The Royal Society's report on aviation fuels
The Guardian says:
Scientists pour cold water on UK aviation’s net zero ambitions
Well, no, not really.
Country would need to devote half its farmland or more than double its renewable electricity supply, says study
Also not wholly true.
The UK would have to devote half its farmland or more than double its total renewable electricity supply to make enough aviation fuel to meet its ambitions for “jet zero”, or net zero flying, scientists have said.
A report published on Tuesday by the Royal Society argues there is no single, clear, sustainable alternative to jet fuel that could support the current level of flying.
This appears to be an adaptation of Arthur C Clarke’s dictum:
If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The adaptation being “If a Guardian article offers an interpretation of a scientific report then The Guardian is wrong.”
For the report itself is markedly more equivocal. It makes the same point we have made several times. If we’ve got cheap hydrogen from renewables then reformulation up to jet fuel via Fischer Tropsch works. The only limitations would be that greater renewables generation and some modification in price.
Once we lift the requirement that Britain must produce the electricity to make the jet fuel - we could, say, import the jet fuel from places where they have more or cheaper renewable electricity, as we do already import jet fuel - then it becomes just a matter of how much the price must be higher to pay for it all. Which will, of course, then flow through into how much less jet travel we have because of the higher price of jet fuel.
As the report says, jet fuel is currently around the $1.10 per litre level. Other sources say around $1.40. Porsche says they can make petrol (not too dissimilar from jet fuel) at $2 a litre. So, the problem’s solved.
Note what the Royal Society report actually says. If, then. If cheap green hydrogen then jet fuel at possibly a slightly higher cost than today. At which point the current infrastructure of flying at that slightly greater cost.
Which, by siting the jet fuel plants in places with lots of cheap renewable power (say, windmills in the Roaring Forties) we can have.
That is, far from the Royal Society saying that this is not possible the report indicates exactly the opposite. If, if, then she’ll be fine.
Which leaves only one part of our reformulation of Clarke’s adage to consider. Are we sure that we want to compare the Guardian to a scientist of any type, let alone a distinguished one?