Jarden Wealth Weekly: Sustainable jet fuel as a real world solution to the climate crisis

Slashing emissions in air travel remains a challenge, but innovative solutions are out there, Photo / George Heard

OPINION

One of the biggest climate-related questions of our time is how we can reduce fossil fuel use to a sustainable level.

While we see growing popularity for EV solutions in passenger vehicles that don’t use fossil fuel, reducing fuel use in air travel remains harder to solve.

Difficulty lies in getting around the physics of a heavy battery in commercial aviation, which does not compare favourably with the energy density of aviation fuel in use today.

Although there is undoubted frustration in the way we are tracking towards the zero-carbon goal, there are quiet achievers currently working on real-world solutions at scale. One of these originated in New Zealand.

Nasdaq-listed LanzaTech focuses on carbon recycling technology to create sustainable jet fuel.

The company’s technology is also used to create other sustainable raw materials that can be used in household cleaning products, clothing fibres and packaging.

Founded in New Zealand in 2005 to find a solution to meet our growing demand for more energy, LanzaTech developed a unique fermentation technology, which the company describes as being “like retrofitting a brewery onto an emission source like a steel mill or a landfill site, but instead of using sugars and yeast to make beer, pollution is converted by bacteria to fuels and chemicals”.

The fuel (ethanol), when processed with catalysts, can be transformed into sustainable aviation fuel for use in commercial aircraft. Burning sustainable aviation fuel produces significantly lower lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than fossil jet fuel.

Now operating with five commercial plants around the world and clocking more than 370,000 tonnes in avoided carbon dioxide, LanzaTech remains linked to its origins in New Zealand.

It has recently partnered with Air New Zealand and the Ministry for Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) on the second stage of a study on the commercial viability of sustainable aviation fuel production in New Zealand, primarily using forestry residue.

This is just one of the initiatives Air New Zealand is involved with in seeking lower emissions alternatives for the aviation industry.

This month the company announced it is trialling a battery-powered plane, with its first cargo-only plane set to hit our skies in 2026. The prototype plane has capacity to carry six passengers and can fly 611km on a single charge.

As you might expect, the cost of fuelling the plane is likely to be a fraction of that required to fuel traditional aircraft.

Sustainable jet fuel and battery powered planes are just some of the remarkable advancements in climate change mitigation that are out there.

I recently wrote about carbon capture, a process that prevents carbon from entering the atmosphere, curbing the impact of emissions from industries such as concrete and steel manufacturing.

While emission reduction in air travel remains a challenge, there are innovative solutions that will reduce the impact aviation has on our environment, and Kiwi technology is at the heart of this innovation.

LanzaTech is among those leading the change, but with many airlines committing to being carbon neutral in the future, there is no doubt more innovative solutions will follow suit.

Jeremy Ward is Jarden Director of Wealth Management Research.

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