Scientists working at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have outlined a biorefining process that will produce jet fuel from food and other wet waste. The team claims that this would result in a 165% net drop in emissions compared to fossil fuels.
Aviation accounted for 1.04 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2018, four times higher than 1966. Although this is less than 3% of total emissions, the industry is difficult to decarbonise owing to the enormous and sustained thrust needed to support flight. Something that fossil fuel provides.
The new findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). They suggest that emissions created from jet fuel combustion are cancelled out by lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions removed or diverted from the atmosphere when producing the fuel.
“If our refining pathway is scaled up, it could take as little as a year or two for airlines like Southwest to get the fuel regulatory approvals they need to start using wet waste sustainable airline fuel in commercial flights,” said NREL scientist Derek Vardon, the corresponding author of the paper. “That means net-zero-carbon flights are on the horizon earlier than some might have thought.”
NREL’s analysis team claims that U.S. wet waste has enough energy content to cover about 20% of U.S. jet fuel consumption. The sustainable airline fuel would be used in high-concentration blends with conventional fuel.
