Near-zero environmental impact aircraft
The fundamental challenge facing today's aviation industry is to achieve net zero climate impacts while simultaneously sustaining growth and global connectivity. Aviation's impact on surface air quality, which is comparable to aviation's climate impact when monetized, further heighten...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Royal Society of Chemistry
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156731 |
| _version_ | 1811094817631895552 |
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| author | Prashanth, Prakash Elmourad, Jad Grobler, Carla Isaacs, Stewart Zahid, Syed Shayan Abel, James Falter, Christoph Fritz, Thibaud Allroggen, Florian Sabnis, Jayant S. Eastham, Sebastian D. Speth, Raymond L. Barrett, Steven R. H. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment Prashanth, Prakash Elmourad, Jad Grobler, Carla Isaacs, Stewart Zahid, Syed Shayan Abel, James Falter, Christoph Fritz, Thibaud Allroggen, Florian Sabnis, Jayant S. Eastham, Sebastian D. Speth, Raymond L. Barrett, Steven R. H. |
| author_sort | Prashanth, Prakash |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The fundamental challenge facing today's aviation industry is to achieve net zero climate impacts while simultaneously sustaining growth and global connectivity. Aviation's impact on surface air quality, which is comparable to aviation's climate impact when monetized, further heightens this challenge. Prior studies have proposed solutions that aim to mitigate either aviation's climate or air quality impacts. No previous work has proposed an aircraft-energy system that simultaneously addresses both aviation's climate and air quality impacts. In this paper we (1) use a multi-disciplinary design approach to optimize aircraft and propulsion systems, (2) estimate lifecycle costs and emissions of producing sustainable fuels including the embodied emissions associated with electricity generation and fuel production, (3) use trajectory optimization to quantify the fuel penalty to avoid persistent contrail formation based on a full year of global flight operations (including, for the first time, contrail avoidance for a hydrogen burning aircraft), and (4) quantify climate and air quality benefits of the proposed solutions using a simplified climate model and sensitivities derived from a global chemistry transport model. We propagate uncertainties in environmental impacts using a Monte-Carlo approach. We use these models to propose and analyze near-zero environmental impact aircraft, which we define as having net zero climate warming and a greater than 95% reduction in air quality impacts relative to present day. We contrast the environmental impacts of today's aircraft-energy system against one built around either “drop-in” fuels or hydrogen. We find that a “zero-impact” aircraft is possible using either hydrogen or power-to-liquid “drop-in” fuels. The proposed aircraft-energy systems reduce combined climate and air quality impacts by 99%, with fuel costs increasing by 40% for hydrogen and 70% for power-to-liquid fueled aircraft relative to today's fleet (i.e., within the range of historical jet fuel price variation). Beyond the specific case presented here, this work presents a framework for holistic analysis of future aviation systems that considers both climate and air quality impacts. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:05:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/156731 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:05:36Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Royal Society of Chemistry |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1567312024-09-14T03:04:30Z Near-zero environmental impact aircraft Prashanth, Prakash Elmourad, Jad Grobler, Carla Isaacs, Stewart Zahid, Syed Shayan Abel, James Falter, Christoph Fritz, Thibaud Allroggen, Florian Sabnis, Jayant S. Eastham, Sebastian D. Speth, Raymond L. Barrett, Steven R. H. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment The fundamental challenge facing today's aviation industry is to achieve net zero climate impacts while simultaneously sustaining growth and global connectivity. Aviation's impact on surface air quality, which is comparable to aviation's climate impact when monetized, further heightens this challenge. Prior studies have proposed solutions that aim to mitigate either aviation's climate or air quality impacts. No previous work has proposed an aircraft-energy system that simultaneously addresses both aviation's climate and air quality impacts. In this paper we (1) use a multi-disciplinary design approach to optimize aircraft and propulsion systems, (2) estimate lifecycle costs and emissions of producing sustainable fuels including the embodied emissions associated with electricity generation and fuel production, (3) use trajectory optimization to quantify the fuel penalty to avoid persistent contrail formation based on a full year of global flight operations (including, for the first time, contrail avoidance for a hydrogen burning aircraft), and (4) quantify climate and air quality benefits of the proposed solutions using a simplified climate model and sensitivities derived from a global chemistry transport model. We propagate uncertainties in environmental impacts using a Monte-Carlo approach. We use these models to propose and analyze near-zero environmental impact aircraft, which we define as having net zero climate warming and a greater than 95% reduction in air quality impacts relative to present day. We contrast the environmental impacts of today's aircraft-energy system against one built around either “drop-in” fuels or hydrogen. We find that a “zero-impact” aircraft is possible using either hydrogen or power-to-liquid “drop-in” fuels. The proposed aircraft-energy systems reduce combined climate and air quality impacts by 99%, with fuel costs increasing by 40% for hydrogen and 70% for power-to-liquid fueled aircraft relative to today's fleet (i.e., within the range of historical jet fuel price variation). Beyond the specific case presented here, this work presents a framework for holistic analysis of future aviation systems that considers both climate and air quality impacts. 2024-09-13T18:08:17Z 2024-09-13T18:08:17Z 2024-07-02 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2398-4902 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156731 Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2024 https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SE00419A Sustainable Energy & Fuels Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ application/pdf Royal Society of Chemistry Royal Society of Chemistry |
| spellingShingle | Prashanth, Prakash Elmourad, Jad Grobler, Carla Isaacs, Stewart Zahid, Syed Shayan Abel, James Falter, Christoph Fritz, Thibaud Allroggen, Florian Sabnis, Jayant S. Eastham, Sebastian D. Speth, Raymond L. Barrett, Steven R. H. Near-zero environmental impact aircraft |
| title | Near-zero environmental impact aircraft |
| title_full | Near-zero environmental impact aircraft |
| title_fullStr | Near-zero environmental impact aircraft |
| title_full_unstemmed | Near-zero environmental impact aircraft |
| title_short | Near-zero environmental impact aircraft |
| title_sort | near zero environmental impact aircraft |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156731 |
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