Principal Investigator Sergey Paltsev
Co-investigator Steven Barrett
Project Website http://globalchange.mit.edu/research/projects/FAA-JetFuels
Alternative jet fuels hold the promise of energy supply diversification in the face of rising oil prices. In addition, alternative fuels may reduce environmental impact from aviation-related combustion emissions. The focus of Project 28 is on the creation and use of an aviation-specific life-cycle analysis framework to assess the alternative fuel environmental impacts from "well-to-wake", building on existing well-to-tank and tank-to-wake methodologies. Analyses will include examining traditional kerosene fuels from conventional and unconventional petroleum resources; hydrocarbon fuels derived from fossil fuels such as oil sands and oil shale; synthetic liquid fuels manufactured from coal, biomass, or natural gas; and hydroprocessed renewable jet fuel made from renewable oil resources such as algae and halophytes.
The evaluation will include the full chain of use, from initial energy harvesting/resource extraction, to production and transportation, to use by the aviation industry, to end-of-use and disposal issues. Project 28 will consider health, welfare, and ecological impacts, including effects related to changes in non-renewable resource use, air quality, and global climate change. This work is expanding upon PARTNER Project 17 (resulting in a PARTNER-RAND alternative fuels report) that studies the economic and policy aspects of adopting alternative jet fuels.
The broad Project 28 objective is to evaluate the relative environmental impacts of multiple potential alternative aviation fuels that are compatible with existing aircraft and infrastructure. Analyses will include examining traditional kerosene fuels from conventional and unconventional petroleum resources; hydrocarbon fuels derived from fossil fuels such as oil sands and oil shale; synthetic liquid fuels manufactured from coal, biomass, or natural gas; and biojet made from first and second generation biomass. Biojet is an oxygen-free hydrocarbon fuel that is derived from renewable oil resources.