Canadian airlines will pivot to sustainable fuels under new plan, federal minister says
Author: Marco Chown Oved
Canada’s aviation industry is betting big on sustainable aviation fuel, and plans to go from powering a few planes a year to sourcing 10 per cent of all jet fuel from sustainable sources by 2030. The plan announced on September 27, 2022 by federal Transportation Minister Omar Alghabra, will require a massive scaling-up of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production, and will likely require new refineries to be set up in Canada to meet demand. “Canada’s Aviation Climate Action Plan is a good example of how we can come together to set a net-zero emission vision and lay out the actions needed to get us on the right path,” said Alghabra in a statement. SAFs, made by refining used cooking oils and other industrial byproducts, promise to reduce emissions from air travel by up to 80 per cent. Because they are chemically identical to petroleum-based jet fuel, they can be blended and poured into existing planes’ fuel tanks without any modifications to the vehicles. Aviation, along with oil and gas production, is one of the few sectors of the Canadian economy where emissions are rising. While more efficient planes and lightened loads have gone a long way to increasing carbon efficiency, they have not been able to compensate for the voracious growth of flying worldwide.