Aviation has a key set of building block strategies that outline how it plans to achieve its net zero goals by 2050, and one of these critical building blocks is Waypoint 2050. It’s from the Air Transport Action Group, a wide coalition of coalitions and key players from airframers, enginemakers and airline associations through to key suppliers, air navigation service providers, airports and more. We sat down with Haldane Dodd, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group, to dive into what Waypoint 2050 means for the next thirty years of aviation.
“Waypoint 2050,” Dodd tells us, “is the industry’s response to the question ‘how can aviation reach net-zero carbon by 2050?’.”
Dodd explains that Waypoint 2050 is the product of “a piece of deep-dive research that brought together 70 industry experts over the course of two years — looking at traffic trends as well as the different levers of action that can be explored to reduce carbon emissions over the next three decades.”
The goal, he says: “to ensure that when we committed to a new long-term climate goal — net zero by 2050 — we were confident that it could be achieved. The results of Waypoint 2050 show that it is a significant challenge, but that it can be done.”
Waypoint 2050 features a number of pillars of action that will underpin aviation’s net-zero future
“Importantly,” Dodd says, “Waypoint does not prescribe just one pathway for how each of these pillars will play out over the coming decades, but shows there are multiple options. If one scenario doesn’t progress as quickly as expected, there are options to focus more on others.”
The first pillar of action that Waypoint 2050 lays out is technology. Evolutionary technology, the kind of improvements that lead to a roughly 20 percent improvement in aircraft fuel efficiency every generation of aircraft, is expected to continue. But revolutionary technologies are on the horizon, and in more ways than ever before. Propulsion using electric, hybrid and hydrogen power will change the face of regional travel and short haul, as well as perhaps edging into the medium-haul market. Long haul will require more sustainable aviation fuels, produced in a transparent and certified low-carbon way — and, indeed, that is its own pillar, on which more shortly.
Indeed, says Dodd, “it is clear that there is a lot of buzz around hydrogen and electric propulsion and it is great to see so much research into these options. At its most optimistic, Waypoint 2050 envisages a scenario where electric aircraft will start service with small commuter sized aircraft before the end of this decade, but the application will be limited. Hydrogen combustion could play a role in short-haul narrowbody aircraft from 2035 or 2040. But conventionally powered aircraft — albeit even more efficient than today’s aircraft — will be needed for medium- and long-haul operations until well after 2050, which is why SAF is so important.”
Waypoint 2050’s second pillar combines infrastructure and operations. These offer lower hanging fruit, especially around air traffic management, and Dodd characterises them as “important for early action”. Collaboration, both to achieve these goals and to maximise the use of finite in-demand infrastructure like airspace, will be required.
Sustainable aviation fuel deployment is the third pillar. Waypoint 2050 estimates that aviation will need some 330-445 million tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel annually by 2050. This is feasible, the report says, but will need to include “rigorous sustainability criteria” to ensure that fuel feedstocks do not impact food or water use. Feedstocks not from food crops, waste sources and power-to-liquid fuels — including recycled or captured carbon dioxide and low-carbon electricity — will be critical here. So will investment, with the report estimating some $1.45 trillion over thirty years, or nearly $50 billion a year. By comparison, annual aviation revenue in 2019 was $838 billion.
The final pillar involves dealing with residual emissions via market-based measures, which is perhaps the most controversial. In the near term, these are likely to be carbon offsets, which have not always been used with the kind of transparency and certification that is needed for them to be believable and acceptable measures. Focus will be required to improve the standardisation of these measures, while in the longer term new kinds of offsets — forestry, carbon sinks, carbon capture, carbon recycling and carbon removal — will need to be researched and developed.
Three scenarios project alternative futures for aviation’s next 30 years
In line with its pillar-agnostic approach, Waypoint 2050 looks at three scenarios that see developments in particular pillars rising to the fore, and analyses what that means for the bigger picture.
The first scenario prioritises the first pillar, technology, including unconventional airframes, a speedy transition in the late 2030s towards hybrid and electric aircraft. Early and intensive investment in infrastructure and operations reap significant improvements and concomitant carbon dioxide reductions, and the remaining gap is filled with sustainable aviation fuels. Offsets and other measures will be required as a transition mechanism and for residual emissions in 2050. Here, technology results in roughly twenty percent of the improvements, with some sixty percent coming from sustainable fuels, and the remaining twenty percent split between market measures and the operations and infrastructure categories that make up pillar two.
The second scenario sees the industry focussing on sustainable fuel development and deployment, with new airframes such as blended wing bodies being based on current engine technologies rather than shifting to electric and hybrid propulsion. Here, fuels reap roughly seventy percent of the benefits, while the other three pillars make up roughly ten percent each.
The third scenario, meanwhile, sees a massive technology push that Waypoint 2050 calls “aspirational and aggressive”. Electric aircraft cover the 100-seater market, green hydrogen takes over the 100–200-seater space, and larger aircraft are unconventional and powered by hybrid-electric propulsion. This results in over thirty percent of gains coming from technologies, with over fifty percent coming from sustainable aviation fuels, and under ten percent each for the remaining two pillars.
Altogether, Dodd concludes, the goal of Waypoint 2050 is “to show what was possible, to enable us to adopt a new long-term goal and to push governments to back that up with a goal at the ICAO Assembly this year — that’s our core focus right now. But it is already being used as proof of the importance of investment in SAF, particularly before 2030.”
Indeed, he notes, “we have seen a significant uptick in both interest and action on SAF deployment. Before COVID hit the industry there was around $6 billion in forward purchase agreements. Now, that number is $17 billion and climbing. We need it to progress faster still, but the momentum is there and accelerating. That’s important to see.”
Author: John Walton
Published: 8th September 2022
Photo by Nick Sarvari on Unsplash
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