IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-35392-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding variability in petroleum jet fuel life cycle greenhouse gas emissions to inform aviation decarbonization

Author

Listed:
  • Liang Jing

    (University of Calgary
    Aramco Americas)

  • Hassan M. El-Houjeiri

    (Technology Strategy and Planning, Saudi Aramco)

  • Jean-Christophe Monfort

    (Technology Strategy and Planning, Saudi Aramco)

  • James Littlefield

    (Aramco Americas)

  • Amjaad Al-Qahtani

    (Technology Strategy and Planning, Saudi Aramco)

  • Yash Dixit

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Raymond L. Speth

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Adam R. Brandt

    (Stanford University)

  • Mohammad S. Masnadi

    (University of Pittsburgh)

  • Heather L. MacLean

    (University of Toronto)

  • William Peltier

    (Downstream Advisors, Inc.)

  • Deborah Gordon

    (Brown University, Providence, RI, USA and RMI)

  • Joule A. Bergerson

    (University of Calgary)

Abstract

A pressing challenge facing the aviation industry is to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the face of increasing demand for aviation fuels. Climate goals such as carbon-neutral growth from 2020 onwards require continuous improvements in technology, operations, infrastructure, and most importantly, reductions in aviation fuel life cycle emissions. The Carbon Offsetting Scheme for International Aviation of the International Civil Aviation Organization provides a global market-based measure to group all possible emissions reduction measures into a joint program. Using a bottom-up, engineering-based modeling approach, this study provides the first estimates of life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum jet fuel on regional and global scales. Here we show that not all petroleum jet fuels are the same as the country-level life cycle emissions of petroleum jet fuels range from 81.1 to 94.8 gCO2e MJ−1, with a global volume-weighted average of 88.7 gCO2e MJ−1. These findings provide a high-resolution baseline against which sustainable aviation fuel and other emissions reduction opportunities can be prioritized to achieve greater emissions reductions faster.

