NEW REPORT: Decarbonizing Aviation: Challenges and Opportunities for Emerging Fuels

Analyzing aviation energy demand, assessing the merits of aviation biofuels, and policy recommendations for decarbonizing the aviation sector (... and announcing a new website!)

I’m excited to share a new report I co-authored with Jonathan Lewis and Emily Kent at Clean Air Task Force called Decarbonizing Aviation: Challenges and Opportunities for Emerging Fuels.

The aviation sector makes up 2% of global CO2 emissions, and could triple by 2050 if we don’t take action. Current plans to decarbonize aviation depend heavily on aviation biofuels, which have their own set of challenges. From CATF:

We have so far turned to biofuels — often dubiously deemed “sustainable aviation fuels” to reduce aviation’s greenhouse gas footprint despite the fact that large-scale biofuel production drives up demand for commodity crops and motivates farmers to convert natural land into farmland, a process that transfers soil- and plant-carbon into the atmosphere.  

A new CATF analysis, conducted and co-authored by Na’im Merchant, that examines the potential roles for biofuels and scalable zero-emissions fuels like hydrogen to reduce aviation emissions found that the full supply of biofuels — all of which we assumed to be climate-beneficial, for the sake of argument — would still not amount to enough to address the growing demand for aviation energy, even if all projected biofuels production was directed to the aviation sector. In fact, the U.S. would have to more than double its biofuel production just to meet domestic aviation energy demand, despite being the global leader in biofuel production.  

The first part of the report analyzes aviation energy demand that would need to be replaced by low-and-zero carbon alternatives to decarbonize the sector and the implications of meeting that demand with aviation biofuels. It then goes on to explore a number of promising alternatives to aviation biofuels, including synthetic fuels using CO2 from direct air capture and hydrogen as feedstocks, hydrogen fuel, or long-duration carbon dioxide removal to offset emissions from conventional jet fuel. Finally, the report proposes comprehensive policy responses in the US and EU including research and development investments, incentives, regulations to accelerate demand, and technical standards to fully decarbonize the sector by 2050.

I really enjoyed diving deep on aviation decarbonization with the amazing, rigorous, and talented team at CATF. I hope the report will lead to a more complete policy approach to dealing with emissions from this important, and fast growing sector. It was also intriguing to explore the role that carbon utilization and carbon dioxide removal could play in contributing to decarbonizing aviation. Here’s a link to CATF’s blog post, and here’s a link to the full report.

One more thing…

You’ll find this report - and some of my other notable projects - featured on the new Carbon Curve website that launched earlier this week. The Carbon Curve substack will remain the home of my insights and perspectives on carbon removal. In fact, a new series of podcast episodes will start coming out next week, so subscribe if you haven’t yet.

The website I just launched will feature my consulting services, which I hope will open up a new avenue for governments, policy groups, philanthropies, start-ups, larger corporates, and investors to work with me on scaling up carbon removal solutions. Some of the services I offer include:

• Policy research and recommendations guiding public sector actors on the effective and responsible scale up of carbon removal solutions

• Strategy development for strengthening pillars of the carbon removal ecosystem, including measurement, reporting, and verification, transparency, equity, and governance

• Carbon market analysis for corporate buyers interested in supporting carbon removal to meet net-zero targets

• Growth planning for carbon removal start-ups to achieve their commercialization and fundraising goals

If you’re interested in policies to help grow the carbon removal industry, curious about how your company can support carbon removal while meeting sustainability goals, or need to find a pathway to commercialize emerging carbon removal technologies - please reach out.

And for those of you who have subscribed and/or have worked with me in the past, thank you for all your support to date!

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