We need not to fly less, just sometimes different

Aviation is pushed hard to reduce and eliminate its emissions and Aviation works hard to find solutions to meet those demands.

Some believe we need to fly less or stop flying to meet those demands.

Like other types of land-based transportation has done or are doing, for pure economical reasons we believe Aviation will at large change its legacy business model to the new sustainable electric future where possible, supplied by SAF where the few customers that are willing to pay a lot more for their ticket.

This article is our take on:

• A needed Reality-Check on Aviation and how we combat climate change in general.
• The fact we humans in general go after the cheapest choice.
• The realistic possibilities for Aviation to become as Green as possible.
• The needed increased focus on other sectors to realistic combat climate changes as fast as possible.

Because what only matters at the end of the day to combat climate changes and help the climate back on track, is us humans actions … not what we promised, not what was written on a contract, not what was said at a toast … just our collective actions.

By: John Martin Winther Andersen

Aviation has for many years just like other businesses outside aviation, been focusing how to become more energy efficient for beside lowering cost, be less of a polluter. From 1968 to 2014, jet engines has reduced their fuel consumption by some staggering 45% and it hasn’t stopped since 2014. The newest generation aircrafts like Boeing 787 and Airbus 350 are 20% more fuel efficient than its previous generation aircrafts.

Though much more efficient than half a century ago, todays aircrafts still emits emissions and aviation as a business has pledged to become CO2 neutral no later than by the year 2050.

Hydrogen

New sources of energy to power todays and tomorrows aircrafts are being invested heavily such as Hydrogen and Power-to-X, which is based on Hydrogen, but as we have reported some years ago though technically possible despite recent failure of building a Hydrogen powered aircraft, it is not economically feasible nor a practical solution and likely a risky solution due to Hydrogens natural properties that can not be changed. It can not scale as intended and advertised due to the properties of Hydrogen and massive losses of energy in converting green electricity into an element (Hydrogen) and later back to electricity or converted to a liquid (Power-to-Liquid or e-SAF) used in a less-efficient combustion engine than the fuel-cell pure Hydrogen is used in, which several projects with massive loss of capital has turned out to prove, one of many examples in our own backyard of Denmark is Ørsteds withdrawal from multiple Green Hydrogen projects.

Even the European Commissions own watchdog the European Court of Auditors has called out for a “Reality Check” regarding EU’s Hydrogen policy.

The Hydrogen idea as an energy source, some call it a hype or hopium, it’s like experiencing a Déjà vu in the sense when lobby organisations and alike not that many years ago got politicians on both sides of the isle to jump on the “clean coal” wagon that includes usage of CCS as the winner solution to continue as we have with a fossil fuel based product that would never become “clean” …

SAF – Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Another possible substitute for todays fossil fuels for aviation, is bio-SAF made out of leftover biologic sources such as used solid and cellulosic waste, cooking oils, animal fat etc.. Today it is allowed to blend 50% SAF into current jet and turbine engines, the other 50% still has to be fossil fuel. It is expected that a 100% SAF usage will be allowed, but when is still an open question, though Airbus and Boeing are promising 100% SAF approval will happen by the year 2030.

Will SAF then solve aviations need to fly CO2 neutral ? – unfortunately not and for several reasons, for example.

• SAF is a scarce resource, it can not be 1. generation resources which is reserved for food, demand is higher than what can be delivered and demand will increase to much higher level than any supply can deliver when fossil fuels are stopped being used. The world only produce so much used cooking oil and other leftover sources from different industries, that will never be able to answer the increasing demand using it as a fuel afterwards. To give some perspective what it takes to produce bio-SAF, it will require the vegetable oil used for serving 357.143 portion of chips to fly a Boeing 787 Dreamliner across the Atlantic just one single time. In other words, each passenger on such a transatlantic flight in a Boeing 787 needs first to consume 1.440 servings of chips, before they have enough SAF to fly them across one time.
• Though other sources to produce SAF exist, several reports of fraud has surfaced the later years and lately become so bad, that several EU states has put it on their agenda to be investigated, where for example virgin palm oil that as a consequence to be grown cuts down rain forests, is being relabelled as “waste oil” for a quick profit.
• SAF is not 100% emission free. Whenever we burn anything like in a jet engine, we emit both NOx and CO2 so local communities and local life incl. local workers around the emission source still gets impacted by the emissions. Airports are some of the largest local areas of emissions, not because of the airports own activities but due to the aircrafts using them consumptions of fossil fuels. At the same time reports shows that SAF reduces CO2 emissions between 27% – 87%, most sources puts the value between 60% – 80%. Though seen in the grand scheme, SAF emits significantly less emissions than fossil fuels, but not 100%.

