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As we gear up for yet another hectic holiday season, more and more people are going to be traveling—with roughly half of them opting to fly to their destinations. That also means we’re going to see yet another spike in carbon emissions due to airplanes. One estimate from The Guardian found that taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than a single person would create in an entire year.
However, new research from Arizona State University offers a glimmer of holiday hope: decarbonizing the U.S. air industry is a whole lot easier than we think.
A new study published Nov. 14 in the journal Nature Sustainability found that we can drastically cut carbon emissions in airplanes by replacing conventional jet fuel with biofuels, which are made of renewable, biological matter like plants. Specifically, it would be derived from a grass called miscanthus that would be grown on 23.2 million hectares of under-utilized farm land—providing enough biofuel for the entire U.S. aviation industry.
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