FLIGHTPATH: RESOURCE CENTER
The Flightpath Resource Center houses practical tools to download, reference and share.
Shell is proud to bring together leading voices for aviation’s sustainable future. Subscribe to get updated through our Flightpath newsletter.Stay up to date with Flightpath
Understanding sustainable aviation fuel
To meet aviation’s goal of achieving carbon-neutral growth, sustainable solutions like SAF are critical. But faster market development is needed to deliver the volume of SAF required to meet the industry’s emissions goals. Let’s compare SAF with other biofuels that are already widely adopted and examine what helped them reach an impactful scale.
Nature - a scalable and viable option to reduce CO₂ emissions
Nature-based projects, like planting trees and protecting forests, are an important way for the aviation industry to reduce its carbon impact today and at scale. In the longer term, solutions such as facilities that scrub CO2 directly out of the atmosphere hold great promise, according to Shell’s top climate adviser.
Read Transcript
Read Transcript
Description:
Joel Makower interviews David Hone on how airlines can manage emissions through nature-based solutions.
Title: Nature-Based Solutions Transcript
Duration: 3:36 minutes
[Background music plays]
Bright, uplifting music
[Animation]
The Shell™ pecten logo appears, then fades. A three dimensional model of Earth rotates while white silhouettes of planes fly across the globe. On the right side of the screen, a shot of David Hone talking with no audio.
[Text displays]
Flightpath: Navigating the Route to Sustainable Aviation
[Text displays]
This episode
Nature-based solutions
{Joel Makower sits onscreen. Facing him, turned away from the camera, is David Hone. The camera alternates between speakers.}
Joel Makower
I’m Joel Makower executive editor at Greenbiz.com. we’re talking about what will it take to make aviation environmentally sustainable. I’m talking with David hone the chief climate change advisor at Shell. Are there enough offsets available today to neutralize the emissions from aviation?
David Hone
What’s important to recognize first of all, the journey that aviation needs to go on. So aviation is an emitting sector like with every sector of the economy today. And we know because of the climate issue and because of the structure of the Paris agreement, emissions have to go effectively to zero in as little as 30 years. Now, for a sector like aviation, going from an emitting sector to a non-emitting sector, would in theory require completely different set of technologies. And they don’t exist. So the journey that aviation will be on is one of, first of all developing some new technologies but also recognizing that the way to manage emissions and to reach this zero point through a net zero emission strategy is to purchase offsets from other entities. So the aviation sector is at least a gigaton of emissions today so that’s a billion tons of emissions. And that is significantly larger than the markets today that could supply the equivalent in terms of offsets, and the scalable solution that exists today is what we call nature-based solutions. Its effectively afforestation, reforestation, and various other nature-based solutions to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through natural processes. The simple one, you know growing a tree. That could be relatively quickly scaled up. Billion tons is a long journey and it’s going to take some years for that to happen. But, every indicator is there that the potential for scale is available.
Joel Makower
So are nature-based solutions the only kinds of offsets available for aviation?
David Hone
Nature-based solutions represent a very scalable option for aviation today and they’re important because what they represent is a removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that equates to the emission of carbon dioxide from a flight. So you’re balancing emissions with a sink. The questions are there other ways of doing that? There’s a technology which is at demonstration scale today in Iceland called air capture, they’re actually capturing CO₂ directly from the atmosphere, scrubbing the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and compressing it and then storing it geologically in subsurface in Iceland. So as well as storing carbon in the biosphere through nature-based solutions, you could look at mechanisms to store carbon geologically. But you’ll have to equate that to the emissions into the atmosphere from aviation. So I think in the shorter term, nature based solutions represent a real measurable and viable option. But I think in the longer term, as the aviation industry starts to interface with these accounting structures of the Paris agreement there’s a much wider variety of offsets available.
Joel Makower
David Hone is the chief climate change advisor for Shell. Thanks so much David.
David Hone
Thank you very much.
Journey to net-zero corporate travel
As business travel picks back up, forward-thinking organisations are embracing sustainable practices as part of their travel programmes. But how can you get started? What levers do corporate travel departments have for reducing carbon emissions? Shell Aviation and American Express Global Business Travel are partnering to help aviation enable progress more sustainably. This infographic lays out five key steps for building a sustainable business travel programme.
How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
What is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)? Watch this video to learn what SAF is, how it is made, and why it has the power to drastically reduce aviation CO2 lifecycle emissions.
Read Transcript
Read Transcript
Title: How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
Duration: 2:45 minutes
Description:
A concise video explaining how sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is made and why it has the power to drastically reduce aviation CO2 lifecycle emissions.
The video incorporates isometric animation and text to showcase key facts and figures.
How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
[Background music plays]
Bright, uplifting piano music is playing in the background
[B-roll footage]
A blue globe wrapped in a network of white lines and points spins in a white space, a plane circles the globe
[Text displays]
Flightpath
Navigating the route to sustainable aviation
[Graphic]
A plane with a Shell yellow and red stripe on a blue runway
[Text displays]
This episode: How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
[Graphic]
Shell logo
Scene transition
[Graphic]
A blue vector globe drops into the frame with several primary colours’ flight paths spanned across it.
