Powering planes on plastic waste is no flight of fancy
THE FIRST transatlantic flight to run entirely on alternative fuels landed in New York City last month. It was a landmark for the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) consortium supported by the Department of Transport, that aims to make air travel greener.
However, the headlines only captured part of the story. Virgin Atlantic Flight100 used a dual blend fuel – from waste fats, and plant sugars – that, when processed to scale, would wreak havoc on the UK’s agricultural sector – not to mention the environment. Even worse, it’s more expensive than traditional aviation fuel. So what then is the alternative?
Environmental groups have long argued that to combat the climate crisis, we need to stop flying altogether. But that would mean stopping students from meeting grandparents over Christmas or banning families enjoying their first holiday. It isn’t realistic, or practical. We need to find alternatives that are not only less polluting, but also more cost-effective. If the UK is serious about becoming a global pioneer in SAF, we need to find raw materials to power airplanes.
Enter an unlikely saviour – waste plastic. Advanced Hydrocarbon Fuels Limited (AHFL), a company I founded in 2014 to transform the way we turn waste into fuel, has spent the last decade perfecting technology that converts plastic into Keroclean®. Ours is the only commercially viable fuel that, when mixed with diesel, can power everything from tractors to marine vessels – and, in preliminary tests, aircraft too.
WASTE plastic is the ideal raw material to make SAF. It’s everywhere and nobody knows what to do with it. Each day wasted in finding alternative uses results in unprecedented amounts of plastic piling up in landfills, entering our water, and seeping into topsoil. And the crisis is only getting worse.
With the COP28 deliberations in the UAE coming to a close earlier this week, attention will refocus towards negotiations on a global treaty to combat plastic pollution. After three sessions ended in a stalemate, the fourth, and final, session of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee on plastic pollution will be held in Canada in April.
Without a sensible approach that brings both business and climate change activists on board, this session will also end in a washout. But here also is a clear opportunity for the UK to take a leading role, not only in tackling the plastic problem, but in the development of a truly sustainable, economical and scalable form of alternative fuel.
Unfortunately, AHFL – and our peers – are being held back by archaic policy frameworks, created in response to outdated EU regulations. As a result, plastic and other waste materials are not currently classified as a renewable energy source.
Some steps are being taken in the right direction.
In 2022, the Department of Transport launched the landmark Advanced Fuels Fund to competitively allocate £135million in grant funding. Winning proposals announced earlier this month include a plant converting forestry waste and another converting green hydrogen into aircraft fuel.
These would potentially boost the UK’s ability to generate 810,000 tonnes of SAF – “enough to fly around the equator of Earth an estimated 3,108 times”. Yet as exciting as this is, we need to be realistic in that it’s still a fraction of the fuel required to power a nearly $400billion industry.
And despite airlines being allowed to use up to 50 per cent in a blend, current varieties of SAF only account for 0.1 per cent of global aviation fuel. So the success of Flight100 is a shot in the arm for the Department of Transport’s bet on Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
NOW, it’s time to think bigger and more decisively. That means a dramatic energy policy overhaul that prioritises alternative feedstocks for alternative fuel.
As an inventor and entrepreneur, I’ve spent the past four decades trying to find a pragmatic approach towards the climate crisis, and I know a good opportunity. Taking advantage requires us to acknowledge the gravity of the problem while advocating for phased and economically realistic action.
Whether we like it or not, the aviation industry is here to stay. And the only alternative to shutting it down is to make it greener. If the UK can do this, whilst presenting a viable option for removing waste plastic from the environment, we truly can achieve something.
‘The alternative to shutting down aviation is to make it greener’