An Air Canada Airbus A220-300 airliner from Toronto arrives at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Enfield, N.S. on June 28, 2021.Canada possesses the key factors to place it at the cutting edge of sustainable jet fuel – making it all the more “bizarre” that the country lags behind the United States and Europe in the race toward greener skies, says
Meanwhile, the U.S. has embarked on an ambitious incentives program and the European Union has set a timeline for green fuel thresholds – at least two per cent of the bloc’s jet fuel must be sustainable by 2025, climbing to six per cent in 2030, 20 per cent in 2035 and 70 per cent in 2050. The prohibitive cost of sustainable fuel – along with the rising urgency to deploy it amid stricter government rules and a heating planet – mean the aviation industry faces an “existential threat” if it does not work to decarbonize quickly, said Deborah Flint, who heads the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.
In April, it announced the purchase of 9.5 million litres of SAF from Finland-based oil refiner Neste. But the amount totalled less than 0.2 per cent of the 5.71 billion litres of fuel Air Canada consumed in 2019. Meanwhile, electric or hydrogen-power planes – particularly for long-haul flights, which demand much more energy – remain farther on the horizon, a reality that makes the aviation sector “really difficult” to decarbonize, Flint said. Batteries weigh far too much to install on long-range jetliners. And a similar problem faces gaseous hydrogen, whose low energy density requires massive on-board tanks – though optimists foresee H2-propelled short-range planes entering into service as early as 2035.