[Voiceover]
Aviation is at the heart of our connected world.
[Animation]
Line drawing of an airport with aircraft taxiing. On the left, 2 different sized roundels with a yellow descending arrow representing a reduction in CO2
[Voiceover]
As the industry charts a growth path for the future, it must also reduce its contribution to climate change.
[Animation]
Split screen with a supersonic plane on the left and a V-shaped concept of an electric plane on the right
[Voiceover]
With game-changing technologies like electric or hydrogen propulsion decades away
the aviation industry needs innovative solutions today.
[Text displays]
SUSTAINABLE AVIATION FUEL
[Voiceover]
Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF,is a safe, proven replacement for fossil jet fuel,
[Animation]
A container labelled ‘SAF’ with a red tap. A fork-lift carries a barrel marked ‘Jet Fuel’
[Text displays]
Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared to conventional jet fuel*
*Reduction in full lifecycle emissions. https://www.iata.org/contenassets/d13875e9e9ed784f75bac90f000760e998/saf-what-is-saf.pdf (PDF)
[Voiceover]
which has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared with conventional jet fuel.
[Animation]
The red tap on the SAF container turns; the screen splits to show containers labelled Jet Fuel. The screen splits again to show a Shell-branded fuel truck on the road
[Voiceover]
SAF is a “drop-in" fuel,meaning it can be used in today’s aircraft without changes to existing storage, delivery, and fueling systems.
[Animation]
A fuel truck with a yellow supply hose trailing from its rear, zooms out to show the hose is connected to the wing of an aircraft
[Voiceover]
When blended with conventional jet fuel up to a 50/50 ratio as per A.S.T.M. guidance,
[Text displays]
50% conventional, 50% SAF
[Voiceover]
SAF can reduce lifecycle carbon emissions - as well as sulfur oxides and particulate matter - by as much as 40%.
[Text displays]
-40%*
*Reduction in full lifecycle emissions. https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/ICAO-ENV-Report2019-F1-WEB%20(1).pdf (PDF)
[Animation]
A CO2 roundel hovers over a blue square. Organic white matter grows out of the blue square
[Voiceover]
This lifecycle CO2 reduction is possiblebecause the renewable biomass used to make SAF today absorbs carbon from the atmosphere.
[Animation transition]
Screen splits. On the right side, a plane labelled SAF flies above a square showing an industrial plant with pipes and 2 vats. Yellow dotted arrows join the plant; the plane; the CO2 roundel and the organic quarters of the image, representing a cycle
[Text displays]
*Some additional emissions are generated during SAF production.
[Voiceover]
When SAF combusts in an aircraft enginethe resulting CO2 emissions are simply returning this carbon to the atmosphere.
From a life-cycle perspective, there is no net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere from SAF combustion.
[Animation transition]
A square containing trees, a plane, an oil well and an energy processing plant slide into the frame from the bottom. Yellow arrows appear connecting the oil, the processing plant, the plane and a CO2 roundel in the air
[Voiceover]
When fossil fuels are used to provide energy, however,they release carbon from the past, resulting in a net increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
[Animation transition]
A fuel truck parked by a building labelled Roadside Café, its fuel hose is connected to the building, extracting from the building into its tank
[Voiceover]
Most SAF today is made by processing biomass consisting of inedible waste fats and oils.
[Animation transition]
5 isometric items pan onto the screen from the left, representing Biomass; Agricultural; Municipal; Industrial and Recycled or Captured CO2
[Voiceover]
In the future, other promising methods could make SAF from additional and sustainable non-food feedstockslike biomass, agricultural, municipal, and industrial wastes – and even recycled or captured CO2.
[Animation transition]
4 containers animate onto the screen, connected by primary-coloured lines, labelled: Collect; Separate; Refine and Blend
[Voiceover]
Unlike conventional jet fuel, SAF’s journey from refinery-to-wing is complex due to the additional steps required.
[Animation transition]
3 figures in hard hats appear by and inspect the Blend container
[Voiceover]
Rigorous testing and certification by experts ensure the final product meets strict A.S.T.M. jet-fuel specifications.
[Animation transition]
An external airport scene with an aircraft outside the terminal and a passenger bus on the runway
[Voiceover]
Finally, it’s transported and injected into airport fuel tanks,
ready for use by all aircraft serviced from those tanks.
[Animation transition]
An aircraft taking off from a runway
[Voiceover]
Shell is working to bring more sustainable aviation fuel to more airports and emit less.
[Text displays]
Fly and emit less
[Text displays]
Shell Aviation
[Voiceover]
Find out more about SAF and what it will take to scale
at www.shell.com/saf
or submit a query to SAV-Flightpath@Shell.com.
[Text displays]
www.shell.com/saf
sav-flightpath@shell.com