Full Title: Jumpstarting RD&D for Clean Aviation
Author(s): Alexander Laska
Publisher(s): Third Way
Publication Date: February 10, 2021
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Emissions from aviation have been accelerating over the past few years, a trend that is likely to continue once the industry comes back from the COVID-19 slowdown. While the aviation industry is expected to continue struggling financially through the early 2020s, we need to put the right policies and investments in place now to ensure the industry can come back stronger and more sustainable than it was before.
Reducing emissions from aviation will require a significant increase in the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), as well as adoption of new aircraft technologies to reduce fuel burn. Federal investment is critical to help research, develop, and deploy the clean fuels and technologies needed to put aviation on a lower-carbon trajectory.
This memo—the first in a series of papers focused on clean aviation—outlines the federal programs that have been most successful in researching and developing new SAF and clean aircraft technologies. Increased funding for these programs and, in some cases, additional direction from Congress will put aviation on a faster path to decarbonization.