Is Rachel Reeves really correct that her new-found enthusiasm for a third runway at Heathrow would be consistent with the government’s net zero targets and other environmental policies? Over the weekend she argued that a third runway would be good for air quality over London because it would mean fewer planes circling over the capital. She also asserted that ‘sustainable aviation fuel is changing carbon emissions from flying’, and that ‘there’s huge investment going on in electric planes’.
It isn’t clear where Reeves sourced her evidence that a third runway could actually improve air quality, but that certainly wasn’t the conclusion of a 2017 study by consultants WSP commissioned by the Department of Transport. The study found that Britain could still conform with EU air quality targets by 2030 if a third runway was built, but the project would act as a drag anchor, countering the effect of improvements such as cleaner and efficient engines.
For a Boeing 777 attempting to cross the Atlantic, the batteries would weigh as much as the Eiffel Tower
What about sustainable airline fuel (SAF)? From this year – in accordance with the previous government’s Jet Zero strategy – airlines are under a mandate to use a minimum of two per cent SAF mixed in with normal jet fuel (kerosene). Like the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, this increases steadily to reach 10 per cent by 2030 and 22 per cent by 2040. SAF used under the mandate may be made from waste cooking oil, forestry residues, waste plastics which cannot be recycled, or it can be synthesised from carbon and hydrogen with the help of electricity from a low-carbon source. It is not allowed to be made from food crops, or grown on land which could be used for producing food.
The last of the allowable options – synthesised fuel – is going to be extremely expensive. UK engineering company Johnson Matthey, which is in the SAF business, estimates the cost could be up to seven times that of regular kerosene. As for the other options, it isn’t hard to spot the difficulties. There are only so many chip shops in the world, so that rather limits the potential for cheapest form of SAF: used cooking oil. As for making SAF from plastic waste, that might make environmental sense in that it reduces the amount of waste which has to be dumped in landfill sites. But it isn’t going to reduce carbon emissions, because plastic is a fossil fuel. Overall, the government’s mandate demands only that the SAF used in planes reduces carbon emissions by 40 percent relative to normal jet fuel – which would still leave the airline industry a long way from zero emissions, even if airlines were using 100 per cent SAF.
Electric planes? There are developments in this field. A Swedish company aims to put a 19-seat plane into service next year, flying short routes in Scandinavia. But the energy density of batteries available on current technology is not nearly high enough to allow the sort of planes which take off and land at Heathrow to be converted to electric power. According to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) the maximum distance that a 19-seat plane could possibly fly before needing to be recharged is 160 miles. As for a Boeing 777 attempting to cross the Atlantic, I have done the maths and worked out that the batteries would weigh about as much as the Eiffel Tower. It wouldn’t even get off the ground.
Reeves is fooling herself if she thinks that a third Heathrow runway would be consistent with the government’s net zero targets or that it would improve air quality. If she wants to defeat Ed Miliband in a Labour civil war over Heathrow she is going to have to go far further – and advocate that the net zero target itself be relaxed or abandoned.
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