Private jet flyers emit 500 times as much CO2 as we do

Recent studies have shown that the ultra-rich are responsible for considerable amounts of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, including that from private jets. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)

From CBC

For most of us, air travel is a rare event that can be accompanied by long lines, long waits and lost luggage. But not so for those rich enough to fly on private jets.

Instead, those millionaires and billionaires can jet-set around the world with ease, and with little thought to their carbon footprint while doing so.

When it comes to aviation in general — something only a small share of the world's population takes part in — it contributes roughly 2.5 per cent of all CO2 emissions and has thus far contributed to roughly four per cent of global warming.

But just how much CO2 emissions are these private jets emitting?

Authors of a new study published in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment tried to quantify that number.

They found that some people who use private jets could be producing roughly 500 times more CO2 in a year than the average person, globally.

The study's authors used a flight tracking system called ADS-B Exchange, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, and flight tracking apps FlightAware and FlightRadar24 to gather data from 2019 to 2023 on nearly 26,000 private aircraft, and linked that to 72 different aircraft models and their average fuel consumption.

They found that private flights contributed at least 15.6 megatonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) in 2023. That equated to roughly 3.6 tonnes of CO2 for each flight — around the emissions of driving a passenger vehicle some 14,000 km, from Vancouver to St. John's and back.

And 47.4 per cent of the flights were shorter than 500 km, with 4.7 per cent being fewer than 50 kilometres.

As well, in the period of 2019-2023, emissions increased by 46 per cent.

Oxfam International released in October [a paper] that looked at 50 of the richest people in the world and their carbon footprint. In it, they found that these people release more carbon through private jets, yachts and investments in 90 minutes than the average person does in their entire life.

"If everybody in the world travelled like the billionaires that were covered in our Oxfam study, we would overshoot the carbon budget within two days," said Ian Thomson, manager of policy and advocacy for Oxfam Canada. "So it's just not a sustainable form of transportation, and we have to do more to curb private jet travel."

In the Oxfam study, Elon Musk produces roughly 5,497 tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to 834 years' worth of emissions for the average person, or 5,437 years' worth for someone in the poorest 50 per cent.

It also found that, for someone flying on a commercial jet in economy class, they pay a 43 per cent air tax (relative to ticket prices), while flying in business class it's 23 per cent. But for private flights? It's only a two per cent tax.

"We know that the the richest one per cent of people are responsible for half of all air travel emissions in the world. So it's really going after this rich polluter elite that is going to help us in curbing air travel emissions," Thomson said.

Tax the rich and their jets.

Making jetfuel out of carbon dioxide

 From Phys.org

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.K. and one in Saudi Arabia has developed a way to produce jet fuel using carbon dioxide as a main ingredient. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes their process and its efficiency.

As scientists continue to look for ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, they have increasingly focused on certain business sectors. One of those sectors is the aviation industry, which accounts for approximately 12% of transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions. Curbing carbon emissions in the aviation industry has proved to be challenging due to the difficulty of fitting heavy batteries inside of aircraft. In this new effort, the researchers have developed a chemical process that can be used to produce carbon-neutral jet fuel.

The researchers used a process called the organic combustion method to convert carbon dioxide in the air into jet fuel and other products. It involved using an iron catalyst (with added potassium and manganese) along with hydrogen, citric acid and carbon dioxide heated to 350 degrees C. The process forced the carbon atoms apart from the oxygen atoms in CO2 molecules, which then bonded with hydrogen atoms, producing the kind of hydrocarbon molecules that comprise liquid jet fuel. The process also resulted in the creation of water molecules and other products.

Testing showed that over 20 hours, the process converted 38% of the carbon dioxide in a pressurized chamber into jet fuel and other products. The jet fuel made up 48% of the produced products—the others were water, propylene and ethylene. The researchers also note that using this fuel in aircraft would be carbon-neutral because burning it would release the same amount of carbon dioxide that was used to make it.

The researchers also claim their process is less expensive than other methods used to produce fuel for airplanes, such as those that convert hydrogen and water into fuel—primarily because it uses less electricity. They also point out that conversion systems could be installed in plants that currently emit a lot of carbon dioxide, such as coal fired power plants.

