Clean aviation will take more than just biofuels

As prime mover of the Global Biofuel Alliance, India hopes to become a major supplier of sustainable aviation fuel. Whether bio-blends can clean up the sector, though, is unclear

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri recently said that the Global Biofuel Alliance (GBA) could turn India into a major producer and exporter of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). He was referring to a class of biofuels that could potentially reduce the climate-harming gas emissions of aircraft by up to 80%, as widely touted. With jet engines burning fossil fuels, aviation accounted for 2% of all carbon exhaust in 2022, a slice that will widen rapidly unless this sector finds a way to decarbonize. Electric planes of jetliner size remain a challenge of technology. They would need very light-weight batteries. As take-offs demand enormous thrust, an airframe design that can get airborne on electric power remains a steep ask. Until key breakthroughs are made, there will be no estimated-time-of-arrival for clean air travel. Hence, the industry’s best bet right now for carbon neutrality is the adoption of SAFs (combined with carbon capture). This is a transition that the GBA aims to accelerate.