The airline industry, represented by the International Air Transport Association, has set a target of carbon-neutral growth by 2020. More directly, this means:

The commitment to carbon-neutral growth completes a set of three sequential goals for air transport: (1) a 1.5% average annual improvement in fuel efficiency from 2009 to 2020; (2) carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and (3) a 50% absolute reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

So how do the airlines and aircraft manufacturers think they can meet this goal? Biofuels.

The Wall Street Journal recently picked up on a Boeing report that fuels derived from vegetation or algae not only have a positive impact on carbon-footprint measures, but they actually perform quite well as a fuel in their own right. The various fuel options met or exceeded the standards for petroleum-based jet fuel.

Actual airline tests of blended jet fuel, composed of both traditional and newfangled sources, have been successful, so we know the stuff can propel a heap of metal through the air.

The problem remains at the level of production:

To quench the global aviation industry’s thirst with jatropha and camelina, [the plants from which the fuel is developed], says Boeing’s director of sustainable biofuels strategy Darrin Morgan, would require planting an area the size of Germany. But with some crop science and improved yields on these plants, the idea of using biofuels in airplanes “actually starts to add up,” he says.
(emphasis added)

Granted, it doesn’t need to be a contiguous land mass the size of Germany, but that’s a lot of land, nonetheless.

Reducing the airline industry’s carbon footprint can’t be entirely on the shoulders of biofuels (or Bio-Derived Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene, or Bio-SPK, if you want to get jargony). Rather, a comprehensive transportation strategy designed to reduce fuel burn at all levels (including replacement of gas-guzzling short-hops flights with greater use of regional rail) needs to come first. Some of the conversation in the comments on the recent “pretend you’re running an airline” post brought in the notion of an integrated transportation company, rather than an airline itself.

Perhaps airlines need to start getting into the agricultural business, and planting acres of jatropha and camelina.

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