PNNL

Abstract

Jet fuel is a relatively small in terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions (10 % of U.S. transportation sector in 2021, expected to increase to 14% by 2050). Still airlines have ambitious goals to reduce their greenhouse footprints from carbon-neutral growth beginning this year to reducing greenhouse gas emission for international flights by 50% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. The challenge is heightened by the longevity of the current fleet (30-50 years) and by the difficulty in electrifying the future fleet because only 5% of the commercial aviation greenhouse gas footprint is from regional flights that might, conceivably be electrified using foreseeable technology. Therefore, large amounts of sustainable aviation fuel will be needed to reach the aggressive targets set by airlines. Only 3 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (with a heat of combustion totaling 410 TJ = 0.0041 EJ) was produced in the U.S. in 2019 for a 26 billion gallon per year market (3.5 EJ).