Rooftop solar refinery makes jetfuel

 From Anthropocene.

Scientists have made a pilot-scale solar refinery that efficiently turns carbon dioxide and water plucked from air into liquid fuels. The system takes us one step closer to making carbon-neutral fuels for flying and shipping pretty much anywhere in the world.

The global aviation and shipping industries together produce about 8 percent of manmade carbon dioxide emissions. Battery-powered electric ships and airplanes are one way to reduce emissions, and are already being tested on small scales. But batteries are large, heavy, and expensive especially for long-haul international travel.

A promising near-term solution is to make fuels like gasoline, diesel and kerosene from water and carbon dioxide using solar energy. Of the several ways to do this, an efficient process with high fuel-production rate involves using concentrated sunlight as a source of high-temperature heat.

Aldo Steinfeld and his colleagues from ETH Zurich in Switzerland used this technique for their solar fuel plant. As an added benefit, they use carbon dioxide absorbed directly from air for truly carbon-neutral fuels. And their system also extracts water from air, which means it could produce fuel in desert regions or areas with limited access to water resources.

Their system, reported in the journal Nature, makes fuel in three steps. First, a direct air capture unit absorbs carbon dioxide and water from air using a sorbent bed. Then a solar unit uses solar heat to convert the carbon dioxide and water into a mixture of carbon monoxide and oxygen. This unit consists of a sun-tracking curved reflector that focuses the sun’s energy onto the chemical reactor. Finally, a third unit turns the syngas into a liquid hydrocarbon such as methanol or kerosene that is used as fuel.

The researchers tested their system successfully on a rooftop, where it produced 32 milliliters of methanol over 7 hours a day. They propose a design for a commercial solar plant made of ten solar towers, with each tower containing an array of solar reactor modules. Such a plant would produce about 95,000 liters of kerosene a day.

All the solar plants needed to produce enough kerosene for the global aviation industry—which used about 414 billion liters in 2019—would have a total land footprint of roughly 45,000 square kilometers, they calculate. That’s 0.5% of the area of the Sahara desert.

Such solar fuels would be more expensive than conventional fossil fuels, however. An analysis of the entire process showed that the fuel would cost 1.4 to 2.3 USD per liter if it were produced on a commercial scale. Regular kerosene jet fuel typically costs about 0.50 USD. The researchers say that the solar fuels would need policy support for widespread use.

The Beha hybrid electric plane

 From The Guardian.

In the shadows of the old Spitfires and Hurricanes that helped win the Battle of Britain, Faradair, a UK startup operating from the historic Duxford airfield, is hoping to help Britain fight the new war against climate change by developing a revolutionary 18-seat bioelectric hybrid plane which will eventually, hopes its designer, be carbon neutral.

The plane, currently in development, will use electric motors to power take-off and landing, the part of any flight with the highest noise and carbon emissions. Once cruising, at a speed of about 230mph, the plane will switch to its turbogenerator, powered by biofuel, which will also recharge the motors with assistance from solar panels, ready for the aircraft’s descent.

The short-hop bio electric hybrid aircraft (Beha), the first aircraft produced since the 1920s to have a three-winged box design, will be able to operate cargo, passenger and special operation flights. It will have a palletised interior, allowing it to be converted from passenger to cargo use in just 15 minutes.

Working with a consortium of partners to deliver 300 of the planes by 2030, Faradair chief executive Neil Cloughley admits that it might not be “the sleekest, the sexiest, nor the fastest, the highest or the furthest flying aircraft”, but believes it will prove itself in other ways. The aircraft will sell itself based on its low emissions, minimal operating costs and versatility.

With a ducted fan and a box wing design, the Beha will trade higher speed for lower noise emissions and greater lift. The company hopes its ultra-quiet plane will be able to operate from airports such as London City, which have noise related night-time flight bans. Its wing is designed to generate huge amounts of lift, which will allow it to operate from runways that are shorter than 1,000ft (300 metres), despite the heavy battery technology on board.

The wing is also designed with future technologies in mind. Faradair says the space between each wing would be the perfect place to locate more efficient batteries of the future, with the additional benefit of natural cooling from the passing air.

