 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back and buckle up for the second installment of our three-part briefing mini-series about the transportation sector and climate change. Today, we take to the skies and discuss, after COVID, a lower carbon future for commercial aviation. I'm Dan Versette, the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. EESI was founded in 1984 on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress to provide science-based information about environmental, energy, and climate change policies to policymakers. We have also developed a program to provide technical systems to rural utilities interested in on-bill financing programs for their customers. We hold many briefings, lately all online, but that is only one way we reach and educate congressional staff and other stakeholders. We also do a lot of writing, articles, fact sheets, and reports. Of course, everything we produce is available online at www.eesi.org. And if you're interested in an environmental, energy, and climate change topic, I think the odds are pretty good that EESI has covered it at some point. I mentioned the writing part of our work, because about a year ago, we released one of our best, a stratospherically popular fact sheet, The Growth in Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Commercial Aviation. The author is Jeff Overton, a fellow with EESI and my co-moderator for today. I encourage everyone to check it out. It's a great fact sheet, chocked full of information. Commercial aviation and the contribution of air travel to greenhouse gas emissions is a critical topic. It is such a feature of the modern world, at least when travel is allowed, and its future is captivating. New fuels, new propulsion technologies, and new sources of efficiency on the ground and from air traffic control. I will leave the rest of the discussion to our panel. And our panel is really tremendous, and I'm also very pleased that we have a first-class guest joining us today, Representative Julia Brownlee, who represents California's 26th congressional district in the House of Representatives. In addition to Representative Brownlee's commitment to ensuring access to mental and physical healthcare for U.S. service members, veterans, and their families, she is also a climate change leader. Representative Brownlee is a member of the subcommittees on aviation and highways and transit of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as well as the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. The Select Committee, you will likely recall, issued a comprehensive set of climate change policy findings and recommendations back in June. ESI also hosted a special briefing on that report, and that is, of course, available for viewing on our website, www.esi. Good afternoon. I'm Congresswoman Julia Brownlee, representing the 26th congressional district in Ventura County, California. I want to thank ESI, including Daniel Bresset and Anna McGinn, for inviting me to provide remarks for today's briefing on a lower carbon future for commercial aviation. As a member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, I believe that Congress must do more to help decarbonize the transportation sector, including the aviation industry. As you may know, aviation-related emissions currently account for 2.6% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and 9% of emissions by the U.S. transportation sector. While decarbonization of surface transportation modes is focused heavily on electrification and fuel cell technology, the development of such technology in the aviation industry is just beginning. So in the near term, the aviation sector will continue to be reliant on liquid fuels. Fortunately, there is a proven technology on the market today that can significantly reduce aviation emissions, sustainable aviation fuel. Sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is a fuel that can be blended with traditional jet fuel and be used in existing aircraft engines. SAF is already certified by regulators to meet aviation safety requirements. In fact, since 2011, more than 200,000 flights have used sustainable aviation fuel, so we know it works. And we know that SAF can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% compared to fossil jet fuel. Unfortunately, commercial scale production of SAF is only beginning. In my view, the SAF market needs a significant jumpstart from policymakers if commercial production is going to ramp up fast enough to meet the ambitious climate change goals set forth in the select committees recently released blueprint for climate action. That is why this week I was proud to introduce the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act, which is a bill intended to tackle challenges in the marketplace and boost SAF production from multiple angles. My bill includes a tax credit for the production of SAF that increases based upon the emissions reduction it achieves, thereby incentivizing the most sustainable fuels. The bill would authorize a billion dollars over five years in competitive grants and cost sharing agreements for the production, transportation, lending, or storage of SAF. My bill also authorizes additional research dollars to further help the aviation industry decarbonize and strive towards a zero emission goal. Finally, the bill would elevate California's low carbon fuel standard to the national level for the aviation sector. California's success with its low carbon fuel standard shows that implementing a national standard could be a major step in achieving deep, long-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from fuels. