Overview
Aviation is energy-intensive and relies on heavily fossil fuels. Fuel tax contributions give the airline industry an unfair advantage over other transportation methods. Consumers don’t see the authentic environmental costs of their air travel because low flight fees do not reflect the environmental consequences. Emissions from flights remain in the atmosphere and can heat it for many centuries. Due to the fact that aircraft emissions are released high in the atmosphere, they have a potent climate result, initiating chemical reactions and atmospheric outcomes that heat the planet.
The Issue
While many sectors are beginning to reduce their emissions, aviation has continued to grow. Carbon emissions from the airline industry grew by 75 percent from 1990 to 2012. It’s expected they will continue to grow rapidly until 2050. If left unchanged, they could swallow a whole quarter of the available carbon budget for limiting temperature rise to 1.5 C.
Past Improvements (NASA)
Many of the advances that make modern aircraft more efficient come directly from NASA. In fact, some of the agency’s most noteworthy contributions to aeronautic fuel efficiency can be outlined back to the piece of a single NASA engineer in the 1960s and ’70s. Richard Whitcomb developed and tested a new wing shape – the supercritical wing – that greatly boosted efficiency at increased speeds and eliminated weight. He then designed upturned wingtips that make use of air vortices that would otherwise result in drag. Now integrated into nearly all commercial planes, these refinements combined saved billions of dollars of fuel, along with associated CO2 emissions every year. In the decades since, NASA has continued to work with industry partners to improve airplane efficiency, and the agency is now supporting the cutting-edge of all-electric flight.
Electric Planes
Electric aircraft is also a very viable option. Short-range flights could utilize electric power crafts instead of fuel. However, currently because of battery weight, electrification fits for flights under 1,500 kilometers. That’s a problem since 80 percent of flying is for flights longer than that. Yet, if all 1,500-kilometer flights shifted to the electric alternative, a clear difference could show in air travel’s carbon footprint.
Efficiency Improvements
While the efficiency of aircraft—like that of cars—improved significantly in past decades, some analyses provide that the direction has stalled since 2012 in the United States. In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized that CO2 from aviation adds to the pollution that jeopardizes public health and welfare. This result creates a legal requirement for the EPA to launch a CO2 emissions standard for aircraft. In the past, the agency has set flight emissions protocols, which are enforced by the Federal Aviation Administration, at the levels suggested by ICAO. The EPA’s aviation endangerment discovery has been targeted for attack, but the complete scientific analysis backing this finding makes corrections that weaken or backtrack from this endangerment finding very unlikely to survive judicial review.
References
Air travel and climate change - David Suzuki Foundation
Reducing aviation's impact on the climate - Environmental Defense Fund
Electric Propulsion Airplane | NASA
NASA Technologies Spin off to Fight Climate Change
Written by Aanya Deshpande from MEDILOQUY