Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transport sources, which is 3% of the total man-made contribution to climate change. To prevent climate change to reach a point of no return, carbon emissions from aviation must also be greatly reduced to near zero emissions. Since the start of aviation, particularly the jet age, aviation has reduced fuel burn, carbon and water vapour emissions by some 70% per passenger kilometre. Airlines are aiming for a further 25% fuel efficiency improvement by the year 2020. They want to achieve this efficiency through technology and operational enhancements.

Now airlines, such as Continental, are experimenting on a blend of traditional fuel and biofuel. Airline company KLM is aiming even higher and announced that it will fly a test flight with passengers aboard. This test flight will give one of the engines a mixture of 50% bio-kerosene and 50% traditional fuel. Unlike test flights or other airlines, this test flight will be flown exclusively on biofuel from camelina.

As test flights earlier in 2009 showed that biofuels were more efficient than petro-fuels as aviation fuel, jet fuel from camelina goes even further in reducing carbon emissions from flying. Analysis done at Michigan Technological University showed that jet fuel made from camelina can reduce carbon emissions up to 84% as compared to petro-based fuels.

A problem which can hold a possible 360 degrees turn in aviation emissions is the overwhelming challenge to produce enough biofuel to supply all of the world’s aircraft. The aviation burns over 60 billion gallons of jet fuel every year. To start to produce even a fraction of this amount, biofuels made from food crops (soybeans, sugar cane) would affect food supplies and food prices. Non-food plant sources like camelina are difficult to produce in large quantities and compete with food crops for land. As The Guardian puts it, ‘There are some 13,000 airplanes in the world’s commercial fleet, and to supply them all with soybean-based fuel would require an area of land the size of Europe just dedicated to soya cultivation’.

Nevertheless, there are some positive developments which can kick start the reduction of carbon emissions by airplanes. The study done by Michigan Technological University also indicates that the state of Montana in the United States alone could support 2 to 3 million acres of camelina cultivation, which would be done in rotation with wheat, which would yield some 200 to 300 million gallons of oil each year. Though this is only 0.33% to 0.5% of the total demand of jet fuel, it is a start.

Sources: IATA.org, Treehugger.com

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