Back in 2008, Virgin Atlantic made history after flying a Boeing 747 between London and Amsterdam partly powered by a biofuel made from Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts.
Although Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson hailed the event as a “vital breakthrough”, many people dismissed it as just another one of his marketing stunts.
And they were right. [emphasis, links added]
In November 2023, Virgin Atlantic will operate the world’s first transatlantic flight powered entirely by green aviation fuels in yet another one-off demo.
A decade and a half since Virgin Atlantic’s 2008 demo, only five airports have regular biofuel distribution today (Bergen, Brisbane, Los Angeles, Oslo, and Stockholm).
On a global level, aviation biofuels account for less than 1% of the 1.5 billion barrels of aviation fuels, or ~15% of the global oil supply that commercial airlines burn through in a typical year.
Indeed, the global aviation industry is a leading polluter; it would rank among the top 10 emitters if it were a country.
But this is about to change in Europe.
On Wednesday, EU lawmakers approved new rules that require at least 2% of jet fuel used by airlines to be sustainable as of 2025, with that share to increase every five years to hit 70% by 2050.
The new legislation is part of the EU’s “Fit for 55” package, which has set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030.
Whereas 2% might not seem like much, consider that currently, less than 0.05% of Europe’s aviation fuel is sustainable, meaning airlines within the bloc will have to increase their share of clean fuels by more than 40x in the space of just two years.
For a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to qualify as sustainable, it must be able to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% compared to conventional fossil fuel-based jet fuels.
At the top of the sustainability hierarchy are fuels made from biomass including crop residues, animal waste, forestry residue, algae, and even everyday rubbish, such as product packaging and food leftovers that can typically lower CO2 emissions by 85-95%.
But achieving cleaner flights will not come cheap. SAFs are significantly more expensive than conventional jet fuel, and this cost premium is the key barrier to their wider adoption.
Fuel costs constitute the biggest line item for airlines, typically accounting for ~22% of their overheads.
Using renewable air fuel would likely necessitate passing the extra costs to customers by increasing ticket prices, something that would not work well unless everybody did it at once because airline-specific fare changes are highly price elastic.
The economics of some SAF are just egregious: earlier in the year, Exxon Mobil pulled the plug on its 14-year-long algae biofuels project because it found that crude would have to hit ~$500/bbl for algae biofuels to compete successfully.
Either way, air travel is about to get a lot more expensive, so much so that the “demand reduction impact” that would result from people being priced out is expected to account for ~14% of the required cuts to hit the EU emissions target.
Read rest at OilPrice
The Euro-Weenie Union is heading right for the edge of the pit over the cliff and gone
gas prices next
You must have been living on a mountain top for the past few years. Since Biden was elected gasoline prices have gone up dramatically.
Another piece of hideously costly cra*p.
Pay more for electricity, more for transportation fuel, and more for food because high energy causes impact the cost. All if this is to solve a non-existing problem. The elites making these mandates simply don’t care about the average citizen.
So where does the EU expect this magical fuel to come from? How many hectares of tropical forest lands must be razed to grow enough nuts to make this fuel? But it’s always somewhere else like the rare earth minerals that must be mined to make the “green energy” solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. Never in Europe or North America.
We have to remember how liberals think. They are starry eyed idealists. I’m sure they believe that the aviation industry can run mainly on bio waste or similar substances. Exxon Mobil shutting its algae biofuels project is lesson from reality. What it will come down to is raising crops for the fuel. This will sacrifice more land that should be left in its natural state. Like ethanol, I’m sure that the emissions in raising the crops for the fuel will have emissions close to burning the current fuel.
An acre of corn delivered to an ethanol plant produces the equivalent of 386 gallons of gasoline.
I poked around the internet and came the conclusion that the amount of carbon dioxide released to atmosphere, growing corn, is close to the carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere while growing. A good crop of corn could produce 6mt of grain and 7mt of stalks. The root mass is considerable, too.
Bacteria in the soil “eats” all that organic material over time, recycling the original carbon dioxide back into the air where it came from. Burning ethanol for fuel also returns CO2 back to where it came from.
A farmer might use 5 gallons of diesel fuel to grow an acre of corn and deliver it to an ethanol plant.
Think of a corn field as a solar panel that consumes CO2 and produces oxygen 6 months of the year, and automotive fuel that can be stored and used year round.