The use of sustainable aviation fuels – on which the aviation industry is placing hopes for a more climate-friendly future – has shown they could cut both soot particles and contrail ice crystals. The PACIFIC program will test an “unprecedented range of fuels under controlled conditions” to “help define new fuel specifications aimed at reducing aviation’s climate and air quality impact”.
Airbus, jet engine-maker Rolls-Royce and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany with the University of Helsinki in Finland are among 11 participating organisations.
Cambridge University Regius Professor of Engineering Steven Barrett, who spoke on the subject at the Airbus Summit in Toulouse, France in March, says eliminating warming contrails is the goal.
“In practice, determining which ones are warming, neutral or the (probably) small number of potentially cooling contrails may be impractical or difficult,” Barrett later told this masthead.
“If that turns out to be the case, the options will be to eliminate all that are practical to eliminate.” Barrett said the airlines could one day establish a rule of thumb about what kind of contrails are worst for the environment (at night, or over certain types of geography).
The study results could also help scientists and air traffic controllers devise a model that helps minimise or eliminate them, he said.
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The study is being backed even as Airbus is slowing – but not abandoning – the development of a hydrogen-powered plane. Airbus has spent five years and $US1.7 billion ($2.65 billion) in research into the zero-emissions, hydrogen-powered aircraft with the goal of making aviation cleaner.
An Airbus spokesman said the broader “hydrogen ecosystem” is now at least five to 10 years behind 2020 assumptions. “While we see the timeline for adoption taking longer, we still see hydrogen as a viable new, true zero-emission fuel to power flight,” he said.
One day, onlookers peering up into the sky may see that the white streaking clouds are mysteriously no more. How land-based conspiracy theorists would greet this development cannot be anticipated.
Chris Zappone travelled to the Airbus summit as a guest of Airbus and Qantas.
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