India’s First Commercial Flight Powered By Indigenous Sustainable Aviation
Recently, in a significant development towards decarbonizing the aviation sector, the country’s first commercial passenger flight successfully took off using an indigenously produced Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) blend.
This flight has been started from Pune to Delhi, with Air Asia flight (15767). This is the first domestic commercial passenger flight in which SAF was blended up to 1% on an experimental basis.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel: SAF
- SAF is a biofuel used to propel aircraft that has similar properties to conventional jet fuel but a lower carbon footprint.
- Depending on the feedstock and the technologies used to produce it, SAF can dramatically reduce life cycle GHG emissions compared to conventional jet fuel.
- By the year 2025, if the target of blending 0.1 per cent SAF in jet fuel is set, India would require about 140 million liters of SAF per year. SAF production technology has made great progress in recent years.
- Unlike conventional jet fuel, SAF is produced from renewable sources such as agricultural waste, solid waste and forestry residues.
- This means that SAF has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent compared to conventional jet fuel.
- The production of SAF using sugarcane molasses as indigenous feedstock and technology in India is a huge step towards self-reliance and decarbonizing the aviation sector in line with India’s commitment to achieve Net Zero by 2070.
- India’s civil aviation sector consumes about 08 million tonnes of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) and emits about 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas in 2019 (before COVID-19).
- India has a potential to produce 19 to 24 million tonnes of SAF per year, while the estimated maximum requirement of SAF in the country is about 08 to 10 million tonnes per year by 2030, even considering a 50 percent blending.
- Use of indigenous organic feedstock (sugarcane molasses) will not only boost rural economy but also help farmers to earn additional income.
- Blending 1% SAF will benefit more than 5 lakh farmers by supplying sugarcane as feedstock. Apart from this, more than 01 lakh green jobs will also be generated.
Source – Business Standard
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