“All electric wasn’t going to be possible straight off the bat,” he said. “The power density simply isn’t there for anything of any meaningful size. That means that we have to go hybrid; it means that sustainable aviation fuels [SAFs] will be the ideal.”

SAFs can be made from a wide variety of materials such as waste oils, surplus food and feedstock. The main benefit is that they recycle existing carbon, rather than releasing new carbon. However, this is still a new industry and SAFs currently form just 6% of global jet fuel. In its Destination 2050 report, Europe’s aviation sector said this could rise to more than 80% by 2030, but that this would require “strong political support”.

See my other posts about electric planes and carbon-neutral jet fuel.

The largest electric plane ever

The eCaravan could be adapted to seat a grand total of nine passengers, but on its test flight it had just one seat for the pilot

 From the BBC

At a large airfield surrounded by farmland in central Washington State, an electric aeroplane recently made history. It is the biggest commercial plane ever to take off and fly powered by electricity alone. For 30 minutes on 28 May, it soared above Grant County International Airport as crowds of onlookers clapped and cheered.

The biggest electric plane ever, huh? Well, it was a modified Cessna Caravan 208B – which can take a maximum of nine passengers. And the test aircraft only had a seat installed for the pilot.

It’s a far cry from the 200-300-seater jet that takes you on weekend city breaks or work trips, never mind the huge double-decker planes that cross continents. But the “eCaravan” test flight was a success. The two companies behind it, AeroTEC and magniX, which supplied the electric motor, are chuffed with the results. Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of magniX, pointed out in a statement that the price of flying the Cessna clocked in at a mere $6 (£4.80). Had they used conventional engine fuel, the 30-minute flight would have cost $300-400 (£240-320).

It builds on previous experiments with smaller aircraft also fitted with an electric motor built by magniX. And is raises the question: when will you and I be able to fly on a larger passenger plane powered by electricity rather than fossil fuels?

The first thing to note is that long-haul flights by large aircraft are not going to become fully electric any time soon. Certainly not within the next 50 years – and the jury’s out as to whether that will even happen this century. The reason is energy density.

Energy density is usually defined in terms the number of watt-hours (Wh) you get per kilogram (kg). A current lithium-ion battery’s energy density might reach 250 Wh per kg, while the energy density of jet fuel, or kerosene, is roughly 12,000 Wh per kg.

Put like that, it might seem like electric planes stand little hope of catching up. However, the difference isn’t quite as stark as it seems because electrical propulsion systems can be designed to be more efficient, meaning that they can cover more miles on less energy. But, at present, this still leaves fossil fuel systems about 14 times more energy-rich than battery-powered alternatives. Batteries, not being fluids that merrily slosh around, are also awkward in terms of their shape and bulk. “Right now the fuel nicely fits into the wing,” says Susan Liscouët-Hanke, an aerospace engineer at Concordia University in Montreal.

Plus, a further hitch is that the weight of a battery stays the same even when it’s dead. As a traditional aircraft flies, kerosene gets used up, making the aircraft lighter. That in turn reduces the amount of fuel it needs to stay in the air.

Engineers are currently trying to build a 180-seat fully electric jet that can fly for around 500km. The budget airline EasyJet has partnered with the aviation start-up Wright Electric to design and develop such a prototype plane that, if successful, could enter commercial service as early as 2030. Its travel routes would be limited – Paris to London for instance, not much further – but narrow-body aircraft that fly short-haul routes of 1,500km or less make up around a third of aviation emissions, according to management consultants Roland Berger. By gradually introducing electric planes that could replace conventional aircraft on these short-hop trips, the environmental impact of flying could be significantly improved.

It couldn’t come too soon because, as Roland Berger also notes, aviation is the only major industry in the EU in which CO2 emissions are increasing significantly. While the industry accounts for just 3% of global CO2 emissions today, by 2050 commercial aircraft could be churning out up to 24% of worldwide emissions due to predicted growth in the sector.

Flying fully electric 180-seater aircraft commercially by 2030 is “very ambitious”, says Robert Thomson, a partner at Roland Berger. The more sober view is that by 2030 we will more likely see hybrid electric aircraft being rolled out. In these planes, propulsion is provided by batteries and electric motors alongside traditional combustion systems. “A 50-seater aircraft would become viable as a hybrid, maybe 2030, late 2020s – I think that’s the sort of timescale which is plausible,” says Thomson.

