How Can Aviation Usher in a "Low Emissions Age”?
The aviation industry is running out of time to deploy carbon-mitigation tools, such as sustainable aviation fuel, as consumers are increasingly demanding that airlines act today.
The aviation industry is running out of time to deploy carbon-mitigation tools, such as sustainable aviation fuel, and consumers are increasingly demanding that airlines take action today. The short window in which to act poses a risk that the sector will fail to hit its goal to halve CO2 emissions by 2050 relative to 2005, Shell’s top climate adviser has warned.
“The timeline that's been laid out by the science community is relatively short now because we've had decades of not doing enough collectively as society and so the time we've got left to actually do something is diminishing rapidly,” said David Hone, Chief Climate Adviser for Shell.
“And it's diminishing now to the point at which it's hitting up against the minimum commercial time that you need to get these big processes up and running and so that means that there is no opportunity left for delay. It's as simple as that,” Hone said in a recent interview with Joel Makower, Editor-in-Chief of Greenbiz.com.
Watch: Powering sustainable flight for the next generation
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Title: The Need to Act Transcript
Duration: 5:07 minutes
Description:
Joel Makower interviews David Hone on what it will take to make the aviation industry environmentally sustainable.
[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
The need to act
{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. Risk in the airlines as in most businesses is something that companies try hard to mitigate. So, what would you say to an airline that says “we’re just going to take a wait-and-see approach”?
David Hone
I think a wait-and-see approach with this issue is betting the wrong way. First of all, there’s the simple physics of the climate issue. The climate is starting to change; and that’s bringing about cost to society and therefor social and political pressures to reduce emissions, that’s real and that’s happening today. Now the aviation industry has already embarked on the program to manage emissions and what program that they set themselves on is to maintain the current level of emissions in aviation for the foreseeable future, and that’s a good start but that’s not in the direction of net zero emission it’s just maintaining a balance at the current levels of emissions. So that’s still net adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And so, the aviation industry although it started out on a good pathway forward has to also think about the longer-term journey to the net zero emissions in just thirty years.
Joel Makower
Why would an airline want to bother and be an early mover?
David Hone
Ultimately the airlines are the ones that are providing the service to the customer, and it’s the customer that is really going to be one of the driving forces in this process. I mean these customers today I think represent a sleeping giant. They’re starting to wake up and recognize that air travel has sustainability issues associated with it. It’s not just the climate itself which is already starting to shift, but it’s people’s recognition that the shift is underway, their desire to want to see changes made to limit that shift. It’s not just the customers it’s those people that invest in airlines as well, people that hold the shares in the airline companies, the stakeholders that are part of the airline business. They’re all starting to look very carefully and very closely at these issues and recognize that not managing emissions in the long term is completely unsustainable. And nobody in the long term will invest in a non-sustainable business.
Joel Makower
So David I’ve heard a lot of different dates and goals, some by 2035- 2050, talk a little bit about what’s required for the aviation industry, both by international agreement and by the public.
David Hone
There are real leading indications out there that something is happening. This is small stuff today, but it didn’t exist 2 or 3 years ago and it’s moving rapidly. And it’s moving rapidly because of the Paris agreement, because of the clear messages from the science community that the climate is starting to shift, and there are consequences of that shift. And so it’s in all our interests to limit that shift and to limit the consequences. We’ll start to see potential limits on the emissions of aviation legislated in various economies. Now I don’t know where that’s going to start, and I’d be speculating if I said it would be one country or another. But it will start somewhere, because somebody will come into office on the promise of actually addressing this issue. And they will do something to start to limit that overall growth in emissions, and that could set another trend, a legislative trend that becomes very hard to manage and very difficult to address. It’s much better to do this on terms that you can manage yourself, on programs that you can implement yourself and implement with your partners.
Joel Makower
So when you look at all that, what do you see as the biggest challenge?
David Hone
The timeline that’s been laid out by the science community is relatively short now, because we’ve had decades of not doing enough collectively as a society. And so the time we’ve got left to actually do something is diminishing rapidly, and its diminishing now to the point at which it’s hitting up against the minimum commercial time that you need to get these big processes up and running. And so that means that there is no opportunity left for delay. Its as simple as that.
