficiency).
The ICCT also considers a sensitivity analysis of more (1.5 °C) and less ambitious (2 °C) climate targets to contextualize the net-zero budget in terms of warming impact.
Aircraft already in-service in 2023 are expected to emit 9 billion tonnes (Gt) of CO2 before being retired, or about 50% of a net-zero carbon budget. Projected lifetime emissions from new aircraft deliveries will consume the remainder of a net-zero carbon budget by between 2032 and 2037, depending on how quickly sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) blends and fuel-efficient technologies are adopted.
A typical aircraft is in service for about 25 years. So, if airlines are going to be net-zero by 2050, we need planes that burn zero fossil fuels throughout their lifetimes starting around 2035.
—Supraja Kumar, lead author of the study
While SAF blends and fuel efficiency can substantially cut emissions, additional action will be needed from aircraft manufacturers to transition away from fossil fuels by the mid-2030s. The study estimates that there will be a market for at least 10,000 new aircraft powered by hydrogen, electricity, or 100% SAFs through 2042.
Net-zero aviation means that there will be a robust market for zero-emission planes. It’s high time for manufacturers develop new aircraft that don’t need fossil fuels.
—Dan Rutherford, ICCT’s Senior Director of Research
To reach the net-zero CO2 goal, aircraft manufacturers will need to significantly increase their investments in lower emitting aircraft. The ICCT suggests that manufacturers can:
ensure that all new aircraft can burn 100% SAF, not just SAF blends, starting in 2030;
accelerate efforts to develop zero emission planes, especially those powered by hydrogen, by 2035; and
establish stringent targets for “value-chain emissions” (those released during the lifetime of a product’s use by its customers) requiring that the aircraft they deliver will emit fewer GHGs throughout their lifetimes.
' The report, “Lifetime emissions from aircraft under a net-zero carbon budget”, assesses whether current manufacturer delivery projections are consistent with the net-zero carbon target by 2050 set by airline and aircraft manufacturers. s'
The answer to that is simple.No way. There is not even any studies that I am aware of for the global production of SAF to enable such a decarbonisation for the vast numbers of aircraft the industry plans to build.
All that has been turned out, and folk are most welcome to correct me if I am wrong, is limited stuff for the US alone which has enormously more biological and land resources per capita than most places.
Nor is hydrogen able to help in this time frame, as the most that are planned are regional aircraft, and the vast majority of the CO2 emissions are from long distance.
But the current plan is to continue to produce obsolete from inception aircraft regardless of the climatic consequences.
This is the policy of entitled children, prioritising skiing holidays over massive fatal climatic consequences.
Video conferencing works fine, although not as much fun as jetting off to Davros for a conference on climate change.
Posted by: Davemart | 22 July 2024 at 02:54 AM
And here is an analysis of crops for SAF in the US:
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-bioenergy-crops-sustainable-aviation-fuels.html
' The U.S. currently consumes 23 billion gallons of jet fuel per year, and aviation fuel accounts for roughly 13% of domestic transportation carbon dioxide emissions, the researchers report in their analysis in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
So far, only a few million gallons of sustainable aviation fuels are produced in the U.S., but a national initiative, the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge, aims to expand production to 3 billion gallons by 2030 and 35 billion gallons by 2050 while achieving a 50% reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensity compared with conventional fuel.'
And:
' "It's a huge task to weigh all the factors that make a particular biofuels feedstock economically or environmentally viable," Khanna said. "You have to consider all other potential uses for the land used to grow the crop, the costs of establishing a new crop, and numerous other factors like weather, soil carbon and the productivity of a given crop in a particular location."
"There's also the cost of converting different feedstocks into biofuels and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with growing and transporting them to a refinery," Fan said.
The goal was to identify feedstocks with the lowest "break-even price" for a grower switching from another viable crop, the lowest carbon intensity and cost of carbon abatement, and the highest biomass produced per unit of land.'
And:
'Ultimately, the researchers conclude, "Either carbon prices would need to rise or the cost of producing sustainable aviation fuels will need to fall to make SAFs an economically attractive alternative to jet fuel."
Note that they give the present, US only, not world, demand for jet fuel, which the aircraft manufactures, airlines and so on are hell-bent on continuing to expand.
That is aside from demand from the rest of the world, where prospects for biofuels, land resources per capita and so on are far lower than the US.
So to meet even that very partial target, it is clear that enormous amounts of land, water, and so on would need to be diverted from stuff like growing food to feed people, with unspecified consequences, instead of using the biomass to sequester carbon, and the end result is some partial reduction, but from a figure much greater than at present, and even then it is unlikely to work at all without carbon costing, as the authors apparently show no means where the price of SAF could fall on its own to beat jet fuel.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone who can count can regard this as any sort of solution, save if the objective is to ignore global warming and to impose immense strains on agriculture to feed the world' s people.
Posted by: Davemart | 23 July 2024 at 01:50 PM