Decarbonisation Technology – August 2021

Aviation needs sustainable solutions

Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO 2 emissions

Total climate impact of aviation is 3x the impact from CO 2

Global air travel is expected to double in the next 15 years

2 x

2.5 %

80 %

agricultural and forestry residues. Standardisation rules require that sustainable jet fuel can be blended with conventional jet fuel at a ratio of up to 50%. Henrik Erämetsä, Neste Senior Advisor for Renewable Aviation Regulation, has been involved since the industry’s early days. “In the beginning, nobody knew how to approach the issue of standardizing sustainable aviation fuel,” says Erämetsä. “Through ASTM, the industry was able to agree that it needs to be a ‘drop-in fuel’. In other words, all legacy airliners need to be able to use the fuel – it cannot be developed only with future aircraft in mind. Neste participated in this standardization development work from the start.” There are environmental benefits to SAF that go beyond the reduction in carbon emissions. Exhaust fumes from traditional jet fuel also include non-CO 2 emissions such as nitrogen oxides and 80 %

particulates. But sustainable jet fuel contains no sulphur or aromatics and therefore burns in a cleaner way with fewer sulphur oxides and particle emissions. This also means a reduction in aircraft contrails – the white wake we sometimes see behind aircraft as they pass high overhead. Estimates indicate that as much as two-thirds of a flight’s environmental impact is caused by non-CO 2 emissions, such as the soot particles in contrails. Vision-driven investment Neste produced its initial SAF in 2011, delivering to Lufthansa for the world’s first long-term test. SAF from Neste was used more than 1200 times on twin-turbine aircraft between Frankfurt and Hamburg. “Lufthansa used regular jet fuel in one of the engines

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is a today solution

SAF enables the industry to educe the use of fossil fuels

Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared t fossil fuel over the lifecycle*

Co2

300,00 commercial flig

*Calculated with established life cycle assessm

It is a drop-in solution that can be implemented immediately

and our fuel in the other. Their main finding was that there is no difference other than the energy content of the fuel. Everything worked the same as with fossil jet fuel,” says Erämetsä. Since those early days – through dedicated investment and persistence – Neste now has the

Henrik Erämetsä

More than 40 airlines already fly with SAF

Neste MY Sustaina