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to provide remarks today and to let you know about my new SAF bill. If you're interested in more details or want to share feedback, please reach out to me or my legislative assistant, David Skutt. Thank you again to EESI for organizing today's briefing. Great, well, thank you so much for joining us today, Representative Brownlee. And congratulations on your bill introduction and thanks to you and your staff for your leadership on climate change issues in Congress. And I'll echo what you said special thanks to David on your staff for his assistance as we plan today's briefing. So thank you all. Before I introduce our other panelists, I have two announcements to help make our trip a little more comfortable. First, this is the second of a three-part mini series this week, second installment of a three-part mini series this week. Yesterday, we heard from three practitioners from Washington State and Maryland about efforts to improve resilience at port facilities. And tomorrow, at this same time, we will have a roundtable discussion with representatives from three leading transportation authorities about public transit. I hope you'll be able to join us for the entire mini series and join our Club of Frequent Viewers. And number two, let me explain how you can ask questions. We are not in person today. So if you have a question, you have two options to ask it. You can send us a message on Twitter. You can follow us at EESI online or you can send an email to EESI at EESI.org. We will do our best to get to everyone's questions during our question and answer period after our second briefing, second panelist, excuse me. And now on to our panelists. And it is my privilege to introduce them. First, we will hear from Chris Tyndall. Chris is the Assistant Director for the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative or CATHY. And the goal of CATHY is to promote the development and commercialization of alternative jet fuel options that offer equivalent levels of safety and compare favorably on costs with petroleum-based jet fuel while also offering environmental improvement and security of energy supply for aviation. He helps manage the coalition of CATHY stakeholders and provide leadership and strategic guidance to its state and regional programs, the federal government's interagency initiatives, airport authorities, international initiatives consistent with CATHY principles. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today for this really cool briefing. Well, thank you very much for the introduction, Dan. I really am very honored to be on this panel with Barbara Esker. And I really do appreciate everything that EESI has been doing. And of course, Representative Brownlee is instrumental in actually introducing this SAF Act. And she mentioned, you know, David Scott, we were actually working with him in helping with, you know, the whole verbiage, I guess you could say, of the bill. He just basically was asking us some very important questions within the CATHY perspective, so across the board. Well, what I'd like to do now is I'll go ahead and jump into my presentation if that's okay. And I will, again, very, very honored to be a part of this. And I really do appreciate being able to share with you a lot of things about the sustainable aviation fuel and the overall market. So I wanted to share this picture with you. It's from March of 2016. And this was our first flight of continuous commercial production of SAF in actual use. So United Airlines actually went into a contract, an off-take contract with World Energy. And they're the ones who are supplying it on a continual basis to the United Airlines. And this goes to Los Angeles Airport. So I want to tell you that if you have since 2016 flown through LAX, you've been flying on sustainable aviation fuels because the storage tanks there are just for all the airlines. And even though United Airlines is the one who actually purchased it, it goes into the hydrant system and the tanks. And so every airline that's using that is actually gonna be using that fuel. So let me tell you briefly a little bit about CAFE. We are a public private partnership and we are actual sponsored by FAA and the Aerospace Industries Association, the Airports Council International for North America and also Airlines for America. And so we're basically out there to try to get the promotion of the sustainable aviation fuel at a commercial scale. And so we're out there promoting it and we're working across the whole supply value chain from feedstocks all the way to the end users as well too. So this is a very important slide to look at with this chart. We have three basic goals that were sort of underneath the carbon offsetting reduction scheme for international aviation that the international civil aviation organization has put out. The first goal was mainly to be more efficient and that goal was a 1.5% efficiency. And so you can see how those annual efficiencies have actually been able to lower the line on our carbon emissions. The second goal is to be carbon neutral growth in 2020. And then the third goal is to be 50% less carbon emissions in 2050 compared to a baseline of 2005. Now I wanna point out to you in the light blue area on the lower right side of the screen is basically where those reductions are mainly gonna be coming from radical new technologies and sustainable aviation fuel. So Barbara is gonna be talking a lot about some of these radical new technologies and then I'm gonna be talking about the sustainable aviation alternative fuels as well too. So just very briefly telling you a little bit about what SAF really is. It comes in a lot of different terminologies. You've got aviation biofuel, bioget, alternative aviation fuel but basically the aviation fuel is the jet fuel that meets the ASTN, the American Society of Testing Materials standards. This one D1655, that's for aviation turbine fuel. And then when we talk about the sustainability it addresses the greenhouse gas reductions across the board and how we get there. The synthetic hydrocarbons, the synthetic jet fuel is basically coming from many different biochemical and thermochemical processes. And I like to say that sustainable aviation fuel is just like traditional jet fuel instead of coming from dead dinosaurs, it's coming from things like waste oils and fats and greases and beef tallow and things like that. Even purpose grown oil seed crops and in some cases municipal solid waste. So that's very, that obviously can be very, very sustainable across the board. So from the technical aspect, we do have seven different approved pathways. Right now through ASTM, we