He adds that his firm has counted more than 200 electrically powered aircraft in development and the number of these projects increased by 30% between 2018 and 2019. Many of these aircraft are hybrid models. They come in all sorts of “flavours”, says Thomson, wherein electricity might provide as little as 10-20% of the plane’s propulsion. Still, in principle, these designs might be easier to develop using existing aircraft bodies.

[Read more here--the BBC's piece is a lot longer than the excerpt above]

The most likely route to long-distance zero-carbon air traffic for the next few decades will be green jetfuel.  (See previous articles about this, here, here, here, and here)  But electric planes are much cheaper to run, as the article points out.  So there will be an incentive to switch where it's feasible.

Jetfuel from water and air

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?  And obviously it is—you'll need energy as well.  I've talked before about the Sabatier Process, which takes CO2 and H2 and under pressure and temperature with a catalyst produces methane.  From methane we can make green jetfuel.

The solution to flight-shaming may hinge on a modern version of a synthetic jet fuel that was honed by Adolf Hitler's Luftwaffe.

German scientists and business leaders are working to create what they hope will be the first viable market for a carbon-neutral version of the kerosene that already powers most modern aircraft.

The science is still based on chemical reactions pioneered in Germany in 1925, but instead of converting coal and other fossil fuels like the oil-starved Nazis did during World War II, green kerosene is derived from water and pulls carbon dioxide out of the air during creation.

The process, which requires huge amounts of electricity generated from renewable resources to ensure carbon neutrality, fractures water into oxygen and hydrogen, which is then combined with carbon.

The project is being overseen by Bremen University, in a consummately German public-private research strategy that previously created the MP3. The German system, which the US is trying to emulate, aims to produce the green fuels required for sectors of the economy such as aviation and heating that rely heavily on petroleum imports.

"Synthetic fuel is the only vision I can see right now to really become CO2-neutral in the conceivable future," Deutsche Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told a conference on sustainable aviation in the German capital in November.

While green kerosene releases carbon when burned, the process is neutral because it recycles greenhouse gas from the air and doesn't require more fossil fuels to be taken from the ground.

The German flag carrier is working with the consortium to supply what it expects will be 5 per cent of its fuel within five years. The non-fossil kerosene is being made at closely held Klesch Group's Heide oil refinery near the North Sea, using renewable energy supplied by wind farms.

Other countries, including Canada and the US, are already deploying Power-to-X technology to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground, but so far only in proof-of-concept ways too small to make a noticeable difference in the battle against climate change.

Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company partly funded by Bill Gates, has been producing "air to fuel" gasoline, diesel and kerosene since 2017, but not in major volumes due to costs, which are still several times more than petroleum-based products. The venture is one of a handful that Canada's government is supporting in the race to curb surging aviation emissions by developing the most economical and environmentally friendly fuel possible.

But it's Germany, where more than half of Europe's 130 Power-to-X testing plants are located, leading the charge. Public calls for action on climate change intensified following last year's record-breaking droughts and heatwaves, withering crops and swelling support for the environmentalist Green Party.

While power generation and farming currently dwarf aviation's contribution to human-caused greenhouse gases (around 2 per cent), skyrocketing emissions from air travel means the industry, which was exempted from the Paris 2015 climate agreement, will become the biggest single polluter if predicted cuts in other sectors materialise, UN data and projections show.

Germany's government is already working on a strategy for scaling up a "green hydrogen" push to produce synthetic fuels at more competitive prices. If Lufthansa gets its way, that effort will include channelling more of the government's aviation tax into the project.

Increasingly onerous regulations, demands from carbon-conscious customers and the spread of flight-shaming are adding to the pressure to develop cleaner fuels faster.

The social-engineering tactic, which started in teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg's native Sweden, contributed to a 4 per cent decline in that country's [air] passenger numbers last year as more people opted to travel by electric train. Operators of rail networks across northern Europe, already the world's most advanced green economy, have been adding overnight routes to capitalise on the trend.

