The UK flag carrier, owned by holding company International Airlines Group, which also owns Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus and Spain’s Iberia among other aviation assets, has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by half by 2050 from 2005 levels.
To that end, the airline has come up with a novel idea, reports Forbes. They want to take regular household waste and commercial solid waste destined for landfill or incineration and convert it into sustainable aviation fuel.
In the announcement this week, the air carrier said the plant would break down more than 500,000 tons of non-recyclable household waste annually at a site in Immingham, North East Lincolnshire, close to the Humber Estuary.
The airline added that the new system would cut “greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent for every ton of sustainable jet fuel that replaces a ton of conventional fossil fuel.”
The plan was submitted by Altalto Immingham Limited, a collaboration between British Airways, Shell and sustainable fuels firm Velocys. Altalto Immingham Limited is also a subsidiary of Velocys.
British Airways’ collaboration with Velocys was first announced in September 2017 and is part of the airline’s plans to develop long-term, sustainable fuel options and find solutions to help reduce aviation emissions, which contribute two percent of CO2 emissions globally.
Alex Cruz, British Airways Chairman, and CEO said: “The submission of the planning application marks a major milestone in this project and we are delighted with the progress being made. Sustainable fuels can be a game-changer for aviation which will help power our aircraft for years to come. It also brings the UK another step closer to becoming a global leader in sustainable aviation fuels.”
Henrik Wareborn, CEO at Velocys, said “This will cut greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, as well as improving air quality and helping to tackle our waste problem. This is a vital step towards the ultimate goal of living in a net-zero carbon world by the middle of the century.”
Velocys is a British sustainable fuels technology company. Originally a spin-out from Oxford University. Over 15 years Velocys has developed proprietary Fischer-Tropsch technology that enables the production of drop-in transport fuels from the embedded carbon-sources in a variety of waste materials.
Velocys is currently developing projects in Natchez, Mississippi, in the United States, and Immingham, UK to produce fuels that significantly reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and key exhaust pollutants for aviation and road transport. Construction on the UK project is due to begin in 2021, reports CNBC News.
