Future Aviation Scenarios: Projected GHG Emissions and Technology use
Description
We have assembled a sample of 67 recent aviation decarbonization scenarios from 15 studies publicly issued between March 2021 and June 2023. Each of the 67 simulations under scrutiny reports: (i) the annual volume of projected GHG emissions by 2050 (in million tCO2/year), (ii) the volume of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) consumed by aviation that year (in ExaJoules) (iii) the projected size of the aviation market in 2050 (in Revenue Passenger Kilometer equivalent) (iv) the posited residual consumption of energy in the form of either hydrogen or electricity (in ExaJoules), and (v) the projected share of e-fuel in SAFs (a real number between 0 and 1). That dataset also include a group of seven dummy (aka binary) variables conveying further information on the assumptions retained in these scenarios. These binary indicators aim to correct the substantial differences prevailing in the assumptions and treatments conducted in the studies under scrutiny. The list includes a binary indicator signaling whether freight transportation is included or not; a variable indicating whether non-CO2 effects are accounted for in the projected GHG emissions; and a variable indicating a scenario with zero posited consumption of hydrogen or electricity (i.e., a zero value for the variable H2_Elec). In addition, we generate four specific dummy variables that indicate whether each scenario has been authored by a source from academia, industry, institution, or think-tank/NGO.
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Steps to reproduce
The data was assembled from a series of sources indicated in the dataset. Whenever needed, the raw data presented in unusual energy units (e.g., megatons or billion liters) are converted using the following conversion factors: Value Source Jet fuel density 0.81 kg∙L-1 (U.S. Department of Energy, 2020) Jet fuel specific energy 43 MJ∙kg-1 (U.S. Department of Energy, 2020) Hydrogen specific energy 120 MJ∙kg-1 (U.S. Department of Energy, 2023) Passenger mass (conversion from RTK and FTK to RPK equivalent) 100 kg/passenger (International Civil Aviation Organization, 2009)