{"id":14039,"date":"2023-11-29T11:25:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T11:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1401949"},"modified":"2023-11-29T11:25:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T11:25:06","slug":"first-transatlantic-flight-with-100-sustainable-fuel-is-greenwashing-critics-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=14039","title":{"rendered":"First transatlantic flight with 100% \u2018sustainable\u2019 fuel is greenwashing, critics say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The world\u2019s first transatlantic flight with 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has been attacked as \u201cgreenwashing\u201d by critics.<\/p>\n

The Tuesday trip from London to New York on a Vrigin Atlantic 787 has been celebrated by airlines and politicians as a \u201cmilestone\u201d in the journey to net zero. Scientists and climate campaigners, however, have poured scorn on these claims.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opinions are divided over the potential of SAFs, which derive from various alternatives to fossil fuels. For Tuesday\u2019s flight, the SAF was made primarily from waste fats and plant sugars, according to a Virgin Atlantic factsheet [PDF<\/a>] shared with TNW. The airline expects the resulting carbon emissions to be 70% lower than those produced by petroleum-based jet fuel.<\/p>\n

Shai Weiss, Virgin Atlantic\u2019s CEO, said the Boeing 787 test flight would prove that SAF \u201ccan be used as a safe, drop-in replacement for fossil-derived jet fuel.\u201d She added that it was \u201cthe only viable solution for decarbonising long-haul aviation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reactions from the UK government \u2014 which partly funded the fight \u2014 have been even more optimistic. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak praised the journey as \u201cthe first net zero transatlantic flight,\u201d while the Department for Transport declared that it was \u201cushering in a new era of guilt-free flying.\u201d Both claims were promptly pilloried by environmental groups.<\/p>\n

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Cait Hewitt, policy director of the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), said promises that the trip will take us closer to \u201cguilt-free flying\u201d were \u201ca joke.\u201d She notes that SAFs currently comprise around 0.1% of global aviation fuel \u2014 and will be extremely hard to scale sustainably<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrying to scale up production of alternative fuel, using the waste products of fundamentally unsustainable industries like intensive animal agriculture, or using unrecyclable plastic \u2014 as the UK government is planning to do \u2013 is hardly a sustainable solution,\u201d Hewitt told TNW.<\/span><\/p>\n

She added that SAFs also emit as much CO2 as kerosene at the tailpipe. This is because they\u2019re still hydrocarbon fuels and produce the same volume of CO2 emissions as kerosene when combusted. According to the AEF, any CO2 reduction will be \u201cnet\u201d savings made during the production phase \u2014 as with a carbon offset.<\/p>\n

\u201cLinking it to the idea of \u2018guilt-free flying\u2019 is deeply misleading and risks setting back a proper, honest discussion about how much we can fly while achieving climate goals,\u201d Hewitt said. \u201cIf the public is led to believe the industry has found the solution to green flying, that could be environmentally harmful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The AEF\u2019s concerns were echoed by Stay Grounded, a global network of climate crisis campaigners. The group described the flight as \u201cgreenwashing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stay Grounded insists that SAF isn\u2019t a net zero flight or even sustainable, as it relies on vast quantities of biofuels and inefficient use of renewables. The group also lambasted SAF as \u201cwasting biomass and renewables on transport for the rich.\u201d It said a more fitting term for the power source is \u201cFossil Fuel Substitutes\u201d or \u201cAgrofuels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[The] fuel has been produced via a process which is a technological dead-end,\u201d Finlay Asher, a former aerospace engineer at Rolls Royce and a member of Stay Grounded, said in a statement. \u201cIt can\u2019t be sustainably scaled beyond a few percent of existing jet fuel use.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Until truly green flying is possible, both the AEF and Stay Grounded say the only sustainable option is to dramatically reduce air travel. According to the aviation industry, that simply isn\u2019t realistic.<\/p>\n

The sector has also pointed to the social and economic benefits of SAF.<\/p>\n

Like many airlines, Virgin Atlantic wants SAF to account for 10% of aviation fuel by 2030. The company predicts that this will contribute around \u00a31.8bn (\u20ac2.1bn) in Gross Value Added to the UK, as well as more than 10,000 jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virgin Atlantic does, however, agree with the campaigners on one point: reaching SAF production at scale remains immensely challenging. To achieve this goal, the airline is calling for more government investment.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world\u2019s first transatlantic flight with 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has been attacked as \u201cgreenwashing\u201d by critics. The Tuesday trip from London to New York on a Vrigin Atlantic 787 has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}