Joel Makower
David Hone is the chief climate change advisor for Shell. Thanks so much David.
David Hone
Thank you very much.
Key takeaways
The aviation industry is at risk of not delivering on its goal to cut net emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2050.
Airlines that take a wait-and-see approach to their climate impact risk being caught up in backlash from consumers and politicians frustrated with perceived inaction.
The industry has committed to cutting net emissions to half of 2005 levels within 30 years, and the challenge is a big one. While electric cars are already rolling down the world’s roads, electric passenger planes are not expected to be widely deployed for decades. In the meantime, the industry will have to deploy a number of measures and tools, including sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), carbon offsets, and incremental technological and operational efficiencies.
SAF in particular is seen as key for the industry to meet its carbon goals. Yet SAF production was only about 4 million gallons last year – just 0.1% of total aviation fuel production. That could rise to 10% in 2030 and 20% by 2040, according to forecasts by the International Energy Agency.
A sleeping giant stirs
Airlines that take a wait-and-see approach risk being caught up in backlash from consumers and politicians frustrated with perceived inaction, Hone said.
“First of all, there's the simple physics of the climate issue. The climate is starting to change and that's bringing about cost to society and therefore social and political pressures to reduce emissions. That's real and that's happening today,” Hone said. “And it's not just the climate itself, which is already starting to shift, but it's people's recognition that this shift is underway and their desire to want to see changes made to limit that shift.”
“It's the customer that is really going to be one of the driving forces in this process. These customers, today, I think, represent a sleeping giant. They're starting to wake up and recognize that air travel has sustainability issues associated with it.”
David Hone, Chief Climate Adviser for Shell“Nobody in the long-term will invest in an unsustainable business”
Climate sustainability is business sustainability
Scrutiny is also starting to come from investors and other stakeholders in the business who recognize the risk of not managing emissions.
“Nobody in the long-term will invest in an unsustainable business,” Hone said.
Social attitudes are already shifting, whether it’s the “flight shame” movement that started in Sweden, Blackrock making sustainability one of the fundamentals of businesses it invests in, and a growing chorus of climate-related commitments from companies such as Amazon, Delta Airlines, and Microsoft.
“There are real leading indicators out there that something is happening,” Hone said. “But it didn't exist two or three years ago and it's moving rapidly.”
Hone said the likelihood was growing that the mounting social concerns over climate will spur politicians and governments into actions to curb emissions growth.
“And that could set another trend, a legislative trend that becomes very hard to manage and very difficult to address. It's much better to do this on terms that you can manage yourself, on programs that you can implement yourself, and implement with your partners.”.
How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
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Read Transcript
Title: SAF Animation
Duration: 2:54 minutes
Description:
An animated explanation of what Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is, how it is produced, and why it is a scalable solution to reduce aviation emissions.
SAF Animation Transcript
[Background music plays]
Bright, uplifting music
[Animation]
A three dimensional model of Earth rotates then fades to the background at the bottom. On the bottom left side of the screen, the Shell™ pecten logo appears.
[Text displays]
Flightpath: Navigating the Route to Sustainable Aviation
[Text displays]
This episode
How does SAF help to decarbonise air travel?
[Animation]
On right side of the screen, an image of an airplane taking off from a runway.
[Voice over]
Aviation is at the heart of our connected world. As the industry charts a growth path for the
future, it must also reduce its contribution to climate change.
[Animation]
A spinning globe with red, yellow and blue lines connecting different cities around the globe. Fade to an image of an airport with an airplane landing on the right side of the screen.
On the left side of the screen one larger circle with CO2 in it at the top with a downward arrow pointing to a smaller circle with CO2 in it.
[Voice over]
With game-changing technologies like electric or hydrogen propulsion decades away, the aviation industry needs innovative solutions today.
[Animation]
Two futuristic-looking airplane appear then fade out.
[Text displays]
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
[Voice over]
Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or SAF, is a safe, proven replacement for fossil jet fuel which has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared with conventional jet fuel.