A study by Brussels-based Transport and Environment found that converting all aviation fuel to non-fossil kerosene with available technology would cost between three and six times more than traditional jet fuel. Even without factoring in rising taxes on air travel, that would lead to an increase in ticket prices of as much as 60 per cent, the research group estimated.  [Over 20 years, that's just 2.4% per annum.  So we could mandate 5% green jetfuel in 2021, 10% in 2022, and so on, so that  by 2040 it would all be green]

But that's not a deal-breaker, according to Ulf Neuling, a chemical scientist at the Hamburg University of Technology. Governments can help offset the added expense through subsidies, tax changes or other incentives and, unlike, biofuels, which turned out to be less environmentally friendly and affordable than once hoped, synthetic jet fuel is scalable, he said.

[Read more here]



Something like 30-40% of global emissions come from cement, iron & steel, air travel, sea transport, agriculture and forest/land clearing.  To get to zero emissions by 2050—or preferably, 2040, given the way the global temperature increase has started to accelerate—we'll need to start reducing the emissions of these sectors now.  If we do it over 20 years, the economic cost will be small.   We have the technologies, but the cost still seems steep—until you work out just how expensive for the world economy another 1 or 2 or 3 degrees C rise in temperature will be.  A shift over the next 20 years will make the annual adjustment bearable and feasible. 

Truly carbon-neutral aviation

I talked before about carbon-neutral jetfuel, and about electric planes, here and here.  There's no doubt we can reduce emissions from aviation dramatically.  The problem is that CO₂ isn't the only greenhouse gas produced by jets, and vapor trails are also thought to add to global heating.


From Clean Energy Wire:

Powering aeroplanes with renewable fuels is crucial for making flying less climate-damaging, but it will get aviation nowhere near climate neutrality, environmental NGOs, industry representatives and researchers agreed at a conference in Berlin. They said that making synthetic fuels with renewable power – so-called power-to-liquid – is a top priority for the rapidly growing sector and requires immediate government action to get the technology off the ground to reach industrial scale so it can have a real impact soon. But experts also warned that planes' CO2 output is only part of the problem, because their "non-CO2 effects" - such as condensation trails, particles and other greenhouse gases emitted at high altitudes – contribute even more to the climate crisis. This is why Germany's environment agency (UBA) has proposed a host of measures to make flying more environmentally friendly. However, it also suggested in a new study that flying longer distances will never be climate-neutral.

Urgent action is needed around the globe to reduce aviation's often underestimated climate impact if the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement are to be met, industry experts said at a conference held in Berlin.

However, a number of factors make it particularly difficult to get emissions in the sector down. Experts singled out strong growth rates – current projections assume passenger kilometres will grow world-wide almost five percent per year –, the severe climate effects unrelated to direct CO2 emissions and caused by condensation trails and many other factors, and the need for international agreements.

"Aviation is probably the most difficult sector on the way to reaching the targets of the Paris Agreement," said Jürgen Landgrebe, head of the climate division at Germany's Federal Environment Agency (UBA), which hosted the conference.

Conference participants were in broad agreement that synthetic fuels made with renewables are key for significantly reducing aviation's direct CO2 emissions. But they also warned that the technology, which is often referred to as "power-to-liquid" and does not yet exist on an industrial scale, is no silver bullet.

"A single solution simply does not exist," said environment minister Svenja Schulze. "We need a whole range of measures," she said with reference to taxes and other economic incentives to push the transition, emission reduction limits, quota for renewable fuels, and shifting to alternative modes of transport.

The measures mentioned by Schulze mirrored the recommendations of a new study published by the environment agency. It recommended raising existing taxes and introducing them for kerosene, replacing domestic flights with rail travel, and supporting climate-neutral fuels. At present, air traffic taxes only amount to one tenth of that levied on other modes of transport in Germany despite air traffic's status as the most climate-damaging mode of transport, the UBA said.

"We have to build up a market for power-to-liquid. But we can only provide the initial impetus, and won't be operating international production facilities," Schulze said, adding that building up an infrastructure for renewable fuels required international cooperation and treaties.

"I'm worried that we won't have enough renewable fuels," Schulze said, adding that huge demand was also expected from the chemical and steel industries, where no alternatives existed to reach CO2 neutrality.

