Still think jet fuel is the wrong thing to be looking at with carbon fuel emissions.

It is technically more feasible on a small scale because jet (and turbine) engines will burn basically anything, with jet fuel being a mixture of kerosene like hydrocarbons.

But iirc both land vehicle and shipping outclass airplanes in total emissions.

Cars & Trucks can be (for much cheaper) replaced by proper mass transit like high speed rail.

And I'm surprised cargo ships still run mostly on novelty sized diesel engines. Would be interesting to throw a small ultra safe nuclear powered engine on one of those or even just enforcing better fuel use instead of spamming low grade MDO.

The capitalists never quit trying to kill their children.

Hear me out: Nuclear airplanes.

It works for the submarines. Think of the pros:

• Full power electric outlets at every seat instead of that bullcrap they have today
• Flight attendants can easily be trained as Nuclear Physicists
• If a meltdown does occur, it might very well recreate the entire plot of Donnie Darko.

Yeah, switching to LTA craft with solar panels and batteries is way more feasible

The real question is whether sustainable jet fuel can melt steel beams.

Combustion is the breaking of carbon bonds to bond with oxygen, producing carbon dioxide and monoxide. There is no carbon based fuel that isnt 1:1 for energy released vs GHG emitted. Making fuels from plant mass doesnt change that.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Hopes that replacement fuels for airplanes will slash carbon pollution are misguided and support for these alternatives could even worsen the climate crisis, a new report has warned.

There is currently “no realistic or scalable alternative” to standard kerosene-based jet fuels, and touted “sustainable aviation fuels” are well off track to replace them in a timeframe needed to avert dangerous climate change, despite public subsidies, the report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive thinktank, found.

Chuck Collins, co-author of the report, said: “To bring these fuels to the scale needed would require massive subsidies, the trade-offs would be unacceptable and would take resources aware from more urgent decarbonization priorities.

But the new Institute for Policy Studies report argues that the airline industry has missed previous goals to ramp up sustainable aviation production and that boosting use of the fuel source may even damage the environment and global climate targets.

“Agricultural land use changes could threaten global food security as well as nature-based carbon sequestration solutions such as the preservation of forests and wetlands,” the report states.

Large commercial airliners cannot be outfitted with batteries, unlike cars, due to their weight, while progress in other fuel forms, such as hydrogen, has been complicated.

The original article contains 692 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

The report just says not to divert funding from other projects to SAF, that's pretty reasonable and expected really - At some point it might change but at the moment there are better things to spend the money snd resources on.

When the grid is green snd there is no shortage of demand even with electric cars, boats, and heating factored in then hopefully saf will have matured enough to help complete the final transition from fossil fuel or even better electric planes will take over.

Regardless the big powers will continue to research the chemistry and engineering side of SAF because it's important for space based infrastructure, no fossils in space to power the return trip.