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We cannot survive unless we become an eco-friendly mode of transport.

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Chikako Miyata, a senior official at major Japanese airline group ANA Holdings Inc, explaining why airlines are turning to cleaner energy sources, such as fuel made from euglena, a single-cell organism, and waste plant-based cooking oil.

© Jiji Press

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I don't know who translated this, but the last time I was an eco-friendly mode of transport was when I gave my children piggyback rides.

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No, you can. Look, at other places they even already order similar companies like your’s by government to make quickly those evacuation flights. Nobody cares what fuels are in the tanks. They just desperately want your planes fully tanked and immediately activated. The future is bright for aviation, because that is now a very small first test balloon. Soon, that’s everywhere on the globe, so your planes are used without interruption and whatever fuel is in them.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

For dometic travel, I don't mind taking the shinkansen but it is ridiculously overpriced. And the JR highway buses are no better.

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explaining why airlines are turning to cleaner energy sources

I would argue that the "why" is not an act of survival but of PR greenwashing. There is only a tiny amount of waste vegetable oil sitting there unused and ready to turn into eco-friendly Jet A.

People, especially rich people who do it by far the most, like flying and for that reason it will continue.

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Not going to happen for a long time...

The aviation industry has proposed shifting to sustainable aviation fuel, but according to RMI, sustainable fuel makes up less than 0.01 percent of global consumption.

Sustainable fuel is produced at only one dedicated production refinery in the world, and it costs two to three times what airlines pay for fossil fuel.

Seals for engines and fuel lines also need changing.

The International Civil Aviation Organization estimates that 140 new commercial production facilities are needed each year between now and 2050 to move the industry to cleaner fuels.

Forbes (Jan 25, 2019)

But just because biofuels are made from plants, it doesn’t mean they’re carbon neutral. Although direct emissions from biofuel are lower than fossil fuels – burning enough biofuel to generate one megajoule of energy gives off the equivalent of 39g of CO2, whereas for fossil fuels that figure is 75.1g. But when you add in the carbon cost of growing and transporting biofuels, things become a lot more complicated.

For now at least, biofuels aren’t quite the silver bullet the aviation industry is hoping they’ll turn out to be.

Wired (Dec 2020)

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