Non-CO2 effects mean "there will never be a truly climate-neutral flight"Focusing on power-to-liquid also posed the risk of neglecting the very climate-damaging side-effects of flying, which are unrelated to CO2 emissions – such as condensation trails, particles and other greenhouse gases emitted at high altitudes, conference participants warned.

The UBA said these so-called "non-CO2 effects" likely harm the climate twice as much as direct CO2 emissions, according to most estimates. However, these are ignored by many industry lobby groups and the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), according to the UBA.

It also remains an open question how exactly to deal with these effects, according to industry experts.

"We still have no solutions for the non-CO2 effects," the UBA's Landgrebe said. In its study, the UBA said both aviation's direct CO2 emissions and the non-CO2 effects should be integrated into the European Emissions Trading System (ETS).

Atmospheric scientist Robert Sausen from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) said it might be possible to halve aviation's non-CO2 effects on long-distance flights in the longer term. These effects depend strongly on weather conditions, altitude, time of flight, and countless other factors.

"There will never be a truly climate-neutral flight," Sausen said.

Source: Clean Energy Wire

As the energy intensity of batteries improves, electric planes will become more practical.  High speed rail, powered with green electricity, will be able to replace short- and medium-distance flights.  And long-distance flights by jets may well be replaced by SpaceX's point-to-point Starship flights, which can be fuelled by green methane, and which are in the atmosphere for only a few minutes, reducing vapour trail condensation compared to jet flights.   And yes, air flights should be subject to carbon charges.

The first generation of electric planes is here

The Ampaire 337 hybrid-electric 6 seater

From Grist, an interview with Kevin Noertker:

It’s no secret that the air travel industry has got some major problems. Aviation entrepreneur Kevin Noertker will be the first to admit that — and to list them for you. Flights are expensive, noisy, and disruptive, Noerkter says, and they pollute like nobody’s business, fueling climate change and poisoning fenceline communities. (Not-so-fun fact: The U.S. banned leaded street gasoline in 1996, but planes with piston engines are still burning the stuff.)

Some eco-conscious souls have quit air travel cold turkey, but Noertker says there’s another solution: Follow Elon Musk’s lead and replace jet fuel with batteries.

Noertker and his team at the Los Angeles-based startup Ampaire are developing first-generation electric aircraft — and they’re far from the only ones. Something on the order of 170 companies have joined what Noertker calls an electric aircraft “arms race.” Several made a splash at the Paris Air Show a couple weeks back. Others are already experiencing turbulence.

For Ampaire, the skies are looking pretty blue. The company recently had its first public test flight, putting the highest-capacity electric airplane ever in the air — a retrofitted, hybrid-electric, six-passenger Cessna. Shortly afterward, Ampaire landed an order for 50 of the planes from Personal Airline Exchange, a startup that bills itself as the Airbnb of private air travel (think Uberpool, only with airplanes). Noertker, Ampaire’s CEO and co-founder, who made Grist’s list of emerging green leaders this spring, told us a little bit about the journey.

Q. Have there been any moments where you thought, wow, this just might not work after all?

A. Oh, absolutely. The core underlying technology is there, but no one had ever built and flown an electric aircraft of this size. There are two very critical things: One is getting that weight and balance right. And then the other is getting the system integrated safely. Safety is absolutely at the core of everything aviation. If you’re not safe, you don’t get trusted, if you’re not trusted, you don’t sell. And worst case scenario, actually hurt people.

There was this existential question of, are retrofits of planes a viable path, instead of going after brand new planes from the get-go? There were times where we were looking at it — it just didn’t seem like we’d be able to have enough energy stored in the batteries to give you a long enough flight carrying enough people to make a meaningful product. And there were a few times where we really had to scratch our heads in order to make sure that we were designing the system and integrating it right.

Q. So how did you land on (excuse the pun) smaller, regional aircraft, instead of some other market?

A. We approached the airlines, we approached private pilots, we approached basically everybody who flies or might want to fly an airplane. We were looking at medical applications like air ambulances. We were considering vertical takeoff and landing, like urban, on-demand air taxis. We were talking to helicopter operators, and all these groups, trying to be like, who really needs this? Who has a problem that needs to be solved? Who has a business that needs an electric airplane?