Cost

We published an article a few years ago that documented the green transition must happen at no extra cost than the energy (fossil fuels) it is out to replace, simply because the majority of people will in the end go after the cheapest solution despite if it’s not a green solution. It may sound hypocritical, double morale and near impossible to accomplish, but we just have to admit that the human specie in general is just the way it is, it in general speaking craves to get the most for its bucks.

Therefore being honest and acknowledging the priority of cost, makes usage of either bio-SAF, Hydrogen or Power-to-X / e-SAF even more a challenge for aviation. Bio-SAF cost 120% – 700% more than its equivalent Jet A1 made of fossil fuels, most sources write 3-5x more than fossil based Jet A1.

Green Hydrogen is even more challenged and are approx. 5x more expensive than Jet A1 and up to 10x more expensive as Power-to-Liquid / e-SAF. We do not consider neither Grey / Black nor Blue Hydrogen to be a viable sustainable source for net-zero emmission energy, because they are both based on fossil fuels and CCS which is needed to produce Blue Hydrogen, they have promised but never succeeded to work.

Technical improvements in the production line of producing Green hydrogen such as electrolysers could probably improve somewhat over time, but when 70 – 80% of the cost producing Green Hydrogen lies in the cost of electricity alone, that leaves only little leverage to lower the overall cost of producing Green Hydrogen to be noticeable reduced in cost in comparison to the cost of Battery-Electric propulsion using and paying for the same sources of electricity, i.e. solar cells, wind turbines etc., meaning Hydrogen and Power-to-Liquid aircrafts due to the thermodynamics laws using 3x and 5x or more electricity for delivering the same amount of energy at the aircrafts propeller, can never become as cheap to operate as Battery-Electric aircrafts.

With massive expansion of renewable energy especially solar, the energy source that is the cheapest of all sources today, the cost of electricity can and probably will become less than of today’s cost helping somewhat with the massive increase in cost producing Green Hydrogen, but unless the cost is reduced to near 0 which it never will because it does cost capital to build, maintain and renew every 20-30 years wind turbines and solar cells, the massive 5 – 10x increase in electricity vs. just using electricity as it is with battery-electric propulsion, will never become as competitive.

In other words, knowing from our years of work with electric aircraft developers that an electric airplane is from the beginning competitive on total cost with similarly sized aircrafts and within a few years will be cost competitive with larger fossil-powered Regional and Narrow-Body airplanes, where ever battery-electric aircrafts can be used which is a market in continuous expansion as improvement in battery technology continues and has done for the past several decades, Hydrogen and Power-to-Liquid aircrafts can never compete on cost, unless the steady continuous development of energy density in batteries for some unknown reason should come to a halt, which no data indicates … in the same way with land-based transportation where electric vehicles (cars, trucks, busses etc.) and electric trains completely dominates and has outcompeted Hydrogen based vehicles and trains, despite often large public and private capital has been poured into Hydrogen based vehicle projects and products the past decades.

Cost consequences of the EU’s Fit for 55 and ReFuelEU mandate

Depending on the route, aircraft type and age, Jet A1 fuel constitute approx. 32% of a modern jet-engine powered aircrafts overall operational cost, so an approx. 4x – 8x increase of energy cost depending if the choice is either bio-SAF, Green Hydrogen or Power-to-Liquid / e-SAF, will have a dramatic effect on the cost of a flight ticket.

Above we have made a graph that depicts the influence of how big a part of the total cost of operating a modern airliner that fuel will have, Jet or Turboprop powered, when EU’s Fit for 55 and ReFuelEU Aviation program comes to power, beginning from the year 2025 and onwards to 2050 with an increased amount of SAF and e-SAF part of the airliners fuel. Considering that the cost of bio-SAF and e-SAF is not likely to decrease significantly due to the previous mentioned reasons, what the graph shows is that by year 2035, 56% of the operational cost is just fuel and by 2050 141% compared to todays 32%.