have about six of those pathways that are in process at different stages from tier one to tier four. And then we have others outside of the pipeline that will be getting into the pipeline soon, more than 15 different ones. So as we continue to open the aperture to more and more types of pathways, that's a very, very big aspect that we want to push forward. So the major sustainable feedstocks that are out there, obviously we have the oil lipids that I was mentioning, the fats, oils and greases, you've got sugars, you even have the municipal solid waste that I was mentioning to you. And these conversion processes are both thermochemical and biochemical across the board. But the important thing to remember too, that sustainable aviation fuel is a drop-in replacement fuel. It can be mixed in with regular traditional jet fuel. It is not an additive. In these particular pathways, they've been approved up to a 50-50 blend. So we can do 50% fossil and then 50% of the sustainable aviation fuel. And the majority of those pathways across the board. So we are continuing to streamline the overall qualification for the time and the money that it takes as well as the methods. So hopefully we'll be able to get more and more of these pathways into process. So where we stand right now, we've been doing this since around 2006 or seven. And so it's not been that long that we've been actually been on this road. And so a lot of government has been doing some things. And then as I mentioned to you in March of 2016 is when the commercial airlines started to use it. And business aviation is also, general aviation is also very much engaged across the board. So the majority, we have two facilities that are in operation. One is out in California, the one that World Energy that I was mentioning to you. And then we have two facilities under construction, one out of Reno, Nevada and one up in Oregon. And so those will be using the municipal solid waste for a feedstock and also wood waste for a feedstock and turning that into jet fuel. So the important thing to remember though is even though we have a very small amount of production, we have a lot of demand. So we have over $6.5 billion in airline offtake commitments for over 350 million gallons per year with more in development across the board. So what I'm gonna do is tell you a little bit about that capacity forecast that we have that's out there. So you can see where things are and where they're going to be. Here in 2020, we assume that we're gonna have around 59 million and these are all pre-COVID numbers. But the important aspect is even though we do have this pandemic, we have not had any reduction in the amount of work that CAFE has been doing in trying to get these fuels to market. And we have, and it is across the supply value chain too. All the way from the feedstocks to the end users, we still have people out there still wanting that across the board, so that's a good thing. So by 2025, you can see we'll have over a billion gallons per year of production because each of these years are cumulative. As you can see all the different things that are actually happening. So that one billion gallons though is only about 1%, a little bit less than 1% of the total global production that's out there. We use about 96 billion gallons per year. Again, this is a pre-COVID number, 96 billion gallons per year in sustainable, I'm sorry, in traditional jet fuel. So one billion is a little bit, right around 1%. So let me take you through very quickly through some of these offtake agreements that are out there. World Energy as I mentioned to you is one of the major ones that's out there producing it. And you can see all the different partners from United Airlines and then on general aviation with Gulfstream, et cetera. And I wanna point out too that this is not just domestic in the United States, but this is a worldwide effort. So you have some offtake agreements with Air France and Finair and SAS and La Fonza. So you have a lot of those. Now I'm just gonna, without actually reading to you on all of these, I just wanted to show you that we have a number of different pages where we are showing all of these different types of offtake agreements that we have out there. Nestay is another major producer. Porvoo in Finland is the one where they right now have a 34 million gallon per year capacity, but they're increasing that both in their Rotterdam and then also in their Singapore plant. And you can see down there at the bottom that they will have about 480 million gallons per year of production by 2023 is what's on the forecast right now. And then here's some more with Jivo. Jivo is using an alcohol to jet pathway where they're actually using some ethanol for approaches to getting to the sustainable aviation fuel. Fulcrum bioenergy is one of those plants. This is a plant that's using the municipal solid waste out there right outside of Reno, Nevada. And so they'll be producing right around 11 million gallons per year. But then they also plan on opening up other facilities in the Chicago land area and Houston, Texas and other places. So they have about five different areas lined out right now. And they're also looking at overseas and doing developments in Australia and other places as well too. So that's very, very encouraging. Red rock, the one there at the top, that's the one that's that again, they're using the wood waste and they plan on having about the same about 11 million gallons per year of production. And then down at the very bottom, Lanz Attack and Lanzadjet, they're out there and they're planning to have 100 million gallons per year of production by 2024 from four different facilities. Again, just wanted to highlight the fact that there is a lot of international aspects to this with QANUS and KLM and ANA and others across the board. So here we're already at page six and we're continuing to go with these offtake agreements. But we also have other airline commitments of greater ambition from FedEx and QANUS and FinAir. And a lot of these are using the commitments of having a net zero carbon by 2050. And that's what they're mainly pushing and looking for. There is some pressure to