Take Green Fuel to the Skies

Food waste, cooking oil and landfill debris will power our future air travel.

Steve Burgess

MY BROTHER IS GETTING married this summer. The wedding is in Peterborough, Ontario, and I live in Vancouver. So am I going? I want to be there for him, but these days I always think twice about jetting off. I’m the author of a new book about the environmental impacts of air travel. While researching, I came across some troubling facts: aviation fuel, which is refined from crude oil, makes up two to three per cent of global CO₂ emissions. Atmospheric interactions at high altitude mean its impact on global warming is higher still, accounting for about four per cent. In 2022, humanity burned through 4.8 million barrels of jet fuel per day; after the pandemic, when globetrotters ran wild, that number grew to around 5.6 million barrels. A person…

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Maclean's (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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