Suggested Citation

  • Liang Jing & Hassan M. El-Houjeiri & Jean-Christophe Monfort & James Littlefield & Amjaad Al-Qahtani & Yash Dixit & Raymond L. Speth & Adam R. Brandt & Mohammad S. Masnadi & Heather L. MacLean & Willi, 2022. "Understanding variability in petroleum jet fuel life cycle greenhouse gas emissions to inform aviation decarbonization," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-35392-1
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35392-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35392-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-35392-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mohammad S. Masnadi & Giacomo Benini & Hassan M. El-Houjeiri & Alice Milivinti & James E. Anderson & Timothy J. Wallington & Robert Kleine & Valerio Dotti & Patrick Jochem & Adam R. Brandt, 2021. "Carbon implications of marginal oils from market-derived demand shocks," Nature, Nature, vol. 599(7883), pages 80-84, November.
    2. Shakerian, Farid & Kim, Ki-Hyun & Szulejko, Jan E. & Park, Jae-Woo, 2015. "A comparative review between amines and ammonia as sorptive media for post-combustion CO2 capture," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 10-22.
    3. Liang Jing & Hassan M. El-Houjeiri & Jean-Christophe Monfort & Adam R. Brandt & Mohammad S. Masnadi & Deborah Gordon & Joule A. Bergerson, 2020. "Carbon intensity of global crude oil refining and mitigation potential," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 10(6), pages 526-532, June.
    4. Zhou, Wenji & Wang, Tao & Yu, Yadong & Chen, Dingjiang & Zhu, Bing, 2016. "Scenario analysis of CO2 emissions from China’s civil aviation industry through 2030," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 100-108.
    5. Rahman, Md. Mustafizur & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Well-to-wheel life cycle assessment of transportation fuels derived from different North American conventional crudes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 159-173.
    6. Ahmad, Salman & Ouenniche, Jamal & Kolosz, Ben W. & Greening, Philip & Andresen, John M. & Maroto-Valer, M. Mercedes & Xu, Bing, 2021. "A stakeholders’ participatory approach to multi-criteria assessment of sustainable aviation fuels production pathways," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    7. Nimana, Balwinder & Canter, Christina & Kumar, Amit, 2015. "Life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from Canada's oil sands-derived transportation fuels," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 544-554.
    8. Chiaramonti, David & Talluri, Giacomo & Scarlat, Nicolae & Prussi, Matteo, 2021. "The challenge of forecasting the role of biofuel in EU transport decarbonisation at 2050: A meta-analysis review of published scenarios," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Staples, Mark D. & Malina, Robert & Suresh, Pooja & Hileman, James I. & Barrett, Steven R.H., 2018. "Aviation CO2 emissions reductions from the use of alternative jet fuels," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 342-354.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eaton, Jacob & Naraghi, Mohammad & Boyd, James G., 2024. "Regional pathways for all-electric aircraft to reduce aviation sector greenhouse gas emissions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 373(C).
    2. Raji, Abdulwasiu Muhammed & Manescau, Brady & Chetehouna, Khaled & Ekomy Ango, Serge & Ogabi, Raphael, 2025. "Performance and spray characteristics of fossil JET A-1 and bioJET fuel: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    3. Adrian Odenweller & Falko Ueckerdt, 2025. "The green hydrogen ambition and implementation gap," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 110-123, January.
    4. Kinene, Alan & Birolini, Sebastian, 2024. "Optimization of subsidized air transport networks using electric aircraft," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    5. He, Xin & Wang, Ning & Zhou, Qiaoqiao & Huang, Jun & Ramakrishna, Seeram & Li, Fanghua, 2024. "Smart aviation biofuel energy system coupling with machine learning technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alejandro Ortega & Konstantinos Gkoumas & Anastasios Tsakalidis & Ferenc Pekár, 2021. "Low-Emission Alternative Energy for Transport in the EU: State of Play of Research and Innovation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-22, November.
    2. Di Lullo, Giovanni & Zhang, Hao & Kumar, Amit, 2017. "Uncertainty in well-to-tank with combustion greenhouse gas emissions of transportation fuels derived from North American crudes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 475-486.
    3. Giacomo Benini & Adam Brandt & Valerio Dotti & Hassan El-Houjeiri, 2023. "The Economic and Environmental Consequences of the Petroleum Industry Extensive Margin," Working Papers 2023:14, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    4. Prussi, M. & Weindorf, W. & Buffi, M. & Sánchez López, J. & Scarlat, N., 2021. "Are algae ready to take off? GHG emission savings of algae-to-kerosene production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    5. Sapkota, Krishna & Gemechu, Eskinder & Oni, Abayomi Olufemi & Ma, Linwei & Kumar, Amit, 2022. "Greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian oil sands supply chains to China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    6. Zhang, Xiaowen & Zhang, Rui & Liu, Helei & Gao, Hongxia & Liang, Zhiwu, 2018. "Evaluating CO2 desorption performance in CO2-loaded aqueous tri-solvent blend amines with and without solid acid catalysts," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 417-429.
    7. You, Junyu & Ampomah, William & Sun, Qian, 2020. "Co-optimizing water-alternating-carbon dioxide injection projects using a machine learning assisted computational framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    8. Stephany Isabel Vallarta-Serrano & Ana Bricia Galindo-Muro & Riccardo Cespi & Rogelio Bustamante-Bello, 2023. "Analysis of GHG Emission from Cargo Vehicles in Megacities: The Case of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-19, June.
    9. Muhammad Asif & Muhammad Suleman & Ihtishamul Haq & Syed Asad Jamal, 2018. "Post‐combustion CO2 capture with chemical absorption and hybrid system: current status and challenges," Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 8(6), pages 998-1031, December.
    10. Wang, Fu & Zhao, Jun & Zhang, Houcheng & Miao, He & Zhao, Jiapei & Wang, Jiatang & Yuan, Jinliang & Yan, Jinyue, 2018. "Efficiency evaluation of a coal-fired power plant integrated with chilled ammonia process using an absorption refrigerator," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 230(C), pages 267-276.
    11. Clement Moyo & Izunna Anyikwa & Andrew Phiri, 2023. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Oil Market Returns: Has Market Efficiency Being Violated?," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(1), pages 118-127, January.
    12. Chen, Dan & Yin, Jianan & Xu, Feng & Huang, Chen & Li, Ziyu, 2023. "A market-based framework for CO2 emissions reduction in China's civil aviation industry," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 150-158.
    13. Chen, Zi-yue & Nie, Pu-yan, 2016. "Effects of carbon tax on social welfare: A case study of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1607-1615.
    14. Chu, Fengming & Yang, Lijun & Du, Xiaoze & Yang, Yongping, 2017. "Mass transfer and energy consumption for CO2 absorption by ammonia solution in bubble column," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 1068-1080.
    15. Neves, Renato Cruz & Klein, Bruno Colling & da Silva, Ricardo Justino & Rezende, Mylene Cristina Alves Ferreira & Funke, Axel & Olivarez-Gómez, Edgardo & Bonomi, Antonio & Maciel-Filho, Rubens, 2020. "A vision on biomass-to-liquids (BTL) thermochemical routes in integrated sugarcane biorefineries for biojet fuel production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    16. Liu, Xiao & Zhou, Dequn & Zhou, Peng & Wang, Qunwei, 2017. "What drives CO2 emissions from China’s civil aviation? An exploration using a new generalized PDA method," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 30-45.
    17. Gan, Yu & Wang, Michael & Lu, Zifeng & Kelly, Jarod, 2021. "Taking into account greenhouse gas emissions of electric vehicles for transportation de-carbonization," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    18. Ming Zhang & Qianwen Huang & Sihan Liu & Huiying Li, 2019. "Multi-Objective Optimization of Aircraft Taxiing on the Airport Surface with Consideration to Taxiing Conflicts and the Airport Environment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-27, November.
    19. Siddiqui, O. & Dincer, I., 2021. "A comparative life cycle assessment of clean aviation fuels," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    20. Orsi, Francesco & Muratori, Matteo & Rocco, Matteo & Colombo, Emanuela & Rizzoni, Giorgio, 2016. "A multi-dimensional well-to-wheels analysis of passenger vehicles in different regions: Primary energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic cost," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 197-209.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-35392-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.