In other words, if a flight ticket cost €500 today, the ticket will cost 24% more in 2035 and 109% more in 2050 only due to higher fuel cost because of the EU mandate that 70% of the fuel must be SAF by 2050 and half of the 70% must be the more expensive e-SAF.

With an average profit margen in Aviation of just 2,6%, the entire increase in energy cost can only be pushed onto the passengers, increasing the cost of the flight ticket significantly.

This leaves the unanswered question: How many passengers buying tickets on airplanes today using fossil fuels, will or can afford to pay that significant extra cost and still fly the same amount, if the aircrafts are to use either bio-SAF or Power-to-Liquid / e-SAF ?..

Human behaviour: We want bang for the bucks

General speaking us humans want the most goods, services and experiences for our money no matter if it’s political or environmental correct or not, little to nowhere shows otherwise. Here just some of many examples:

• Despite NGO’s and alike lobby we should decrease the consumption of meat for different reasons incl. lower our CO2 footprint, our consumption hasn’t decreased.
• Organic farming has only captured 10,5% of the EU market, despite decades of focus and campaigning for the healthier produce from organic farming. We don’t avoid their products because we are against organic produce, but because it cost more.

• Many buy stuff on for example TEMU (3/10 in Germany, 4/10 in Denmark) despite we know how and under what conditions it’s being produced and being transported half around the globe to us, preferably by plane so we can get that instant gratification as most of society has become used to demand especially through online services and SoMe.
• Municipal waste in general is increasing.

It’s impossible to believe that when we shall buy a flight ticket, we suddenly grow a political-correct conscience and suddenly buy the much more expensive very-little-emitting flight ticket. Data certainly does not prove that neither, as we documented in our article “The correct Incentive to Fly Green“.

And we don’t go for the cheapest due to lack of purchasing power, having an average employee income for example in Denmark of € 78.185 (DKK 583.188) per year incl. retirement fees.

The point we make here is not to say Aviation should not do its best to lower its emissions since we humans apparently don’t care that much for it in many parts of life. Of course Aviation must do its bit.

Our point is that despite what society tells us to do, we humans as individual often choose the cheapest solution we are offered, being environmental correct or not, and if its not cheap enough from what we are used to pay, it’s highly possible it will become a political issue among the voters.

If anyone believes the majority of passengers will pay minimum 24% extra in 2035 or minimum 109% extra in 2050 for the same flight ticket, that these dramatic increases in cost will not significantly influence the amount of passengers they will get in 2035 and 2050, are at best fooling themselves and the business they are responsible for.

In addition, these percentage increases mentioned above are only for the increased EU mandate of SAF up to 70% SAF, leaving 30% left to be allowed to be the much cheaper fossil fuel. And to stay competitive among other competing airliners who wants to fill in all their many Economy Class seats, no airliner will use 100% SAF when not ALL airliners do not use 100% SAF.

And don’t forget that bio-SAF as we documented above, only reduces CO2 emissions by 60-80%, leaving 20-40% left of the 35% bio-SAF in 2050 that is not reducing CO2 emissions.

IATA Net-Zero Commitment

IATA (International Air Transport Association) have announced that Aviation will become Net-Zero by 2050. From their website the road toward 100% Net-Zero is:

We have to realize that IATA’s goal is unachievable, that no flight by 2050 is going to be Net-Zero in its pollution, unless it is battery-electric charged by 100% renewable energy.

What is possible:

• The 65% using SAF will be enforced in the EU by the EU mandate of 70%, but bio-SAF is only reducing emission by 60-80% as documented above.
• The 3% is very likely achievable.
• The 13%, battery-electric will take its part; actually it has to take all of it, explanation below.

What is not possible:

• The 13%, we have documented in our article “Hydrogen – To Be or Not To Be” that using pure Hydrogen as a source of energy in Aviation is highly unlikely to ever happen at scale for many reasons. Which leaves battery-electric left to cover all of the 13% which is achievable by 2050.
• The 19%, Offsets does not work in the real world due to risk of fraud as we have documented in our article “The correct Incentive to Fly Green“. Likewise with CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage) as documented above has never worked as intended and highly unlikely ever will.

