Standardized environmental impact and cost estimation of future sustainable aviation fuels

Abstract

The unanimous commitment of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to "reach net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050" will require huge efforts of how to measure and how to achieve it. Aviation pursues two options for GHG emission reductions: sustainable aviation fuels and innovative propulsion systems utilising renewable power or hydrogen. The introduction of liquid hydrogen as aviation fuel together represents a radical technological shift, that is widely seen as net-zero and promoted accordingly. However, the technical risks remain tremendous and might limit its application to just regional level flights with smaller aircraft. The most probable solution is seen for fuel-producing companies to provide large scale, cost-competitive sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) to the market. Efficient biomass utilization will be required to comply with the regulatory initiative ReFuelEU Aviation, hydrogen from renewable power generation might be added. We present a methodology to enable holistic assessment of multiple options in a fair and transparent way from a technical, economic and environmental perspective (see DLR's assessment tool TEPET in Fig. 1, methodology). The methodology is applied to compare promising pathways towards sustainable aviation. A detailed discussion of SAF availability and affordability will be presented.