Boeing set a target of designing and certifying its jetliners to fly on 100 percent sustainable fuels by 2030, amid rising pressure on planemakers to take climate change seriously.
Regulators allow a 50-50 blend of sustainable and conventional fuels, and Boeing on Friday said it would work with authorities to raise the limit.
Rival Airbus is considering another tack: a futuristic lineup of hydrogen-powered aircraft that would reach the skies by 2035.
Photo: AFP
The aircraft manufacturers face growing public clamor to cut emissions in the aviation industry, which added more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2019, according to BloombergNEF data.
Boeing has the added challenges of closing Airbus’s yawning lead in narrow-body jet sales and grappling with US$61 billion in debt.
“Sustainable aviation fuels are proven, used every day, and have the most immediate and greatest potential to reduce carbon emissions in the near and long term,” Chris Raymond, Boeing’s chief sustainability officer, said in a statement.
Boeing and Airbus face huge obstacles.
While the US planemaker is relying on technology honed in test flights since 2008, it needs to find a feedstock that does not damage rain forests and other habitats, aerospace consultant Richard Aboulafia said.
For Boeing’s first commercial flight using biofuels, a Virgin Atlantic 747 jumbo was powered by oil from coconuts and babassu nuts, a palm tree grown in the Amazon.
“It’s a question of making something that’s sustainable and non-ecologically ruinous,” Aboulafia said. “There’s the rub.”
The Chicago-based company said sustainable fuels can be made from inedible plants, agricultural and forestry waste, nonrecyclable household waste and gases released by industrial products.
Boeing cited studies showing that emissions could be cut by 80 percent over a sustainable fuel’s life cycle, with the potential to reach 100 percent.
Airbus has to persuade buyers to embrace an aircraft that loses 20 percent or more of its interior to the cooling systems necessary for liquid hydrogen, Aboulafia said.
The European manufacturer has given itself five years to develop a commercially viable plane with engines that burn hydrogen and conventional jet fuel.
“The Airbus approach is potentially far greener and far more ecologically benign,” Aboulafia said. “But that mid-2030s timetable is a complete fable.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese