A year of the Aviation Non-CO2 Programme
In 2023, the UK Government announced funding for fundamental and industrial research into aviation non-carbon dioxide (CO2) impacts. Adam Morton, Head of Technology – Sustainability & Strategy, considers the breadth of fundamental science work now underway as a result and the importance of cohesion between the two parts of the programme.
In October 2023, the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) and the Department for Transport (DfT) launched a programme for fundamental research into aviation’s non-carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The work was to be focused on technology readiness level (TRL) 1-4 and cover a broad range of emission types. This fundamental research programme complements the associated industrial arm launched by the ATI in March 2024. The ATI’s Non-CO2 Programme builds upon the fundamentals of the NERC programme, focusing on developing technologies and scaling up solutions for practical implementation.
By the end of 2024, ten projects had successfully applied for funding to NERC’s fundamental research programme with a total grant value of almost £8 million. Almost twenty different UK universities and research institutes are now collaborating on this important and timely work. Click here to view the projects.
To be eligible, applications were open to research groups and individuals focused on the science of aviation’s non-CO2 impacts. The potential scope was broad from the outset calling for insights into how of these emissions interact with climate over time, but also aiming to inform mitigation options or help formulate government policy. Collaboration across different universities and research institutes was positively encouraged. While only UK based research organisations were eligible to receive NERC funding, international collaboration was still possible for overseas participants bringing their own funding to the consortium. Recognising the urgency, suitable projects would start in 2024 and have a duration of no more than 24 months. To be successful projects had to align within at least one of the two NERC themes; Improving our understanding of aviation’s non-CO2 impacts and mitigating aviation’s non-CO2 impacts.
As expected given their potential climate impact and high uncertainties, there is strong representation in this cohort from contrail-focused projects. This ranges from projects aiming to better match contrails with the aircraft that generate them to understanding of how Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and hydrogen combustion influence their formation and impact. Another project aims to explore how radically different aircraft and propulsion architectures affect the total climate impact of future aircraft.
Encouragingly, NERC’s first tranche of non-CO2 projects also extend to other emission types further down the famous Lee et al Effective Radiative Forcing or ERF chart including NOx and wider aerosol atmospheric interactions.
The first ten NERC projects also demonstrate variety in other ways. The breadth of scientific approaches is extremely wide from complex modelling, satellite and land-based imagery to innovative lab, ground-based measurement techniques and even application of AI. A further ‘multi emission’ project is concerned with informing policy and regulation by helping to develop non-CO2 emission equivalent (CO2e) metrics.
Just twelve months after the NERC non-CO2 programme launch, we can see an almost complete suite of non-CO2 emissions under investigation, spread across all six strands of the eligibility criteria. Comparing the projects with the ATI’s own Non-CO2 emissions technology roadmap, the projects cover topics across all three ‘swim-lanes’ – Fuels, Aircraft Technologies and Modelling and Data. This finding may not be entirely coincidental since the ATI engaged closely with UK and international academia during the roadmap development – when NERC project participants were finalising their project scopes.
In 2025, the ATI will announce funding of our first Non-CO2 Programme applied technology projects delivered in partnership with the Department for Business and Trade and Innovate UK. With others following, we expect a level of industry-led innovation and variety, comparable with that already shown by the world-leading UK academic community in 2024 as the sectors work closely together to grow understanding and accelerate mitigations.