maybe get some more progress by 2035 across the board as well too. By the way, in case you're trying to take all these notes with all of the wording here, we will be offering these slides after the presentation too. So more commandments of greater ambition. In this case, we're actually asking or these airlines have asked the passengers to help to offset the cost of the sustainable aviation fuel because admittedly there are a little bit more than the traditional jet fuel right now. Supply and demand when you have a lot of demand but very little supply then the prices are gonna be a little bit higher. Plus we're still going through a lot of research and development and trying to lower the cost across the board. So in this case though, airlines like Lufsonza and SAS, they're actually have an option to pay for an incremental price of the SAS in different aspects. So you can see where they're getting the flying public involved in that as well too. And for the most part, a lot of people are saying, yeah, I don't mind paying a little bit extra. When you're paying $300 or $400 for round trip, is it okay to pay a little bit more, maybe 20 bucks more? I certainly am going to do that myself. And then we have big countries that are also getting involved in this and they have some mandates out there that they're putting into place. Norway has a 0.5 lending mandate for these, advanced aviation biofuels for SAF from 2020 on. Netherlands is transitioning their military aircraft to be able to use that as well too. The nice thing about it is we don't have to actually change out any engine parts or anything. It's a drop in replacement. So they're just transitioning the military to actually use the fuel. And in France and Sweden, they also have these reductions that are going on. And then the EU, European Commission is also involved in setting some roadmaps and some mandates across the board too. So I wanted to highlight here that we certainly do have a lot of demand out there, a very significant commercial pull across the board. And so we do have, we are making a lot of progress even though there is some challenges that are out there. And so the potential for acceleration is a function of the engagement that we're doing, the offtake agreements that are out there. We wanna have some good replication. It's easier to build the second, third and fourth by a refinery than it is the first. So in a lot of cases like Fulcrum and Givo and RedRock, they're still trying to just do their first ones. But once they do have their first ones, then they'll be able to get more out there. But then it's also a part of the policy. And we'll get into that. I know during the Q and A is talking a little bit about the policy aspects of that across the board too. So sustainable aviation fuel is coming from a diverse set of feedstocks from across the globe. We're all in this together. And you can see some of the different waste residues and even some other circular economy byproducts that are used. So when you can use waste products to actually produce some fuel like municipal solid waste, that's very, very cool when you can have that kind of an aspect. So I thank you very much. I'm looking forward to the Q and A and of course looking forward to Barbara's presentation as well too. And here's my contact information. So Dan, thank you very much. Oh, thanks Chris. That was a great presentation. And yes, you pointed out that your presentation materials will be available online. That is 100% true. You can find those at www.ensi.org. Not just the presentation materials from Chris and the next panelists as well, but also a written summary of today's briefing and an archive of the webcast. So if you would like to listen to it or watch it, you're welcome to do that. And while you're there, poke around, find other good climate change policy information. And if you have a second sign up for our newsletter, bi-weekly newsletter climate change solutions, it's a great way to stay informed. If you have any questions for Chris or for our next panelists, there are two ways you can get them to us. One is by following us on Twitter at ESI online. Alternatively, you can send us an email EESI at EESI.org. And our second panelist, Barbara Esker. Barbara is the deputy director for the Advanced Air Vehicles Program, formerly fundamental aeronautics program under the NASA aeronautics research mission directorate at NASA headquarters here in Washington, DC. In collaboration with the program director, Barbara supports the overall planning, management and evaluation of the directorate's efforts to develop tools, technologies and concepts that enable new generations of civil aircraft that are safer, more energy efficient and have a smaller environmental footprint. Barbara, welcome to the panel today. I'm really looking forward to your presentation. All right, thank you, Dan. I appreciate the kind introduction and let me get my charts up and we'll go from there. All right, are you seeing the charts come up? Excellent, thank you. So as Chris said, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and address you all. And so thank you very much for that and for the kind introduction, Dan. As Dan said, I'm the deputy director of the Advanced Air Vehicles Program within the NASA aeronautics research mission directorate. We certainly have our routes going back to 1915 to the formation of the NAC or the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics. So I don't have to tell this audience how important aviation is to the global economy, to the U.S. national economy. Within, of course, pre-COVID numbers, aviation represents about 1.6 trillion of U.S. economic activity each year. And included in that is about 11 million direct and indirect jobs, including a million of which are high-quality manufacturing jobs. Aviation has carried 21 million tons of freight worldwide, and that's just by U.S. carriers. And about 889 million passengers by U.S. air carriers. So it's a very important element of our economic structure. And of course, the impact on the environment is the foremost importance. So at NASA Aeronautics, a few years ago, we took a step back and we looked at what