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Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson has said she doubts she will see large-scale electric or hydrogen-powered passenger aircraft “in her lifetime”.
Speaking on a sustainability and decarbonisation panel at a Commonwealth Bank event on Wednesday, Hudson said Qantas is focusing on sustainable aviation fuel as part of its push to reduce carbon emissions rather than on newer technologies.
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“Qantas, Australia, is quite geographically isolated in the world. We have to fly long distances, and the technology to replace fuel as a core source of propulsion – people are experimenting with it, but it is well, well, away, decades away, from being a real viable alternative,” she said, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald.
“My aspiration in 2050 is that our kids and their grandkids have the same access to the world because aviation has been able to decarbonise, and that there is still the opportunity to do that.
“I want to see for my grandkids that they’ve got the same access and it’s not super expensive, or it’s not significantly reduced because people are stopping flying.”
Sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs, are made from a variety of renewable feedstocks, including vegetable oils, animal fats, and waste materials.
They can currently be blended with traditional fuels to lower carbon emissions. The industry has long argued that SAF is the most realistic, short-term way for the sector to hit its target of decarbonising by 2050.
Qantas has been aiming to use more SAF in its operations and has lobbied the federal government for more support for the industry. The Flying Kangaroo in May imported 2 million litres of SAF from Malaysia for use at Sydney Airport.
“If established, domestic SAF production has the potential to contribute approximately A$13B in GDP annually by 2040, while supporting nearly 13,000 jobs in the feedstock supply chain and creating 5,000 new jobs to construct and run the facilities,” the carrier said at the time.
While the federal government in September invested $1.1 billion over 10 years into the development of low-carbon liquid fuels, including SAF, other industry figures have been sceptical of its benefits.
Paul Lindwall, who presided over the Productivity Commission’s 2019 Economic Regulation of Airports inquiry, cast doubt on SAF’s environmental credentials, calling it in a November op-ed in The Australian Financial Review “an expensive, inefficient distraction from viable alternatives”.
“While proponents tout SAF’s renewable origins, large-scale cultivation of feedstocks often leads to deforestation, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss,” he wrote.
Hydrogen and battery-electric aviation, meanwhile, is being explored by companies including Stralis and Dovetail, with Air New Zealand currently testing a battery-powered electric cargo aircraft.
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says:Agreed, but where are you going to get enough SAF from without driving food prices way up like energy prices?!!