Decarbonizing Aviation

A recent Haldor Topsoe blog post describes the company’s HydroFlex™ technology, which can produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from any commercially available feedstock.

Granted, this is a brag that must be substantiated by third parties. Still, the post is quite informative. I recommend it to anyone interested in decarbonizing aviation.

Here is the full text of the Haldor Topsoe post.

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February 10, 2022
What does it take to decarbonize aviation?
By Ulrik Frøhlke

There’s no mincing words when it comes to the environmental impact of air travel: jet fuel is far from climate-neutral. Air traffic emits over 1 billion tons of CO2 annually, accounting for 3% of all global emissions. Government leaders are expressing their desire to see this contribution reduced, with clear targets being set across both the US and EU for increased production, incorporation, and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). As a leader in decarbonization and renewable technologies, Topsoe says it’s about time.

“Can’t air travel be electrically powered?”
While electric planes may well end up fulfilling shorter-distance domestic roles, a fully electrified aviation industry would be difficult to realize, given the physical challenges posed by attempting to integrate high-capacity batteries within current fuselage designs; a 747 would require a battery so enormous that the remaining cabin space could accommodate only a handful of passengers.

As such, it’s estimated that most planes will still utilize drop-in fuels by 2050, so the question is not whether SAF is the answer to supporting carbon-neutral aviation, but rather the extent to which global SAF availability can be increased in the coming years in order to realize this ambitious goal.

“What’s standing in the way?”
A variety of obstacles lie between the aviation industry and sustainable operation. For a start, commercial airlines aren’t currently allowed to fly on SAF alone. A maximum blend ratio of 50% sustainable fuel to 50% fossil fuel is permitted, and it will take time before SAF is approved for widespread, full-scale replacement of fossil fuel.

Next is the issue of leveraging the SAF-production process itself. While there are seven approved pathways to effective production, only one, which uses hydrogenated acids and fatty acids to deliver synthetic paraffinic kerosene, is currently available for commercial-scale production.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the availability of feedstocks from which SAF can be derived is currently lacking. Approved feedstocks are in high demand, with prices increasing by the week. Substances that the average consumer might regard as little more than disposable waste, like used cooking oils and animal fats, are key to ensuring long-term SAF availability,

As a result, supply and demand are hardly equal. Currently, only 200,000 tons of SAF are produced annually; the aviation industry consumes over 300,000,000 tons of fuel annually. That aforementioned 747 burns over 75 tons on a single journey from London to New York, alone, while a lighter 787-9 can make the jump with “only” 44. It goes almost without saying that significant production ramp-up is needed to provide for the kind of availability that will fundamentally transform the industry’s carbon intensity for the better.

That’s where companies like Topsoe play a role.

“What’s Topsoe doing about it?”
The technology and catalysts needed to produce high-purity jet fuel, from a variety of renewable sources, already exist. In fact, we’ve been working with them for over ten years; Topsoe’s HydroFlex™ technology can now produce SAF from any commercially available feedstock, the result of our R&D department’s constant efforts to analyze, test, and verify the viability of every option under the sun. A decade’s worth of knowledge and demonstrated expertise in renewable-fuel production has made us the global leader in the field, with producers lending us their trust in pursuit of complex, highly challenging objectives – and finding that trust pays off time after time.

In addition to hydroprocessing of solid and liquid feedstocks, we also possess and license solutions for producing what is, arguably, the final evolution of drop-in fuel: electrofuels, or “eFuels.” By equipping our G2LTM eFuel solutions with electrified Reverse Water-Gas Shift (eRWGS) technology, we facilitate a process whereby jet fuel is produced using nothing more than renewable electricity, water, and CO2.

All that’s needed is the willingness, on the part of producers and governments, to invest in SAF. We’ve already licensed more than ten HydroFlex plants, all of which are expected to begin production within the next five years; from Dutch SkyNRG to Swedish Preem AB, we’re helping producers take real steps in the right direction. But it’s important that all producers recognize the role they can play, and that governments make every effort to incentivize the transition to SAF production. We’ve seen it work in the United States, where biofuel obligations are set to grow steadily over the next decade - and beyond.

“We know the environmental impact of certain key industries – and therefore the potential good that would result from powering them renewably – is simply too great to ignore,” said Fei Chen, Senior Vice President of Clean Fuel & Chemicals Technology at Topsoe. “We also know that the sooner producers invest in SAF production, the sooner the market will be able to mature, and the greater the environmental benefit will be. We’re ready to help make it happen, and we believe a lot of producers are, too. To all of them, we say, ‘Reach out to us, and let’s transform how the world flies.”
source: https://blog.topsoe.com/what-does-it-take-to-decarbonize-aviation?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=203496992&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_rqBi7wMBUDkowoz--0TI2F88cq-jjKowtF00zXcRA3-8seHRcldLHm6AVwzLLVyJEXPPgKijUsj2a-wNtp4f-Qf2OEQ&utm_content=203496992&utm_source=hs_email
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TIP: Google® decarbonizing aviation. One result from the World Economic Forum (https://www.weforum.org)…

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Aviation's flight path to a net-zero future
Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires multi-stakeholder action.
20 Sep 2021
Huibert Vigeveno, Downstream Director, Shell

Cybersecurity risks in aviation: Building a cyber-resilient future
    Aviation connects people and is fundamental to the world economy, but it is responsible for around 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
    Multi-stakeholder cooperation is needed if the industry is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
    A new report (Decarbonising Aviation: Cleared for Take-off (https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/decarbonising-aviation.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=social_organic&utm_content=HV_WEF_link_013_&utm_campaign=decarbonisingaviation__sep-dec_2021)) reveals the views of more than 100 global aviation business leaders on how to decarbonize the sector.