were the major forces driving aviation for now and into the next few centuries, few decades. And we came up with the three, what we call mega-drivers on the left-hand side of the screen. These are global mobility. The demand for global transportation will, in fact, increase and increase substantially over the next several decades. Hand-in-hand with that are environmental challenges. Certainly we need to be very cognizant of the impact on the environment today, but as that global air traffic continues to grow, what are those environmental challenges that we're gonna face in the future? And then the third mega-driver is something that we call technology convergence. And this is the recognition that there's segments of the technological landscape that move very quickly. And how are those segments going to affect aviation? So think of this in terms of things like IT technology and machine learning and artificial intelligence and power and energy technologies as well. And those technologies will have impact on aviation looking forward. Now, if you'd like additional information on what those analyses had resulted in around these mega-drivers, the Strategic Implementation Plan website is shown at the top of this chart. Now, in response to those mega-drivers, again, when we took this step back, we identified six strategic thrusts. So consider these to be six strategic swim lanes that are intended to guide our research looking forward. And you can read them on the chart, the three that are very profoundly related to vehicle technologies and the work in my program area are thrust to three and four, innovation and commercial supersonic, ultra-efficient subsonic transports, and safe, quiet, affordable vertical lift air vehicles. Now, for today's remarks, I'm gonna focus predominantly on the ultra-efficient subsonic transports. So before we get into some of the material, I'd like to take a quick moment to introduce some technology so that we can communicate effectively for the rest of the brief. Technology readiness level. You'll hear me reference technology readiness level through or TRL through the remarks. And it's shown here on the chart. And basically it's a way to describe the maturity of a given technology. And this starts from the very basic R&D when the initial principles are observed and reported all the way up through application in a real system and in a real environment. Now, NASA aeronautics focuses predominantly on the TRL one to force and stretching into the five to six range. This is where we can, we have a better opportunity to advance technology that perhaps has a higher risk of not actually working. It has a higher technology risk, if you will. Industry, they have the responsibility of taking technology and putting it into product and ensuring that it does, in fact, work as expected and work safely. So you can see they focus largely at the higher TRL levels. Now, of course, in the middle, there's mutual interest in the mid-TRL range. And I'll speak to that later in the brief. A couple of additional points that I want to make are captured at the bottom of the screen. NASA and the FAA do work very closely together. What we do is they help us ensure that the right technical data and the right insights are gained through the course of the research so that that data can help inform their eventual certification and regulatory decisions. And then the last point I want to make is that technology infusion takes time. In the end, it is industry's job to produce the product inherent with these technologies. And it'll take a business decision on their part, ultimately, to get these into practice. And as you can imagine, you don't just change over the entire airplane fleet at once. As an example, it does take time to infuse the technology into the fleet. So where are we with respect to ultra-efficient subsonic transports? This is a summary chart that shows four areas of primary interest. This isn't exclusively our entire portfolio, but they are the primary areas of interest around which our investments is structured present. And I'll talk to each one of these in later charts. The first one being the small gas turbine, small core gas turbine. The second is electronic aircraft propulsion. Can we bring electric power to bear to improve the efficiency of the propulsion system? The third one is the transonic truss brace wing and finally, high-rate composite manufacturing. So taken together, these four technologies, we believe, have the opportunity to create what we call a new S-curve. This is a new opportunity, we think, to bring together a new set of aircraft systems looking forward. So again, electronic aircraft propulsion, what we're doing there is we're looking at where and how electrical power can help augment or complement the propulsive efficiency of a gas turbine. Now this is not flying on all batteries. That's not what we're talking about here, but we're talking about an advanced electrical components of other sorts. The small gas turbine work provides an opportunity for improved gas turbine efficiency of these systems. And I'll talk a little bit on a subsequent chart about what the core is and why it's important. You know, the transonic truss brace wing, in general, the wings could be made much more efficient by being thinner and longer, as you can imagine, but that doesn't introduce some other challenges in terms of these types of configurations. And one approach to overcoming those challenges is the inclusion of the truss. And you can see that as two diagonal members running underneath each of the wings. And then the fourth area, high-rate composites. You know, we can manufacture aircraft pretty quickly out of conventional materials, out of aluminum, out of metals. We can also manufacture aircraft out of composites. However, the rate at which we can manufacture with composites is significantly slower than the rate at which we can manufacture out of metals. So the question becomes, what can we do in terms of our advanced technologies and perhaps they'd add science around those materials to improve the manufacturing rate? So let me start with the propulsion related elements first. Many folks have