Airlines need government support to lower the cost of biofuels that could help to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, the head of the global aviation industry group said Thursday.
Airlines have flown some 1,500 commercial flights using fuel made from plants, but supplies are limited and costly, said Tony Tyler, chief executive of the International Air Transport Association.
“We need governments to adopt policies to help support commercialization of biofuels to bring up the volume and bring down the price,” Tyler said. He was in Beijing for IATA’s annual general meeting, due to be held next week.
Airline emissions have become a contentious issue amid opposition by China, the United States, Russia and other governments to European Union carbon charges on carriers that took effect Jan. 1. China and India have ordered their airlines not to cooperate.
The EU has said it would reconsider its program if talks under way in the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. body, produce a global agreement to regulate airline carbon emissions.
Airlines account for only 3 percent of total emissions of carbon that scientists say is changing the climate but aviation is the fastest-growing source.
Aircraft makers and energy companies have experimented with fuels made from jatropha, an oily nut; camelina, a flower with an oily stem; algae and other plants. Carriers in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand have flown using varying mixtures.
Government Support = Subsidy? If airlines want to use “green” fuels, then they should pay the extra price for them. Maybe they can talk their passengers into paying extra for special green flights. Not sure that some mixture of green fuels with more variable blend rates and properties is better than petroleum-based kerosene’s.
Asking for government action to make the price of something lower is a sure sign that the thing makes no economic sense – except to those who seek to use government power to beggar their neighbor.
Yep, looks like a ploy to lower their operating cost at the taxpayers’ expense.
Environmentally, biofuels on an industrial scale for airlines means planting another million acres of Indonesia in palm oil trees. Biofuels on an industrial scale is not possible without environmental destruction on a biblical scale.