At the Farnborough International Airshow, Airbus and seven airlines signed letters of intent (LOI) to explore opportunities for future carbon dioxide removal credits from direct air capture technology. Air Canada, Air France-KLM, EasyJet, International Airlines Group (IAG), LATAM, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic signed the documents and plan to be part of the initiative.
Based on the agreements, the companies committed to start negotiations on the possible pre-purchase of verified and durable carbon offset credits, starting in 2025 and ending in 2028. The company 1PointFive, which specializes in the activity and is an Airbus partner, will issue the credits. Its partnership with the manufacturer includes the purchase of 400.000 tons of credits to be delivered over four years. The process will also involve the Canadian company Carbon Engineering, which is dedicated to the development of carbon capture tools as well.
Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) involves the filtration and removal of carbon dioxide through the use of high-powered fans. Once removed from the air, the gas is stored safely and permanently in geological reservoirs.
Nowadays, there is no technology capable of containing aviation emissions at its source. For this reason, direct capture and storage would make it possible to extract the equivalent amount of emissions produced by operations.
Thus, the solution is offered as a viable complement to others already available. These include, most notably, the use of increasing proportions of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). However, the production and access to this type of fuels is still incipient. Therefore, the implementation of measures to offset emissions that cannot be eliminated directly is important.
There is no single measure sufficient by itself to significantly reduce the environmental impact of aviation. In this sense, the industry trend is to advance in the combination of available initiatives. New technologies have a leading role to play in that path.
“These first letters of intent mark a concrete step towards the use of this promising technology for both Airbus’ own decarbonisation plan and the aviation sector’s ambition to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050”, commented Julie Kitcher, Executive VP of Communications and Corporate Affairs at Airbus.
For his part, Michael Avery, President of 1PointFive, emphasized that “carbon removal credits from direct air capture offer a practical, near-term and lower cost pathway that enables the aviation industry to advance its decarbonisation goals”.
See also: Embraer displayed the cabin of its eVTOL Eve at Farnborough 2022