not had an opportunity to see what's inside of a gas turbine engine. So let me orient you really quickly to some basic terminology. The airflow in this diagram is going from left to right, as indicated by the yellow arrows. When that air hits the very front of the engine, it is hitting the front of the fan. And the air that is towards the outer part of the fan stays towards the outer part, and it becomes your bypass flow as indicated by the thick yellow arrow. The air that's towards the more center part of the fan stays in the core of the engine. And once in the core of the engine, that air is further compressed to higher pressures in the low pressure compressor, followed by the high pressure compressor. It is then burned with fuel in the combustor and then finally passes through both the high pressure turbine and the low pressure turbine and exits the aircraft. This will be valuable terminology for the next chart. So when we look at what technologies, what advancements might be of value looking forward to these advanced systems, we're focusing on the technology shown here. There's technology capability advancements for the compressor and those are indicated. Also advancements in the other core components. Now, what I wanna point out here is that the advancements that we're going after, whether they're in the shape or the materials or the operations of the core, are directly related to the efficiency of the engine. In addition, the advancements have to achieve certain levels of operability is the terminology we use. So for example, operability as it relates to the combustor means that that combustion process has to be stable and it has to be as efficient as possible resulting in as minimal chemical emissions as possible. So the next area is the electric aircraft propulsion. And as I said, this is not about running a battery exclusively on these vehicles, but it's about the other questions whether we can bring advanced electrical components to bear to compliment the gas turbine engine in a hybrid sort of way. So this technology work has its roots as you see back in 2009 when we first started to conceptualize this approach, you literally are talking about back of the envelope calculations and some very initial layouts of what the system could look like at very low TRL levels of course. And at that point, we challenged both industry and academia to see what they thought these components could be or could do in a system like this. With that knowledge, we gained insight into what the motors might have to do, what the inverters might have to do. What was the necessary performance of these components for a system like that? And we gradually over time advanced the TRL. We've had components built and we've started to bring them together into ground tests at several very specialized facilities here in the US. And we're now at a point where we have to ask ourselves whether there is additional knowledge and insight that needs to be gained in flight. So we've recently initiated a project called the Electrify Powertrain Flight Demonstration. This project is an early stage planning, looking at what it might take to bring a system like this into a flight environment and really boost the TRL level. Again, that means demonstrating the technology in a quote unquote relevant environment. So the next area I had mentioned was high rate composite manufacturing. The goal here is to bring to bear advanced computational methods, advanced measurement techniques, advanced knowledge of these material systems to enable a four to six manufacturing rate increase. Now, why are composite airframes of importance? Well, you can improve the efficiency of your aircraft if you can make it lighter. There's a direct relationship there. And hence the use of very high strength composite materials is very appealing. The challenge of course is that manufacturing them is very labor intensive and does take a very long time compared to other methods and other material systems. So the goals of four to six X manufacturing rate increase with a focus on the rate, the cost and the weight of these aircraft structures. This is also a brand new project area that is an early stage planning and formulation. It does in fact build off of advancements made under a recently completed project called the Advanced Composites Project. So we'll be taking learning from the Advanced Composites project and directing that learning into this new environment here focused on composites manufacturing. So let me talk a bit about the transonic trust brace wing similar to EAP as I talked about electric aircraft propulsion. The roots of this technology go back to the 2008-2009 timeframe, which is where we first identified some of the potential benefits of a very long slender wing with the trust supports. Again, in the 2008 timeframe, you're literally at TRL one, very, very high risk unsure technology at that point. So slowly over time, we've advanced the knowledge, we've advanced the data that has been gathered and the interpretation thereof of the data over time. So you can see we cite a series of wind tunnel tests that have been performed over the years. These are either at different flight speeds, simulated flight speeds, or they're at slightly different configurations of the wing and the trust itself. And hand in hand with the wind tunnel tests that have been going on, there's been a series, of course, of computational fluid mechanics analysis. In other words, computer-based simulations of the performance of these configurations, those computational models, if you will, are grounded in the physics of the possible. And so it allows us to really learn and compare what we get through the data and what the mathematical computer-based models tell us. At present, we're getting ready to enter a phase five of wind tunnel testing. This will include a Buffett test where we look at the potential effects of the aerodynamic vibrations, and then also a second look at the high-lift characteristics. In other words, how might this vehicle perform in undertake-off high-lift conditions? And to try and bring it all together, the efforts I've been talking about in the previous part of the