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United Airlines has been acclaiming its achievement in making the first passenger flight using “100% sustainable aviation fuel”. Only it turns out the claim was wrong in almost every single respect and the only notable thing about the flight was the enormity of its greenwashing attempt.
United’s Twitter feed said that “This flight will serve as a turning point in the industry’s effort to combat climate change”. I think we can all agree that the airline industry needs a complete rethink in order to combat climate change, but this flight was all about publicity and has no bearing on that change.
First of all the flight did not run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel because FAA regulations do not allow that. Instead it needed to run on 50% normal aviation fuel and 50% fuel recovered from waste biomass. Something airlines have been doing for a while now. United’s ‘innovation’ was to fly its plane with one engine fuelled entirely by the recovered fuel.
What that proves I’m not sure, but whatever United thinks it proved (aside from rubbing a little green into its reputation) was entirely pointless. Fuel recovered from biomass is neither emissions free, nor 100% sustainable. There’s little evidence that it scales to support the airline industry either.
There are potential alternatives which might green the aviation industry in the future - hydrogen fuel cells potentially enable electric planes, but there is a long way to go before that is proven and certified to the point where airlines can make use of it as a solution. There’s also a similar pricing problem for hydrogen and biomass fuels - price. Something which the industry is very sensitive to and highly likely to resist any change which increases the ticket prices to passengers.
Realistically though, the only change to the airline industry which will clean its emissions is one which increases the price of flying sufficiently that most flights are discouraged and the remainder can be flown on more expensive but more environmentally friendly fuels without further impacting passenger pricing.
Comments
100 years of aviation is built on endless mistakes having been made, and endless rules and law and habits having been built up, which generally help to avoid fatal accidents.
One fundamental in aviation safety is to NEVER. EVER mix fuel types. Any fuels. Same with ICE-engines, but there you only have massive engine damage bills to worry about.
The operational aspects of this fuels exercise go against every ounce of my aviator’s being.
For United to have spent large sums in the development, flight trials and validation discussions, to test the fuel’s performance envelope, to ensure the fuel will function everywhere and anywhere in any temperature does not deserve your curled upper lip.
For everyone, FAA, engine & airframe manufacturer, pilots and their union’s safety branches, for them all to be satisfied that there were no risks, to *then carry a load of passengers (probably all involved in the trial) is an event worth their crowing about.
Especially when one is aware of just how fundamental aviation given knowledge have been stood on it’s head to get that flight done. They deserve to celebrate, A new precedent has been set. Let the real trials now begin, under new awarenesses.
It would appear that you have no aviation experience. A wise person once said:
Nothing.
I no longer choose to fly, even though an hour of aerobatics would refresh my soul.
Only bikes are more efficient than current aircraft, g/km, A–>B. But . . .
My belief is that aviation must in future be limited, like the restrictions in place in WW11. Then you could only travel if it was essential. Indeed, vital. Sorry crews and airlines, but we are the planet’s enemy. It’s not that aviation is loading the GHG balance hugely (although 4% is hardly small), but IMHO it’s where the emissions are lodged. In the stratosphere.
It’s the high level CO2 up there and above that does the reflection of outbound IR energy. Flight in the stratosphere must be banned, up where mixing is mild and turnover is limited.
Air transport needs to only fly below the tropopause, down in the mixing zone of the troposphere where we are. This will allow turboprops to become mainstream again, and their economy will be as good or better than the current fleets.
My two-bob’s worth. (q.v. https://www.wordnik.com/words/two%20bob)
What concerns me is that this feels like a bad faith attempt to dress something up to be greener than it is.
SAF is already blended with avgas, in fact it has been since 2016 and is a certified JET A and JET A-a fuel at up to 50% blends. Running one engine on it exclusively rather than as a mix was something different, but it wasn’t any more ‘green’ that what has happened before. Given that SAFs can’t be produced in sufficient quantities to service even a highly reduced demand profile, it’s an experiment down a road going nowhere.
Your assertion that only bikes are more efficient than current aircraft is at odds with established data. According to figures from the UK Government, when measuring CO2 emissions per passenger mile, flying is far and away the worst form of travel. 30% worse than a single occupant petrol car, 150% worse than a bus and 600% worse than a train. That’s without considering the short term effect of the vapour trails and ozone emissions in the stratosphere you mention.
Flight was something beyond the imagination of humanity for 99.999% of known human history. We should not give it up, indeed with the world as it is, we could not give it up. Which means every step towards greener flight is an important one. United dressing this up as something it wasn’t shouldn’t be allowed to pass uncommented or unchallenged.