UK Royal Society warns of no clear alternative to UK jet fuel

The Net zero Aviation Fuels report highlights that alternative fuels will not help the UK move towards net-zero if used at the same rate.

Alternative fuels like hydrogen, ammonia, biofuels and synthetics provide greater carbon neutrality but offset this by relying on more resources.

Biofuels, the report suggests, ‘would require more than 50% of the UK’s available agricultural land to replace aviation fuels [at the current level of use]’. Hydrogen and ammonia would require 2.4-3.4 times and 2.5-3.9 times the UK’s annual renewable electricity generation, respectively, and both had concerns for passenger safety. Synthetic fuels would require five to eight times the renewable electricity generation.

‘We need to be very clear about the strengths, limitations, and challenges that must be addressed and overcome if we are to scale up the required new technologies in a few short decades,’ says Professor Graham Hutchings FRS, Regius Professor of Chemistry, Cardiff University, UK, and Chair of the report working group.

‘This briefing tries to pull together those realities, to allow policymakers to understand the future resource implications of today’s policy and R&D decisions and to support international dialogue on this global technology transition.’

Lifecycle assessment was also taken into account in the report, looking at all emissions (CO₂ as well as the formation of contrails) from fuel production to pump. ‘How fossil fuel alternatives are produced is critical, as is how we measure their sustainability across the entire cycle of their use,’ says Professor Marcelle McManus, Director of the Institute for Sustainability, University of Bath, UK, and a working group member.

‘We need consistency, and we need to apply this globally, because adopting any of these new technologies will create demands and pressures for land, renewable energy or other products that may have knock-on environmental or economic effects.’

Entitled ‘Net zero aviation fuels: resource requirements and environmental impacts’ the full briefing can be found here.