We believe to have proven that with the data and facts presented, if we want 100% emission free that is at the same time is competitive with current conventional airplanes that today use fossil fuels and in the years to come has to partially use bio-SAF and e-SAF, battery-electric as the outsider it still is considered among many in our business, will come in and cover all flights where ever it is technically possible at a given time in the batteries continuous positive development in the coming decades, because as we have documented SAF powered tickets are going to become massively more expensive and out of reach for the many, offset and carbon capture does not work as intended, fuel-cell aircrafts or aircrafts burning hydrogen has its many challenges highly unlikely to be overcome and yet to be even certifiable … and that bio-SAF is not a 100% Net-Zero solution, only the up to 10x more expensive e-SAF is 100% Net-Zero with renewable energy.

Unless of course if we want to continue to offer the many affordable tickets … that Aviation admit the realities that Aviation is to hard to decarbonize and will not become Net-Zero by 2050 and we accept Aviation where battery-electric propulsion yet can’t reach, will continue to partially burn fossil fuels for many decades to come also beyond the year 2050 … or has the many years rhetorics of being Net-Zero by 2050 as a business past a point-of-no-return, where we can’t accept that ? – if so, Aviation will have to draw the consequences of reducing its activities to only affordable electric and immense expensive e-SAF powered routes. We don’t see that ever happen in reality.

Fly less or don’t fly at all

Some opinion makers, NGO’s and politicians advocate for: “Then don’t fly if you can’t or don’t want to pay the higher price for not polluting. Why should the rest of society suffer from your pollution ?” – and there can be some truth to that, as a society we often demand the polluter to pay what they pollute …

Some react like that when they see the pollution isolated and visually for our eyes … or as a symbol of it like for example a big jet-powered airplane, forgetting that the online order they made the night before on TEMU arrives tomorrow from China by airplane, or the avocados they will have for brunch later arrived by airplane from Mexico a few days earlier, airplanes they just blamed being a great issue for climate issues, despite Aviations emissions only constitute 2,5% of all emissions.

It helps very little combatting climate change, when those who speak the loudest about climate change, need to get flown several boatman over the Atlantic by airplane to sail the boat back to Europe they arrived on with the explanation that the CO2 emission it made will be offset, a scheme that has been proven again and again that does not work in real life often due to levels of fraud.

In Sweden, the country who brought us Flight Shame / Flygskam, has decided to remove their passenger taxation because: “.. The aviation tax has hampered Swedish flight accessibility, competitiveness and growth ..”. To say, money talks … just like for most of the air travellers that book the cheapest Economy Seat.

The importance of Aviation

Aviation not only support 87,7 millions jobs where 11,3 millions are directly employed in Aviation, more importantly Aviation connects people, countries, cultures, businesses, trade etc. across the world in a meaningful timespan to make such exchanges possible. Without Aviation many people will become much more isolated and the understanding and respect for other ways of life no matter how different we are, will likely diminish without this option of fast travel across the world, that pre-aviation took weeks or months maybe even lifetimes.

“The Airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas, and values together” – Bill Gates

The documentary “Living in the Age of Airplanes” gives of course a glory but a general view what Aviation has done and still does for humanity. Aviation is essential for the coherency of the world we live in today. We can not, we must not act in desperation by stop flying for the sake of our societies and the coherency of the world. We need to mitigate the need of Aviation and the only partial pollution it emits in the nearby future in one or more ways. Aviation will keep reducing its emissions, especially with the help of the continuous development of batteries.

2,5% of all CO2 emissions is what Aviation today emit and another further 1,5% of non-CO2, one of the least emitting sectors. The non-CO2 part covers primarily contrails (water vapor) and that part has lately found a plausible and cheap solution of just 1% or less increase in ticket price.

