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> Sustainable aviation fuel can be made from any of 60 different feedstocks — among them plant oils, algae, greases, fats, waste streams, alcohols, sugars, capt
by nunez 5y ago
> Sustainable aviation fuel can be made from any of 60 different feedstocks — among them plant oils, algae, greases, fats, waste streams, alcohols, sugars, captured CO2 and other alternative feedstock sources and processes. The Department of Energy estimates that the United States alone has the resources to produce 50–60 billion gallons of SAF per year. For context, commercial airlines will use about 57 billion gallons of fuel by the end of 2021, down from a peak of 95 billion gallons in 2019, according to Statista. By switching from petroleum to SAF — when you take into consideration the entire life cycle of the fuel — the aviation industry could reduce its carbon contribution from fuel by up to 80%, according to industry associations the Air Transport Action Group and the International Air Transport Association.
This is massive. Aircraft are some of the biggest CO2 pollutants out there.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoIt's important because planes are expensive and have operational lives measured in decades. So, even though companies like Boeing and Airbus are looking at alternative forms of propulsion now (e.g. hydrogen and electric), it would take well into the second half of the century to replace the existing fleet with their newer, more sustainable versions. Realistically production for that kind of plane won't even start until the 2030s at the earliest (and probably in low volume initially). Synthetic fuels will allow the existing fleet to be operated in a more sustainable way during this time. It will probably have a higher cost though. Long term, the low cost sustainable alternatives will probably take over. But as electricity production cost drops in the next decades, so will the cost of using electricity for producing synthetic fuels.