brief focused largely on NASA and industry efforts with a little bit of engagement from universities, but I don't wanna leave the universities out of this picture. We have complimentary to our program to Advanced Air Vehicles. We have an effort called the University Leadership Initiative. And this is an element of our university strategy that allows universities to step forward and really be the thought leaders taking on challenges associated with those strategic thrusts, including strategic thrust three for the ultra-efficient transports. And over the last three rounds of solicitation, covering the last five years or so, we've had the opportunity to work with a lot of universities in the other university team and you see them represented here. The academia in this country is extremely talented and we're bringing their talents to bear as well on addressing the challenges of aviation in the future. And with that, I'd like to wrap it up and turn it back over to Dan. Thank you. Great presentation Barbara, thanks so much. Really super interesting information and yeah, really looking forward to the Q and A. If you have a question, it's not too late to ask it. There are two ways you can do it. One is by following us on Twitter at ESI online. Also send us an email or ESI at ESI.org. And now it is my pleasure to introduce my colleague, Jeff Overton. Jeff is a fellow with ESI. He is a former retired pilot, commercial pilot for US Air. And he has been with ESI for a number of years. He is the author of our stratospheric popular aviation fact sheet that I mentioned from last year. And he has put a ton of work into today. And so it's my pleasure to turn over the Q and A session to him. Take it away, Jeff. Well, thank you Dan. And thank you both Chris and Barbara for those excellent presentations. We certainly appreciate your spending time with us today and we've learned a lot already from what you've presented. Chris, if I could start with you. I wondered if you could share with us what are the key things that you think policy makers need to know and act on to support SAF and what do you think are the important policy actions that would expand, well, the production and use of this strategy, this technology. Thank you, Jeff. That's a very, very good question. And certainly, as Congresswoman Brownlee suggested, she's introduced a bill on sustainable aviation fuel. And this is going to help with the overall policies. If we can have, one thing that helps is a good long-term stable policy initiatives that we have across the board. And so right now, out in California, for instance, there is a low-carbon fuel standard program. And with that, that has given a lot of incentives to the market and certainly signals a lot of things to the market and to the producers that are out there. And so that is very helpful. The renewable fuel standard that we have that's in place also nationally is very good, and it's very broad. But if we can have a national low-carbon fuel standard policy, that would be very, very nice. Right now, with that low-carbon fuel standard out in California, there is also a little bit more of an advantage for the renewable diesel producers as opposed to the renewable jet fuel producers. They get a little bit more money, and so the producers that are out there making these renewable fuels actually can make a little bit more money if they're selling their diesel as opposed to renewable jet fuel. So with that in mind, if they could somewhat incentivize and make it a level playing field across the board between renewable diesel and renewable jet fuel, that would certainly help out a lot too. So yes, long-term stable policies. And so I'm very happy that Congresswoman Brownlee has actually done that and made things hopefully be able to move forward. Thank you, Chris. And Barb, if I could turn to you now and ask a question. The industry has set a long-term goal of 50% reduction of CO2 emissions relative to 2005 levels by 2050. And so can you share with us, does NASA set goals for a specific level of efficiency improvement of available technology for the fleet over time? Can you discuss that? So yes, we do set goals for ourselves. Certainly, we are looking to set goals at an aircraft level. So this is aircraft performance level, not at the fleet level, Jeff. Now, those goals, when we set them, they're actually codified the current version of the goals, which are due to be updated, are currently codified in that strategic implementation plan that I provided the link to on my second chart. Now that said, those goals are intended to be stretch goals. They're not goals that translate to regulatory levels. Certainly, we work with our colleagues in the FAA so that they understand what stretch goals we're going after. But they're not directly the goals that an FAA, for example, would regulate to. It's just like any other personal endeavor. You really want to stretch yourself, stretch your capabilities as you endeavor to make an impact. Thank you, Barbara. So Chris, once again, a question for you. Can you talk about policy incentives to promote SAF versus policy mandates for the airlines as SAF customers? And which will be most effective, do you think, in growing the industry now over the next 10 to 15 years? That's a very good question, Jeff. And yes, I think incentives certainly are more important and more crucial than mandates. I mentioned to you and showed you where Norway and Sweden and others are actually having mandates in place. It's one thing to mandate to the use of the sustainable aviation fuel. But if you don't, it's OK to put that onto the demand. But if you don't have any supply to actually fill that demand, that is very, very difficult. So you can mandate all day long. But if you don't incentivize the actual production and commercialization of the fuel, then that makes it much, much more difficult. So I would say, in answer to your question, yes, a policy incentive like a low-carbon fuel standard program like we talked about earlier, that would be very helpful. Mandate is not necessarily that helpful because it's not necessarily making people want to do it. We have the demand already out there with all