Charting The Future Of Aviation With Sustainable Aero Lab

Ahead of the Sustainable Aviation Future SAF Congress in Amsterdam this coming June, Simple Flying is sitting down with some of the event’s featured speakers. We recently had the opportunity to interview Lukas Kaestner, co-founder of Sustainable Aero Lab, a leading accelerator bringing together founders, researchers, experienced industry professionals, and investors. Here are some of his thoughts about him on the future of aviation.

Climate change aviation’s next big ‘leap’

Sustainable Aero Lab was founded in December 2020 – still at the height of the unprecedented aviation crisis brought on by COVID-19. However, its purpose is to help mitigate an even greater threat looming on the horizon and already making itself intrusively known across the globe – climate change.

Aviation is here to stay. When air traffic came to a standstill during the first months of the pandemic, it became painfully obvious how much we as a society have come to depend on air mobility – along with all the freedoms it affords us.

However, the sudden drop in CO2 emissions exhibited as aviation ground to a halt also brought home what a pivotal role the industry has to play if the world is to have any chance of meeting the Paris Agreement of keeping global warming at ‘well below’ 2 ° C. Kaestner explained his motivation of him for setting up Sustainable Aero Lab,

“The decarbonization of aviation is one of the most interesting challenges across all industries in the world, and its roadmap still has a lot of blank pages. Historically, aviation has always leaped forward the most when being confronted with major global crises. We think the leap of the 21st century will be about climate change. “

The aviation industry is responsible for approximately 3% of global CO2 emissions. Non-carbon effects on the climate are estimated to be as large as two to four times greater than those of CO2 alone. As the sector continues to grow, this figure is set to increase drastically if everything continues along the lines of business-as-usual.

While electric, hydrogen, and hydrogen-electric are feasible propulsion architecture options for short- and potentially medium-haul within the next few decades, long-haul operators, in particular, will need to look to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) to reduce emissions .

SAF study identifies more stakeholder involvement and shifting focus to PtL

Sustainable Aero Lab is supported by the Hamburg Ministry of Economics and Innovation and funded through the Hamburg Investment and Development Bank. It recently released a study charting the current SAF landscape to provide an overview of the key players and developments, including investments, startups, and scaleups.

The SAF sector is continuously shifting, with landmark deals such as United’s three-year agreement for over 54 million gallons with Neste or the oneworld alliance’s commitment to 200 million gallons yearly to power flights out of Californian airports.

One of the trends observed by Sustainable Aero Lab’s study is precisely that – industry stakeholders, especially airlines, are becoming more active in the field. However, airlines competing to offer the lowest fares is a hurdle when it comes to introducing more SAF in aviation, Kaestner concedes.

More SAF quotas on the way

For all the publicity (and press release competition) it is getting, current SAF production accounts for less than 0.1% of global jet fuel consumption. Despite significant investments, scaling is still the biggest issue, Kaestner says, which is correlated to bringing down the cost.

“Cost of production and scaling is key. The price premium, especially for the years of scaling up production, will need to be, at least partially, matched, likely through political and corporate incentives. (…) I think we will see more governments and regulators adding quotas for SAF in the fuel mix, to drive the development of the market. “

Meanwhile, another major trend is a shift away from a focus on biofuels toward so-called e-fuels or synthetic fuels. The Power-to-Liquid (PtL) route does indeed show the promise of a truly circular system – CO2 is captured from the atmosphere and combined with green hydrogen and renewable electricity to create fuel.

However, the technology’s (sustainable) large-scale commercialization seems unrealistic before the end of the decade. While industry segments have set targets to provide enough emissions-free hydrogen for the proliferation of PtL, it is not entirely certain they will live up to it. Kaestner says,

“Direct air carbon capture technologies are not strategically taken into account at the moment. The technologies are still in early stages, especially when it comes to the question of scaling.”

Successful startups emerging from sessions

Since its first session in February 2021, Sustainable Aero Lab has supported 32 startups, connecting them to an impressive roster of industry mentors. During the Lab sessions, mentors and startups are mixed purposely, but then mentors are free to choose who they want to coach in between sessions.

Of particular note among the Lab’s alumni are Mobius.Energy, battery cell developers that just raised a further $ 50 million, and Airflow, developing electric short take-off and landing (eSTOL) cargo aircraft with Letters of Intent for over $ 600 million, including from FedEx.

A range of technologies for different mission capabilities

Aside from SAF, Sustainable Aero Lab has identified other technological trends that will propel aviation’s decarbonization process. These are hydrogen, electric flight, novel design, materials and processes, as well as operations. In terms of operational efficiency, the industry should look into more AI-based software solutions and data management to reduce congestion and unnecessary airway routing, Kaestner says.

“We do think that we will need all technologies currently in the discussion as parallel solutions to decarbonize aviation. Electric flight can be a game-changer for flying shortest distances, eVTOLs, etc, hydrogen for short and medium-haul aviation, whereas SAF will probably stay the method of choice for the long-haul market. Other technologies like solar propulsion, but also super high-density batteries, are still in the experimental stage and will likely not grow into concrete alternatives in the next 10-15 years. “

To discover more of what Sustainable Aviation Lab has to say about the future of the industry and about SAF in particular, register for the Sustainable Aviation Futures SAF Congress taking place on June 20 – 22. Find out more and get your tickets at safcongress.com .

What do you think the (sustainable) future of aviation will look like? Are there any exciting startups we should know about? Leave a comment below and share your ideas.

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