Massport is putting out incorrect information about Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs). The immense private jet hangar facility, proposed at Hanscom Field, is a climate disaster that must be stopped. Hanscom Field, a civilian airport, is owned and operated by Massport and is distinct from Hanscom Air Force Base, which focuses on research and development and has no airfield.
The most carbon-intensive form of travel per passenger is private jets. Moreover, they are most frequently used for leisure and convenience. Nothing can justify expanding this form of travel while we are in the midst of a climate crisis. For this reason, Massport and prospective developers have packaged their enormous 522,000 sf, highly-polluting proposal as a model of “sustainable aviation” to distract the public and policymakers.
Airports are claiming to be sustainable, but this refers solely to their buildings and infrastructure. However, buildings and infrastructure account for only 2% of the emissions generated at airports. Aircraft emissions constitute the remaining 98%. This is the case with Hanscom. Please take five minutes to watch this CBS segment on “How are airports ‘greenwashing’ their reputations”.
The CBS report further spotlights the hope and hype surrounding SAFs, which the prospective Hanscom developers enthusiastically tout, saying their new facility will promote SAFs. This claim is misleading on several counts. First, the word “promote” is an empty promise since, as the CBS report discloses, the FAA prohibits airports or airport facilities from requiring a specific type of fuel. Second, by the Hanscom developers’ own admission, “the aviation industry projects use of alternative/clean-fuel aircraft (i.e., electric or SAF) to be approximately 10 percent of aircraft by 2030” [Developers’ DEIR (Draft Environmental Impact Report), Section 3.1.3].
A January 8 webinar on SAFs, attended by nearly 200 participants statewide, reinforced these points. After examining several types of SAFs, independent analysts from MIT, World Resources Institute, and Institute for Policy Studies cautioned that while SAFs are technically feasible, it is not likely that they will be available at scale by 2050, the year that scientists say we must reach net zero to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
The trade-offs with SAF production at-scale are especially daunting. Crop-based SAFs would sabotage food production by hijacking arable land for jet fuel. For example, to reach the current US goal of 35 billion gallons of SAF in 2050 would require 114 million acres of corn—20 percent more than the current total land area of corn crops in the U.S. Meanwhile, synthetic SAFs for jets would put an enormous burden on the electric grid, competing with internet, AI, heat/AC, light and refrigeration.
Concerns about greenwashing were echoed by Hanscom-area Select Board members and our state legislators at the January 28 virtual HATS meeting (Hanscom Area Town Selectboards) with new Massport CEO Rich Davey.
Mark Sandeen, chair of HATS, stated that if the proposed private jet expansion were to go forward, the 75 or so additional private jets at the new facility would generate more emissions than all the houses and cars in Lexington, Bedford, Concord, and Lincoln combined: “You’re looking at a group of people here who dedicated decades of their lives to reducing the emissions of their towns, and to see one project wipe out any possibility of success… we don’t view that as small.”
Senator Barrett posited to Davey that “there is a sense in which you’re rolling out SAFs, I think, as a shield and in order to disarm us,” a point that Davey heatedly denied, referencing an SAF start-up in Charlestown in his defense. To this, Barrett replied: “We have lots of start-ups in Massachusetts that hope someday to cure cancer, and we certainly want to encourage them to try. But none of us go out and encourage our kids to smoke cigarettes because the cure is going to come in their lifetimes.”
Christopher Eliot, chair of HFAC (Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, representing the four Hanscom-area towns), added that after studying SAFs in “excruciating detail,” he doesn’t believe they have technical merit: “Each new version solves one problem and creates two others… They’re either going to blow out agriculture or blow out the electrical system.”
Speaking for many, Eliot shared this comment: “The only thing that’s acceptable to anybody… here is the status quo… there’s none who would have any tolerance for the expansion.”
Eliot’s view is shared by more than 14,000 people across the Commonwealth who have signed a petition urging Governor Healey to take all possible action to stop private jet expansion at Hanscom, or anywhere, because it is antithetical to Massachusetts’ efforts to rein in climate change.
Ross Littauer, MD
Physician, father, scientist, concerned citizen
“Sustainable aviation fuel” is a non sequitur. The fuel may be less dirty, but that’s all they can claim. It is not sustainable.