A lot of these businesses could benefit from an electric airplane, but a lot of times the value proposition is just not fully closed yet, with existing regulations or technology or demands.

Q. When do you think larger-capacity, longer-distance planes will be in the game?

A. It depends on the specific plane type and what you’re expecting it to do. But you’re moving people, not planes, right? Well, the majority of people are flying 500 miles or less. So sure, we may not be able to fly over the ocean, but we’ll probably be able to get all people who are flying 500 miles or less on fully electric planes. Now, they may not be holding 250 people at a time. Maybe they’ll be 70- or 100-passenger planes. But it’ll serve the need. It’ll offset the emissions.

We may not have the big planes, but we will have the routes that move all the people. And that’s really what the game is.

[Read more here and here]

Long distance jets can be fuelled using carbon friendly jetfuel.  And eventually, SpaceX will have a working intercontinental suborbital shuttle which will be fuelled by green methane, which can be produced using hydrogen created by electrolysis using electricity generated from renewables.

We have the solutions.  Let's use them.

A Tesla Electric plane?

Eviation Aircraft prototype –
A new all-electric aircraft with a range up to 600 miles unveiled at Paris Air Show
Source: Electrek

From Electrek:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk [has] started discussing the potential for electric airplanes, which he thinks could be viable in about 5 years.

Could a Tesla airplane be in Musk’s plans?

We are already starting to see electric airplane programs, like the Pipistrel Alpha Electro all-electric plane and the Siemens and Magnus’ eFusion, but battery technology still needs to improve in order to have commercial aircraft like we have today.

Musk has long been talking about all modes of transport going electric at some point – except for rockets.

Years ago, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX even said that he had a design for electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft – though he never elaborated on plans to bring the aircraft to production.

In order for his design to work, Musk said that the energy density of batteries needs to improve.

Musk explains that jet fuel beats batteries when it comes to energy density, but the efficiency gains mean that you don’t need as much energetic potential:

“[Are electric planes possible?] Yes, but still a bit too limited on range. That will change in coming years as battery energy density improves.  Jet A (kerosene) has much higher energy density than Li-ion, but electric motors weigh much less and convert stored energy to motion better than combustion engines.  FWIW, based on calcs I did 10 years ago, cross-over point for Li-ion beating kerosene is ~400 Wh/kg. High cycle batteries are just over 300 Wh/kg today, but probably exceed 400 in ~5 years.”


Today, battery cells with high cycles are achieving about 300 Wh/kg of energy density.

[Read more here]


This obviously applies to short-range (600 miles/1000 kms) electric planes, but does it also apply to long-range and intercontinental jets?  Perhaps for long-range air travel, we need to produce carbon-neutral jetfuel. We can do that, using the Sabatier process.  Elon Musk's SpaceX plans point-to-point suborbital flights which would cut travel times between major cities by 90%.  SpaceX plans to use methane to fuel its BRS/Starship, and plans ultimately to produce the methane using the Sabatier process. Electrek suggests that Tesla won't get more involved in electric planes than manufacturing the batteries for them.  But SpaceX, on the other hand, might look into electric planes.  Because rocket launches and landings are so noisy, spaceports will prolly be out to sea, 30 or 40 kms or more from population centres.  Electric VTOL planes to fly people to the spaceport from nearby cities would be an obvious ancillary business to get into. 

Carbon-friendly jet fuel

Vapour trails.  Source: Transport & Environment

Electricity generation is transitioning to renewables.  Not fast enough, but it is happening.   There are no technological or economic barriers to achieving a 100% green grid--though there are, it's true, technical and organisational issues to be faced.  Similarly, over the next 15 or 20 years, it will be inevitable that our land transportation fleet will be electrified.  I'm not saying we should relax--fossil fuel interests will do their best to delay or prevent these transitions, but the economics has turned (or soon will) unambiguously in favour of the green alternatives.

That leaves air travel, sea transport, iron and steel, cement production, agriculture and land clearing.  Each of these is more complicated and difficult than transitioning generation to renewables and our ICE fleet to EVs.

