Emirates airline just announced a milestone that I wasn't expecting to see for years, if not decades.
The UAE might be an empire built on oil, but its foray into renewable energy has been much more impressive than I ever could have expected.
An Emirates plane just completed a test flight using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). It’s not the first time an airline has used this remarkable fuel, but it’s a major step forward for a few reasons.
Most importantly, airlines in the past have typically relied on a 60-40 mixture of traditional jet fuel and SAF. It helps cut down on overall emissions, but still produces a significant amount of the industry’s emissions.
It’s also expensive compared with regular fuel, partially because the economics of scale aren’t comparable. But all that will change when the rest of the industry finally catches on.
Without SAF or other green fuels, the aviation industry will never reach its goal of net carbon-zero by 2050. Emirates is on the right path so far — will the rest of the airline pack jump on board?
Welcome to the Era of Green Fuel
Transportation is the last holdout against green energy, simply because so much of it can’t be electrified.
A commercial aircraft would need an absolutely massive battery to keep itself in the air. Shipping tankers would require something even bigger.
The only real solution in this case is to find a greener way to produce powerful, efficient fuel without spending a fortune. For aviation specifically, the magic solution has been found in the form of SAF.
But what about the rest of the industry? I don't foresee helicopters and oil tankers lining up to be retrofitted with house-sized batteries.
Green fuel is a critical part of the world’s zero-carbon future. SAF and other biofuels are good solutions for aircraft because they can be added to the tank with very little modification, but there’s no way around it — they're expensive.
Scaling the industry up is the only way to drive prices down. But to do that, more companies need to commit to producing the stuff. That’s the Catch-22 that inevitably means only 0.1% of all aircraft use SAF.
It’s not a death blow to sustainable fuels in general, but it’s enough to keep the industry looking for the “next big thing.”
If you ask me, the REAL green fuel of the future is something we’ve known about for more than a century.
Green Hydrogen? Or Something Much More Powerful…
Hydrogen fuel has been talked to death since the 1980s. It has been hailed as the greatest green fuel on Earth, yet look around — how many hydrogen-powered vehicles do you see on a daily basis?
Some forward-thinking automakers have released vehicles powered by fuel cells, but the vast majority of hydrogen that fuels them comes from the natural gas industry. Not only is hydrogen a lackluster fuel in terms of energy density, it’s also NOT green yet.
Green hydrogen made from renewable electricity and electrolyzers is about as green as it gets, but it’s exorbitantly expensive. That means the industry is stuck at square one waiting for energy companies to pay high prices all in the name of saving the planet.
I don’t see that happening anytime soon. The idea of a mega-corporation willingly hurting its own bottom line is almost comical.
That makes green hydrogen about as useful as SAF. Both are ideas with enormous potential, but they will both need some tweaking first.
In the case of green hydrogen, did you know there’s a scientific way to “upgrade” it?
Turning hydrogen into something with more power and greater density would solve all the industry’s problems in one fell swoop.
It could be powerful enough to use in commercial airplanes yet green enough to actually make a difference. And thanks to a new production technique devised by a practically unknown company, it’s becoming cheaper by the day.
This incredible process uses nothing but air, water, and electricity (generated from renewables, of course) to turn hydrogen into what many experts consider the most potent green fuel on Earth.
In order to most efficiently convey all the relevant information on the company behind this paradigm-shifting new technology, I've put together a free research presentation available right now to any Outsider Club reader.
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This could be one of the biggest tech sector stories of the decade, but right now you're among just a handful of people that know it's happening.
