Page 63 - European Energy Innovation - Summer 2017 publication
P. 63
Summer 2017 European Energy Innovation 63
AVIATION EMISSIONS
by Virgin Atlantic in 2008, significant making the possibility of a fully-electric
progress has been made. By the end commercial scale aircraft far more likely
of 2016, over 5,500 commercial flights in the future. We have already seen
had been operated by a number of prototypes of small, two seater electric
airlines using alternative fuel from a aircraft in the shape of Airbus’ E-Fan
wide variety of sustainable feedstocks and Siemens’ 330LE. The European
and to date, there are three airports Union project, Clean Sky, and the US
regularly supplying sustainable government-funded NASA are also
alternative fuel, Oslo, Stockholm and active in this field.
Los Angeles, and a number of airlines
have signed offtake agreements with Hybrid-electric commercial aircraft,
fuel suppliers. which use traditional jet fuel propulsion
for take-off and landing, with electricity
The challenges facing the large-scale used to power the cruising phase are
deployment of sustainable alternative more likely to be feasible in the coming
fuels are not technical, but economic decades. This April, for example, has
and political. What we now need is for just seen an announcement by Zunum
the production and use of alternative Aero, backed by Boeing and JetBlue, of
fuel to be economically viable. This a regional-sized hybrid-electric aircraft
is where governments can help the that it is hoped will be ready by the
industry, putting in place the right mid-2020s.
policies to incentivise their production.
If this happens, the coming years could With the continuing commitment to
see aviation significantly increase the both alternative fuels and new aircraft
proportion of alternative fuel used by technology, the future looks bright for
airlines, leading to major environmental aviation’s sustainable future. l
gains.
While the sustainability credentials For more details on how aviation is
of sustainable alternative fuels are
compelling, their use is unlikely to be working to cut CO2 emissions, check
enough to reduce carbon emissions www.enviro.aero/climatesolutions
at the scale needed to reach our 2050
goal. For this, we will need to develop
disruptive new aircraft technology that
lessen (or ideally remove) our reliance
on CO2-emitting jet fuel.
While the feasibility of developing
fully-electric aircraft is still to be
proved, battery technology has been
advancing at an encouraging pace,
www.europeanenergyinnovation.eu
