2023/04 LECTURE: Net Zero Fuels for Aviation: The Royal Society Report and Beyond

Royal Aeronautical Society Heathrow Branch April 2023 Lecture - "Net Zero Fuels for Aviation: The Royal Society Report and Beyond" by Dr Guy Gratton BEng(Hons) PhD Eur.Ing CEng FRAeS FIMechE AFSETP MSFTE, Associate Professor of Aviation and the Environment, Cranfield University ABSTRACT: In March 2023, the Royal Society launched its policy briefing document “Net Zero Aviation Fuels: resource requirements and environmental impacts”, which laid out the potential and requirements for aviation to change its fuel use in order to meet its future net zero climate impact commitments. The report explores resource availability challenges, as well as likely costs, life-cycle impacts, infrastructure requirements and outstanding research questions across four fuel types, green hydrogen, biofuels (energy crops and waste), ammonia and synthetic fuels (efuels), and warns there is no single, clear, sustainable alternative to jet fuel able to support flying on a scale equivalent to present day use. In this RAeS Heathrow Branch lecture, Dr Guy Gratton FRAeS, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, who was part of the leadership team for that report, will describe the report’s conclusions and implications for the aviation industry. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Dr Guy Gratton CEng FRAeS FIMechE is a professional pilot, engineer and researcher, with a background spanning military and civil aviation, environmental science, flight testing, and aerospace research. Now an Associate Professor of Aviation and the Environment, working within the Centre for Aeronautics at Cranfield University, he was previously Head of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science’s Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements; before that he was a lecturer at Brunel University London, Chief Technical Officer at the British Microlight Aircraft Association, and a Flight Test Engineer at MoD Boscombe Down. Dr Gratton has written books on flying, airworthiness, and engineering projects as well as 26 papers on aspects of aeronautics in academic journals. As a pilot, flight test engineer or mission scientist, Dr Gratton has flown over 2,100hrs in 115 aircraft types. In April 2022 he was the test pilot who made the first flight of the Sherwood eKub British all-electric microlight aeroplane from Little Snoring in Norfolk, which he continues to test fly; earlier in April 2010 he was the mission scientist on the first science flights into the volcanic ash cloud that closed British airspace. His doctorate is from the University of Southampton, in the development of new methods of airworthiness evaluation for aeroplanes. FOR UPCOMING EVENTS: visit http://tiny.cc/RAeSLHR​ or https://aerosociety.com/Heathrow