From the 2024 Sustainable Aviation Energy Conference: We Need Everyone on Board To Rapidly Decarbonize Aviation
Get 100 Aviation Sustainability Leaders in a Conference Room—They Start Collaborating Their Way to Net Zero
By Doug Arent, Executive Director, Strategic Public-Private Partnerships
“Getting to solutions is only as fast as the speed of trust.” That remark was given by Aviation Climate Taskforce CEO Tom Light on the last day of the 2024 Sustainable Aviation Energy Conference, the second national workshop on aviation ecosystems, co-convened and hosted by Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
After two days of provocative discussion on the emerging energy needs of sustainable aviation, Tom’s short comment was a salient reminder on what it will take to meet the rigorous 2050 decarbonization goals of the aviation industry and federal government.
Aviation has 25 short years to overhaul how it creates, stores, and uses energy—that’s 25 years to build a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry from the ground up; double or triple airport electrical capacity to support future energy needs (or even more); and certify, build, and start deploying alternative-propulsion aircraft and energy infrastructure to support zero-emission mobility.
Accomplishing any one of those things in 25 years is monumental. But doing everything at once nationwide, at airports large and small, and with clear plans for financing and building the transition—that will be unprecedented.
Practically, it will mean quickly analyzing, optimizing, and de-risking technologies so airports, airlines, and fuel producers can build robust and forward-looking business plans. It will require regular dialogue and knowledge-sharing between groups and stakeholders that may have not collaborated in the past.
To return to Tom’s words, meeting aviation’s 25-year goals will take the kind of speed only possible through trusting relationships across industry and government.
At NREL, we recognize the unique challenges the aviation industry faces on its way to net-zero emissions. Just two years ago, I wrote that we need a new flight path for decarbonizing aviation. Rapid advances in fuels, aircraft, and airports are requiring the aviation industry to think more holistically about how it generates, stores, and uses energy.
What is clearer than ever is the need to work together to quickly integrate new energy technologies into the aviation ecosystem.
That was the main reason NREL organized the Sustainable Aviation Energy Conference—a follow-up to NREL’s 2022 Partner Forum on sustainable aviation. Generously sponsored by Dallas Fort Worth International Airport—a long-time NREL research partner with a 2030 net-zero goal—we designed the event to jump-start open dialogue and unconventional partnerships needed to untangle the aviation energy transition.
In the room were a variety of aviation stakeholders—competitors on paper but united in the need for collaboration with airports on the infrastructure and certification needed to support new fuels and technologies. Representatives from large hub airports shared coffee with smaller, feeder airports—two nodes on either end of a domestic flight. A SAF industry representative sat on a panel with a behavioral scientist, a farming industry representative, and a technology insurer to discuss the risks and solutions for building out the renewable fuels industry. Also present were commercial airlines, state agencies, and industry organizations. There were delegations from the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
This diversity of perspective brought helpful dynamism and candor to workshops on SAF, energy infrastructure, airport-enabling efforts, and advanced aerospace technologies. Participants openly shared big challenges facing their organizations—often very specific. Others provided feedback on avenues for research and collaboration.
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The results were honest insights applicable to the entire industry—lists of research and collaboration needs to move the industry in the right direction. Below are just four examples.
1. Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Supply Chains Must Be Systematically Cultivated
Emerging SAF supply chains are highly complex—involving feedstock transportation and delivery, agricultural equipment and supplies, biorefinery building materials, permitting, fuel transportation, blending, storage, and more. It takes time to scale such supply chains, and workshop participants offered insights for doing that. For example, more biomass harvesting and processing equipment—itself powered by clean energy—needs to be manufactured to handle potential explosive growth of the bioenergy feedstock industry. Policies might incentivize feedstock production, which can be among the priciest steps for making SAF.