The warnings are clear. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the effects of global warming are widespread and intensifying. When world leaders gather at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in a few weeks’ time, they will have calls for action ringing in their ears.

Of course, it is not just world leaders and governments who must respond – responsibility rests with all of us. But sometimes, especially in harder-to-abate sectors such as aviation, it can seem difficult to see how to turn goodwill into effective action.

That is why Shell and Deloitte have worked together on a series of reports exploring these sectors. Having examined shipping and road freight, our third and most recent report considers aviation. Decarbonising Aviation: Cleared for Take-off is based on the insights of more than 100 aviation leaders, from 68 organisations.

These leaders acknowledged the challenges, particularly around developing future technology: electric planes would seem to require huge batteries; hydrogen-powered aircraft might need fuel tanks four times the size of those on modern jets.

Critically, the experts consulted said the current sector-wide targets need to become more ambitious. Although aviation represents 3% of global emissions today, that could rise to 22% by 2050, as more people fly and other sectors decarbonize more quickly. If other sectors produce less and less greenhouse gas while aviation does nothing, its share of total global emissions will increase.

The report concluded that aviation should have net-zero targets for 2050, with ambitious interim steps for 2030. It outlined 15 solutions to help aviation reduce its net emissions between now and 2030, with a view to reaching net zero by 2050.

Expanding the use of alternative fuel

Perhaps the most significant proposed solution is to greatly expand the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAF is made from plant or animal material, including for example, waste oils. In future it may also be possible to make industrial-scale quantities of synthetic SAF using hydrogen obtained from low-emission sources and carbon dioxide taken from other industrial processes or the air.

In its neat form, SAF has the potential to cut life-cycle emissions from aviation by up to 80%. It can be blended with conventional jet fuel and put in existing aeroplanes, without them needing major design changes. But depending on the technology used, SAF can be up to eight times more expensive than conventional jet fuel. It currently accounts for less than 0.1% of around 300 million tonnes of fuel used every year by commercial airlines.

Closing this cost gap and ensuring more SAF is used will, like so much of the action needed on climate change, require joint effort: within aviation, with other sectors, and with regulatory incentives. When Shell published Cleared for Take-off, it announced its ambition to produce 2 million tonnes of SAF a year by 2025. This would make Shell a leading global producer of SAF. It aligns with Shell’s strategy of accelerating progress towards becoming a provider of net-zero emissions energy products and services.
Incentives to reduce emissions

As Shell and the aviation sector work towards net zero, a particularly influential group can help us: customer power is likely to play an important role in decarbonizing aviation.

The report highlighted how companies – corporations whose employees travel on business and firms that transport cargo – are increasingly willing to pay a green premium for flights that reduce net emissions by using SAF and high-quality offsets. This is because more and more companies are pledging to reduce their emissions. They are signing up in ever increasing numbers to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which requires them to set targets that align with the Paris Agreement.

According to the UN, corporates with net-zero ambitions represent a total annual revenue of $11.4 trillion, more than half the GDP of the US. Airlines can respond to this growing demand with flights that help their customers fulfil their net-zero ambitions, either through SAF, high-quality carbon offsets, or a combination of the two. There are already encouraging signs. When a carbon-neutral cargo flight was introduced between China and Germany recently, it quickly attracted impressive levels of interest.

The demand from business travel could form something of a critical mass in support of decarbonization. Around 200 large corporates, for example, represent a 16% share of global air travel. That is a relatively concentrated group of customers, many of them keen to reduce their emissions. Aviation and its customers can help each other get to net zero. To succeed, they will also need to be supported by regulation. Ideally, this will involve blending mandates that set minimum amounts of SAF to be combined with traditional jet fuel.

The report also found enthusiasm for schemes like California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard, where low-carbon-intensity fuels get credits that can be sold, creating an incentive to use and develop products like SAF.

No one should pretend that decarbonizing aviation will always be easy, but no one should ever give up. I find it wonderful to see the pioneering, can-do spirit of the industry while confronting even the toughest problems – for example the resources and effort going into developing battery electric and hydrogen planes that could one day make zero-emission flight a reality.

For all the challenges, aviation should retain its optimism. It should remember the benefits that the sector brings. In 2019, aviation supported $3.5 trillion (4.1%) of the world’s GDP. During the COVID-19 pandemic, aircraft helped transport vital personal protective equipment and vaccines. The report found that decarbonization was a top-three priority for 90% of the experts consulted. Aviation has goodwill and good solutions. It can answer the calls for action.

Huibert Vigeveno, Downstream Director, Shell

© 2022 World Economic Forum
source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/aviation-flight-path-to-net-zero-future/
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