Focus on lower-hanging fruits

Along with Shipping, Aviation is probably the hardest sectors to decarbonize due to the need of carrying energy so far away from its sources. Our goal with this article is not to say that Aviation shall not do its part in the fight against climate changes, the point is if the goal is to stop climate changes and reducing GHG (Green House Gasses) as quickly as possible and at the same time being realistic what is possible, plausible and what is not, all options should be on the table, we should decide with a clear open mind and make decisions based on facts and data and at first focus on the lower hanging fruits, i.e. the less difficult sectors that will move us faster to achieve the goals of GHG reductions, such as;

• Land-based transportation 17%
• Agriculture 12%
• Electricity and Heating a whopping 32%
• Fugitive Emissions nearly 7%

These sectors does not seem to get the same amount of public attention and shaming as Aviation, but would contribute much more and much faster reaching the goal of reducing emissions as quickly as possible.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector-stacked

• Disregard direct and indirect lobbyisme from Oil & Gas and speed up the transit of land-based transportation even faster into electric vehicles, electric trains and electric coastal ships and the world will have reduced GHG with +17%. It is today a well proven concept going electric on land no matter vehicle type.
• Removing the need of diesel and gasoline and at least partially Jet fuel, will reduce the amount of oil needed afterwards to approx. 1/4 of current needs and possible a further decrease in the decades to come. Of the total amount of shipping, transporting fossil fuels by sea constitute of approx. 40% of all bulk shipping, meaning removing the majority need of burning fossil fuels for its energy will also indirectly reduce a significant amount of the else hard-to-decarbonize shipping sector and thereby a significant amount of their pollution. Surely the Oil & Gas industry will fight against this with tooth and nails, reducing their business to about 1/4 at best and see their stock value tank, but do we want to decarbonize the world or not ?..
• Encourage the transit to precision fermentation meat production, which lately has come down in cost closer to conventional meat production and not like Italy and Hungary lobbying against precision fermentation meat production to protect their conventional CO2 emitting farming production. According to ReMilk we can already today produce dairy products without the need of a cow at same cost, though disrupting conventional farming is a “sacred cow” for many. But moving away from conventional meat and dairy farming would reduce agricultures 12% emissions significantly and can be done with technology at hand or soon to be.
• Encourage installation of solar-cells, battery storage and heatpumps in private homes and many businesses to significantly reduce the whopping 32% of GHG emissions Electricity and Heating constitute of. Energy usage in buildings constitute alone +20% of all GHG emissions and building new or refurbishing old houses into low or 100% emissions free houses is today possible.
• Stop burning fossil fuels incl. gas to stop fugitive emissions in the production line of fossil fuels. According to Professor David Cebon, University of Cambridge, “.. the total amount of fugitive methane from oil and gas industry as emissions is something like the equivalent of the total carbon footprint of Europe ..”, an insane amount of GHG emissions that gets pretty much no public attention.

Fly no less, just sometimes different

Having gone through all the data and facts above, I will end this article with what we believe will happen with Aviation out in the real world.

1. Aviation has done and will continue to do what is possible to reduce its emissions, but the customer decides and since the customers at large in the end chooses the cheapest solution, just like in the Supermarket that offer both organic and conventional produces, Aviation will sell what the customer wants only limited by what legislation demands.
2. We do not need to fly less as electric aircrafts continue to evolve in capacity and range in the coming decades, just sometimes different meaning with multiple stops on longer routes.
3. The only way to become 100% emissions free and at the same time cost competitive with fossil fuel powered aircrafts, is by using electric aircrafts. Electric aircrafts will replace conventional aircrafts on routes, that electric airplanes at any given time technically can operate, that is range & capacity depending.
4. Where electric aircrafts can not operate on a non-stop flight due to lack of range, we believe there can be a market for electric airplanes to offer multiple stops underway for recharging to be able to operate a longer distance route. And if you are traveling on holiday, are you in any rush, what about exploring the local airports lounge or have a stay-over exploring the local sights, just like if you travel over the Atlantic with Icelandair, you get a stop on Iceland midway your journey. This is the only way to stay 100% emissions free and at the same time stay competitive with prices based on fossil fuel flights.
5. Where time is more important for the passenger than the cost, that could be the case for many business passengers or where the traveller are willing to pay a large premium for a non-stop flight, bio-SAF will be used and e-SAF limited to when 1: legislation demands e-SAF and 2: bio-SAF is not available. But as we have documented above, the ticket price is going to be significant higher, excluding many of the current travellers. Maybe a 100% Business Class plane can some places find a business case to uphold a route, like there used to be one from Stavanger, Norway to Houston, USA. But these flights will never be 100% emissions free, but some 60-90% depending on how much e-SAF has been blended in.