Airbus Applauds Synthetic Fuels Breakthrough
standards-development organization, ASTM, for the use of a 50% synthetic jet fuel
in commercial aviation.
feedstock, such as woodchip waste,” said Christian Dumas, Airbus Vice President
Sustainable Development and Eco-Efficiency. Synthetic liquid jet fuels can be
made from biomass, natural gas or coal, all of which are known as xTL fuels.
environmental footprint and represents a significant achievement along the Airbus
alternate fuels roadmap.”
30% of jet fuel used in 2030 could be sustainable biojet fuel “if maturity of
alternative high yield non-food feedstock occurs in the middle of the next decade,”
according to an Airbus statement this week.
standards for materials, products, systems and services. It supports thousands
of volunteer technical committees, whose members are drawn from across the globe.
TL stands for To Liquid. GTL fuels are gas to liquid).
that it’s NOT simply “carbon” that’s the issue for aviation: it’s global warming
– the radiative forcing effect effectively trebles the climate-change effects
of any carbon-based fuel that’s burned at altitude by the time the accompanying
Nox and water-vapour effects are factored in.
of little carbon, once they are burned in a plane’s engines at altitude, they
produce just as much carbon dioxide as any other fuel – three times as much global
warming effect as the some biofuel being burned at ground level.