At the 77th IATA AGM in October 2021, IATA’s membership took a historic decision to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which IATA director general and CEO Willie Walsh said can be achieved. “It will take a combination of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), radical airframe designs, cutting-edge propulsion methods, efficiency gains, carbon capture technology and offsetting.”
Here's a look at some recent sustainability initiatives as the aviation industry pursues net-zero carbon emissions targets.
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Amongst the lower hanging fruits for reducing the CO2 foot print of civil aviation is to use electrical actuation for all taxi operations of aircraft at the airport. Electrical actuation on the main or front landing gear will add mass and cost more or less two pax. However, tons of fuel will be saved mainly for the short-medium haul aircraft with several take off and landing per day. The technology is there and it can be implemented within less than a couple of months. In order to force the airlines to equip their planes with electrically actuated landing gears, one can imagine that airport would tax much more aircraft without it and that they would only be authorised to take off or land outside peak hours. The same has been applied for noisier and older airplanes, which are polluting more.
These solutions are extremely easy to apply and don’t need sophisticated infrastructure or new developments and will save billions of tons of CO2.
Another lower hanging fruit is to put PV solar panels on the roofs of airports. Airports are ugly and adding PV panels will not make them less beautiful. Airports consume MW of electrical power for lighting, airco, fridges, electrical cars, computers, ATC to name a few. It will work during daylight, but, anyway many airports have to close late in the night and solar power will reduce significantly the power bill and the resulting CO2 emissions. Converting DC to AC power with modern controllers is nowadays a piece of cake with a high level of efficiency.
Start first with is all what is high TRL before jumping into complex and unproven solutions.