Emily Hickson’s Post

Brilliant opportunity to run a new organisation focusing on the glorious Dartmoor - working with farming communities, walkers, tourists, residents and more. Plus anything Gemma Mortensen helps set up is worth watching! See details below.

GOOD NEWS 😀 to start the week. As election results roll in in South Africa, India, and the EU in the coming days and weeks, and as I myself spend hours on the doorstep campaigning for the Labour Party (UK), its brilliant to see an election bring a positive, progressive election result. That happened in Iceland over the weekend when Halla Tomasdottir, my former CEO and inspirational mentor at The B Team was voted in as the nation's President against tough opposition. Go Halla! https://lnkd.in/enWatb9R

I'll be at the Sustainable Aviation Futures EU Congress in Amsterdam in just over a week's time. DM me if you want to connect on all things e-fuels and finance. Find out more via https://lnkd.in/e-3-zuXv . #SAF #sustainableaviation #sustainableaviationfuel #aviation #aviationdaily #aviationnews #aviationindustry #aviationinnovation #airlinesandairplanes #airlines #airlineindustry #renewableenergy #renewablesindustry #renewables #cleanenergy #cleanenergytransition #cleanenergyfuture #netzero #netzerocarbon #networking #event #amsterdam #europe #climatechange #congress #innovation #leaders #airlinenews #sustainable #sustainability #sustainabledevelopment #sustainablefuture Sustainable Aviation Futures

Luke Ervine, Head of Sustainability at Virgin Atlantic was just asked 'what's next?' following their 100% SAF flight between London and New York last year. He said he'd 'love to do a 100% Power to Liquid (PtL) flight next'... That's great! Clearly the industry sees potential on using PtL - the most scalable, sustainable type of Sustainable Aviation Fuel. So why is ambition in the UK SAF Mandate for PtL so low (only 3.5% by 2040, compared to the EU's 10%). Climate Catalyst is supporting the scale of PtL fuel, diving into the challenges and solutions to overcome risk in the development of these fuels, and drive in capital and scale. Check out our recent public financing mapping demonstrating how much government support there is in the EU for scaling SAF. https://lnkd.in/dBTQFrXs

Some quick analysis by our Aviation Programme Lead Emma Richardson on the UK Government's #SAF Mandate launched earlier today. Conclusion: not quite as ambitious as it heads towards 2050...

My team got excited when we read this article — but not for the reasons that you may think. Yes, Project Infinium is a big deal. It will be one of the first industrial-scale e-fuel plants, making jet fuel with 95% less of a CO2 impact than when derived from fossils. But, what really got us excited was this line: “Making e-kerosene from biogenic carbon emissions, water and renewable energy is at least four times more expensive compared to traditional fuel, according to the IEA.” Four times more expensive may seem like a lot. And it is. But when my team started working on aviation less than a year ago, the most commonly cited cost estimates put e-kerosene at eight times more expensive than fossil kerosene. Costs for e-fuels have been coming down, and perception is finally catching up. And costs will continue to come down. The EU is betting on this. In their ReFuel Aviation mandate, e-fuels grow in significance and must make up half of the total SAF mix by 2050. The UK is expected to follow suit, confirming it will also set a sub-target for power-to-liquid fuel through its SAF mandate which will enter into force next year. There’s still a way to go to make e-fuels cost competitive with biofuels — some forms of which are rife with social risks and hardly less CO2 intensive than conventional jet fuel — and of course with conventional jet fuel, but they aren’t as out of reach as the fossil fuel industry wants us to believe. We’ve faced — and closed — comparable price differentials for other low-carbon tech, like solar panels. But to get over that hump, we’ll need a lot more upfront investment, which is still not materialising. To fill that gap, Climate Catalyst is working to build investor ambition to scale investment into e-fuels. We need e-fuels to take the place of fossil kerosene in the near term, until today’s fleets are replaced with zero-emission aircraft like hydrogen and electric planes. We are supported by the Climate Imperative Foundation in this work. If you’d like to learn more about our work on aviation, go to https://lnkd.in/euNi2R9h