those offtake agreements that I mentioned earlier. So the airlines and general aviation definitely want to use it. It's just right now there's just not as much of a supply. Thank you, Chris. And now a question for both of you, if I could. It would seem that with the basket of strategies available to the industry, there's a good deal of commonality or a complementary relationship between technology and sustainable aviation fuels. What are your views on this for a question for both of you, then, if you could share with us. Do they, is there opportunity for us to regard this in a complementary way as both strategies working together? Sure, I'll take that first, Barbara, if you don't mind. I think that, yes, we certainly can work together as with the sustainable aviation fuel and the fact that it is actually a drop-in replacement. That's a good thing. So it can work on even the advanced turbines that Barbara was talking about earlier. So that's a really big key. So yeah, it definitely goes across both the current aviation turbines that are out there and then the future as well, too. The cool thing about these sustainable aviation fuel and that being that they're a drop-in replacement, these airlines that are out there buying these planes right now, they're going to be flying those same planes for the next 15, 20, 25 years. And so if we had to say, well, you have to now go out and buy a whole new engine for those planes, that just doesn't make any sense. So having a drop-in replacement in those technologies, I think that's really good. Yeah, I think Chris, you hit the mark right on. You're talking about a very, relatively speaking, a near-term opportunity to have impact in the sustainable alternative jet fuels. If you recall, I talked about the advanced small-core engines. One of the aspects of the operability of the small-core combustors is what we call fuel flexibility. How well can these combustors, in fact, operate on alternative fuels, including the sustainable alternative fuels? So it's very important to us to have that capability baked into the longer-term technology. As Chris said, there is a horizon as we look from the near-term pieces of the solution to those that are further out. And working hand-in-hand, both on the near-term and with NASA, is US industry. So the US aviation industry also takes this very seriously, and they work collaboratively with both organizations and also with the FAA to make these technologies come into reality and ensure that they do, in fact, work as desired and are absolutely safe. Because safety, of course, is paramount to aviation, both here and worldwide. Thank you, Barbara. Just about 30 seconds left, so we'll have to make this quick. But I did note that you had that excellent slide on the current technologies, what they're working on. And it included a hybrid design that would have conventional propulsion and electrified augmentation. So that would be an opportunity, I think, for to combine the sustainable fuels strategy, certainly, with electrification provided by NASA, would it not? Yes, that's correct, Jeff. So the small-core technology is going to be of value, whether you're talking a traditional aircraft propulsion system or you're talking a hybrid electric propulsion system as you just alluded to. That small-core will be instrumental in both cases. Well, thank you both again, and I'll turn it back over to Dan. Thanks. Thanks for navigating our Q&A, Jeff. You did a great job. Ask a quick follow-up question about the small-core. Chris, you were talking about how SAF is a drop-in alternative. Does that hold true for that next generation for the small-core engines as well? Will they also be able to accept SAFs in the same way? OK, OK, cool. Thanks, I appreciate that. I was just curious. I was thinking about it sort of like the Prius of airplanes, a little bit of gas and a little bit of electric. Hopefully, that's not too far removed from a decent analogy. But the person who works for NASA is giving me a generous expression, but maybe that's not the right way to think about it. So that's OK. But this was great. This was such an awesome briefing. Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you so much, Barbara, for joining us. And to our audience, we know you have options when it comes to climate change education and informational resources. So thank you for choosing to fly with EESI today. Thank you to joining us. Thanks to everyone on team EESI behind the scenes, Omneri, Dan O'Brien, Sidney O'Shaughnessy, Amber Todorov, who was my co-moderator yesterday, and Anna McGinn, who will be my co-roundtable moderator tomorrow, as well as Jeff, of course, and Carol, for all of your contributions to today's briefing. Thanks also to our interns, Emma, Joseph, Hamilton, and Karen for helping out, and for Susan, who I think is monitoring the Twitter feed today. So thanks for pitching in as well. It's a great discussion. Tune in tomorrow noon for a roundtable discussion about public transit. We have representatives from three transportation authorities from around the country joining us. It's going to be a great conversation. If you have a moment, we would really appreciate any feedback you're willing to offer us. We have a slide that will be up in just a moment with a link that you can follow to fill out that survey. We really take everyone's feedback really seriously, and we're always looking for ways to improve. And so if you have just two minutes, we'd really appreciate your help with that. And then if you missed anything, if you want to go back and see any of Chris's slides or Barbara's slides, or if you want to revisit something that was discussed during the Q&A, just a reminder, everything is archived online on our website, www.esi.org. That goes for this briefing. It goes for yesterday's briefing, tomorrow's briefing, as well as all of ESI's briefing over the last many, many years. And while you're there, we hope you take an opportunity to sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, Climate Change Solutions. It's 1 o'clock. We'll go ahead and end it there. Hope everyone has a great rest of your day, and hope to see everyone back tomorrow. Thanks.