Aviation is responsible for 5% of global warming and its rapid growth puts it on track to consume a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. There is a way to avoid this outcome but we need to act fast, a green transport NGO has said. By driving out the use of fossil kerosene fuel through carbon pricing and requiring aircraft to switch to synthetic fuels, the climate impact of flying can be reduced dramatically, according to a new report by Transport & Environment (T&E).

While high profile promises such as short-haul electric aircraft or more efficient aircraft designs every 20 years won’t be sufficient to solve aviation’s climate problem, new near-zero-carbon electrofuels can be produced today and deployed immediately using existing engines and infrastructure. Electrofuels are produced by combining hydrogen with carbon dioxide, but to do this sustainably the hydrogen must be produced using renewable electricity and the CO2 captured directly from the air.

Synthetic fuels have been used in the past to power aircraft but are significantly more expensive than aviation kerosene, which is tax free. Running aircraft entirely on synthetic fuels would increase the cost of a plane ticket by 58% assuming kerosene remains untaxed, or 23% if a proper carbon price would be levied on kerosene, the report finds. Biofuels produced from wastes and residues can make a limited contribution to replacing fossil kerosene. 

Andrew Murphy, aviation manager at T&E, said: “This report confirms that we need to decarbonise aviation if we want to avoid catastrophic global warming. The good news is that radically cleaner aviation is possible even with today’s technology. Getting to zero starts with properly pricing flying, and progressively increasing the use of sustainable synthetic fuels. There is a cost to this, but in light of how cheap subsidised air travel has become, and the incalculable cost of runaway climate change, it’s a price worth paying.”

To facilitate the progressive switch to electrofuels, demand for kerosene must start to be cut and carbon pricing must gradually be increased to the equivalent of €150 a tonne, the report finds. Taxing aircraft kerosene – currently exempt – and a strengthened EU ETS can help achieve this as can strict CO2 efficiency standards for planes and greater incentives for fleet renewal.

A leaked version of the European Commission’s strategy to decarbonise the EU’s economy by 2050 highlighted the potential role of synthetic fuels. Earlier this month the IPCC also emphasised the importance of synthetic jet fuel. Meanwhile, governments are pursuing a controversial UN offsetting scheme for aviation, known as Corsia. There are serious doubts over the environmental effectiveness of carbon offsets and the UN’s plan only caps airlines’ emissions at 2020 levels.

Andrew Murphy concluded: “Putting aviation on a pathway to zero won’t be easy but this report shows it can be done. If we want to succeed we need to stop pursuing false solutions. It’s crystal clear that the UN’s plan to let airlines offset their emissions is a distraction at best. We need governments to focus on the things that matter: proper pricing and cleaner fuels. The European Commission has a unique opportunity to commit to this in its 2050 decarbonisation strategy.”

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If we aimed to transition jetfuel for air travel to 100% synthetic kerosene over 20 years, the cost impact would be spread out and small.  For example, we could require that each year the percentage of synthetic kerosene in the fuel mix could be lifted by 5%.  That would mean that, ceteris paribus, jetfuel prices would rise by just 3% per annum.  And in 20 years, air travel would not be adding any new CO2 to the atmosphere.

There's another consideration.  The synthetic jetfuel would be produced by a variant of the Sabatier reaction.  This takes H2 from electrolysing water  and CO2 from the atmosphere and blends them at high temperatures and pressure in the presence of a catalyst to produce methane.  Once you have methane, other hydro-carbons can be made.  It seems inevitable that we will need to install more renewable capacity than we might on require on average to cater for consecutive days when the wind doesn't blow and the sun isn't shining strongly.  Ensuring grid stability with 100% renewables will likely require excess capacity as well as storage.  But that will mean that on days when the sun is shining and the wind is strong there will be excess electricity potentially available.  To stop the grid burning out, that surplus output will either have to be spilled, or output from wind and solar farms will have to be curtailed.  Which means, in effect, that that electricity will be free.  So the cost of producing synthetic jetfuel and synthetic natural gas could be much lower, given that their costs are high because the process is so energy intensive.  It's a win-win: surplus renewable power could be used to produce carbon-friendly jetfuel.