2. Electric Aircraft: Certification and Testing Is Critical for Components and Charging Infrastructure
Regional airports are considering whether electric aircraft can reduce costs per passenger and better connect people to medical care and other services in urban areas—all while lowering flight carbon intensity. But deploying new electric aerospace technologies requires navigating a demanding set of federal certification standards and requirements, which ensure batteries, power electronics, and electric machines are safe and reliable. In a conference workshop on aerospace technologies, participants offered efforts to help accelerate that process, such as strategic public-private partnerships, standards for high-voltage aircraft power systems, and national-scale testing facilities to acquire data and best practices.
3. Airports: Planners Must Align Accessibility and Mobility Goals With Revenue Generation
Airports want to understand and plan for financial impacts of increasing efficiency and introducing new fuels and mobility systems. A broader, systems-level approach—that looks outside the airport fence—can help support mobility equity and contribute to energy goals, including trip reduction to address traffic congestion and lower emissions. For example, airport and regional planners can encourage transit-oriented development, such as housing near airport mass transit that is advertised to vendor employees. Vendors and contractors can incentivize moving employees closer to airports, including offering benefits for commute trip reduction. By shifting behavior to carpool, transit, and other alternative forms, airports might free up parking space for new energy facilities.
4. Energy Infrastructure: Industry Needs Detailed Energy Road Maps That Are Broadly Applicable to Airports of All Sizes
Airports do not traditionally generate energy or produce fuel, but they will need a lot of it in the future to support hydrogen use and potential large increases in electricity loads. Airports must understand space demands for new energy assets—such as energy storage—especially for highly urbanized airports with a limited footprint. Planners need to understand fueling standards and infrastructure requirements for hydrogen aircraft already in the pipeline to market. According to workshop participants, a well-researched and actionable airport energy road map can inform long-term budgeting and labor planning, as well as safety plans, utility infrastructure design, and operational/energy concerns.
NREL Is a Trusted Partner for Aviation
One thing is clear for anyone engaged on the energy transition: Aviation is now at an inflection point. New technologies can make the industry more efficient, equitable, and climate friendly, but putting the pieces together into a resilient system is challenging. New technologies must be coherent to the regulators that ensure their safety, to the airports that finance their construction, and to the pilots, technicians, and firefighters who must service and operate them. They must respond to real concerns from communities—from the neighbors of airports, refineries, pipelines, and other infrastructures.
For a research organization like NREL, finding solutions to the biggest energy challenges is a call to action. NREL’s sustainable aviation research is helping develop, account, and prepare for the costs, services, and opportunities of new technologies—whether that means developing breakthrough biomass processing technologies, quantifying infrastructure needs of electric aircraft, or de-risking airport electrification plans from a holistic perspective.
If decarbonizing aviation requires the speed of trust, NREL stands ready to be the trusted partner that provides research solutions needed for a sustainable aviation future.
It's my intent to focus on applying DFMEA techniques in upfront design and development with engineering teams to bring high quality, reliable, and safe products to market.
2wCan individuals learn from history’s successes and failures in developing aviation? Can companies, governments, investors, business leaders risk the unthinkable? It took 5 years for the Wright brothers to accomplish what others couldn’t accomplish over the previous 2000 years. These 2 guys funded their efforts from profits in a bicycle shop of the late 1890s. Other famous named people of the same period were granted funds up to $50,000 and consistently failed. What is $50,000 USD equivalent to today’s economy? The Wrights focused on design; proving and disproving existing and new ideas by intellectual analysis prior to ever start physical testing. This was in stark contrast to other wealthy, well renowned, highly educated people. What mantra has potentially obscured safety, reliability, and sustainability over the past 5 decades and largely been engineerings greatest adversary? I’d say, “time-to-market” or “ship-it-now, fix-it after someone gets hurt” The Wright Brothers did not commercialize flight in 1905. That was done by others some time later. For a tale of how the Wright brothers succeeded and learn something potentially forgotten see: https://www.amazon.com/Bishops-Boys-Wilbur-Orville-Wright/dp/039330695X