[Animation]
Image of a SAF fuel tank with a yellow pipe coming out of it and a forklift transporting a jet fuel tank from the SAF fuel tank.
[Voice over]
SAF is a “drop-in” fuel, meaning it can be used in today’s aircraft without changes to existing storage, delivery, and fueling systems.
[Text displays]
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared with conventional jet fuel.
Footnote: Reduction in full lifecycle emissions. https://iata.org/contentassets/d13875e9ed784f75bac90f0007603998/saf-what-is-saf.pdf
[Animation]
Three images across the screen: SAF fuel tank on the left, jet fuel refinery tanks with yellow transmission pipes in front of them in the middle and a fuel truck with Shell logo on the right.
[Voice over]
When blended with conventional jet fuel up to 50/50 ratio as per A.S.T.M. guidance, SAF can reduce lifecycle carbon emissions - as well as sulfur oxides and particulate matter - by as much as 40%. This lifecycle CO2 reduction is possible because the renewable biomass used to make SAF today absorbs carbon from the atmosphere.
[Animation]
Grounded airplane with a Shell fuel truck pumping fuel into the wing through a yellow hose.
[Text displays]
50% conventional, 50% SAF and three circles: CO2, SO2, PM with -40% below.
Footnote: Reduction in full lifecycle emissions. https://icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/ICAO-ENV-Report2019-F1-WEB%20(1).pdf
[Animation]
CO2 at the top with bubbles dropping below being absorbed by trees. A few seconds later an airplane with “SAF” on its fuselage appears on the right with bubbles coming from it being absorbed by CO2 on the left. Below the airplane is an image of a fuel refinery.
Dotted yellow line arrows point from CO2 to trees to fuel refinery to airplane to CO2.
[Voice over]
When SAF combusts in an aircraft engine, the 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.
[Text displays]
Footnote: Some additional emissions are generated during SAF production.
[Animation]
Square cross-section image of the earth with a yellow dotted line arrow pointing to a land oil rig and oil refinery and another yellow dotted line arrow pointing to an airplane and another yellow dotted line arrow to CO2.
[Voice over]
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]
A building/roadside café with a fuel hose pumping fats and oils into a Shell fuel truck.
[Text displays]
Roadside cafe
[Voice over]
Most SAF today is made by processing biomass consisting of inedible waste fats and oils. In the future other promising methods could make SAF from additional and sustainable non-food feedstocks like biomass, agricultural, municipal, and industrial wastes – and even recycled or captured CO2.
[Animation]
Images of different fuel sources: biomass, agricultural, municipal, industrial and recycled or captured CO2.
[Voice over]
Unlike conventional jet fuel, SAF’s journey from refinery-to-wing is complex due to the additional steps required. Rigorous testing and certification by experts ensure the final product meets strict A.S.T.M. jet-fuel specifications.
[Animation]
Four fuel processing tanks that collect, separate, refine and blend fuel. The words “collect, separate, refine, blend” below tanks fade out to three people checking and inspecting the tank on the far right.
[Text displays]
Collect
Separate
Refine
Blend
[Animation]
Airport with airplanes in the air and on the ground, a bus and four fuel tanks in the foreground.
[Voice over]
Finally, it’s transported and injected into airport fuel tanks, ready for use by all aircraft serviced
from those tanks.
[Animation]
Airplane on a runway taking off.
[Voice over]
Shell is working to bring more sustainable aviation fuel to more airports, so that we can all fly, and emit less.
[Text displays]
Fly and emit less.
[Animation]
Shell pecten
[Text displays]
Shell Aviation
[Voice over]
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
David Hone, Shell
David Hone joined Shell in 1980 after graduating as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Adelaide in South Australia, initially working as a refinery engineer before becoming the supply economist at the Shell refinery in Sydney. In 1989, he transferred to London to work for Shell Trading and held a number of senior positions in that organisation until taking up his current role as Chief Climate Change Adviser in 2001. David is also Board Member and former Chair of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), a global business organisation of some 130 companies.
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