Post-Petroleum Aviation: Can Airlines Survive Oil's Decline?

Something our research is looking at right now:  The teetering airline industry.  Looking around on the internet, few industries (save agriculture) are in a worse position right now to deal with a decline in oil production than aviation.  Jet-A1 kerosene (totally petroleum-based) makes up most of their fuel production.  Just to begin stepping away from this is a task that would make sweeping the Aegean Stables look like cleaning up a bit of spilled milk.  

According to aviation watchdog groups like the UK's Aviation Environment Group, biofuels are what airlines have tapped to produce the lion's share of future fuel, with a 30% share expected by 2030.  While this goal is admirable in its intention, AEG and other watchdog groups say that this is nothing more than a misguided attempt by the industry to maintain themselves in the increasing pressure of a Green Economy.  

Estimates put forth by AEG in "Bio-Fueled or Bio-Fooled" (Google it; it's worth a read) indicate that to replace all of the fuel used in the aviation industry today - and please keep in mind, that's assuming NO change in demand, for better or worse - it would take 1.4 billion hectares of land.  To put in in slightly plainer language, that is more than 5.4 million square miles; that is more than half the size of the entire land mass of the continent of North America.  The land that we are talking about would, of course, take the place of farm land, thus driving up food costs considerably; therefore, in the view of many practitioners and planners like myself and my colleagues, bio-fuels truly are simply a band-aid fix.

Also mentioned prominently is the Gas-to-Liquid method that coal and natural gas companies are pushing, in the hopes that they can stop their slide into irrelevance.  They point out that the Fischer-Tropsch method harnessed by Hitler's war machine in Nazi Germany is a proven product that could replace a large percentage of oil as a liquid fuel.  What they don't mention is the inconvenient little fact that switching over to a GTL fuel majority share would lead to an approximately 80% increase in greenhouse gas emissions, as noted by a study at Princeton University in 2006.  I don't think that I need to point out that an 80% increase in greenhouse gas emissions is not a good thing, even if it does let us take that nonstop flight from Miami to London.

The question, of course, is what direction does the airline industry take to alleviate its fuel concerns?  Well, the answer is that, short of minimizing service and flying smaller, more fuel efficient aircraft, there is no answer.  In the future, our scenario construction sees the entire process of air travel dwindling down to a minimal level.  Ships once ruled the oceans; and we see them doing so again.  Examples of solar sails (www.solarsailor.com) and even regular old cloth sail ships returning are starting to show up.  Other alternatives, especially in regional travel, are the upcoming high-speed rail lines and corridors linking important areas around the country.

Ultimately, a scaled-down version of the airline system currently in place will most likely come to pass.  Because of their large, powerful lobby and the fact that the world has yet to begin the slowdown process that we hope will ultimately save us, airlines will continue to be a factor in transportation.  It bears reminding, however, that this industry is one major fuel crisis away from complete disaster.