Taking the carbon out of flying via IrishTimesBiz
Putting zero-carbon planes in the air is far from being so simple. Mostly it’s down to weight. Weight is the enemy of an airplane, any aircraft. Every extra kilogram of weight carried on board — whether passengers, luggage or airframe — requires extra litres of fuel. It’s the infernal equation of the rocket engineer: weight needs more fuel which is itself more weight which needs more fuel ...
Even given that jet turbofan engines are between 70-80 per cent efficient that still means they’re squeezing between 33 and 38 megajoules out of each litre or kilogram of fuel. A battery can’t compete. The lithium-ion batteries available have, at best, 0.7 megajoules per kilogram. “Now, through Pace, an investor can see all of the data all of the flight cycles, the Scope 3 emissions data, the available seats per kilometre data. They can see which airline is performing well in an emissions sense and which ones are not.”
There’s a tab for e-fuel usage too but ultimately there’s a big gap in the graph, assuming that you’re entering realistic values for how much each scenario delivers in terms of emissions reductions. That gap is going to have to be fed, in the short to medium term, by carbon offsets which is a controversial area, at best.
“There are two sides of the value chain that are creating pressure,” says Foley. “There are regulators at one end saying ‘you must do this’ but equally now, there are consumers and investors at the other end saying ‘I expect this of you’. We see a huge push from the consumer side. The expectation is for products that are greener in nature, and which are more sustainable in nature.
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