UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Michael Helbing, executive director of the Center for Energy Law and Policy and adjunct professor of law at Penn State, will give the talk, “Flying into the future: sustainable aviation fuel and the policies impacting its development,” at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 7, in 112 Walker Building on the University Park campus. Talk will also be available via Zoom.
“As the world works to limit greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the impacts of climate change across all sectors, air travel presents a particularly difficult challenge,” Helbing said. “Aviation contributes approximately 2.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but unlike other portions of the transportation sector, it is unlikely that electrification will meaningfully reduce emissions from air travel. To meet the demands of low-carbon flight, policymakers and the industry are turning to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).”
SAF is chemically similar to conventional jet fuel, allowing it to be mixed with fossil-derived jet fuel and used in existing aircraft. But it is derived from biomass or by using low-emissions energy sources, thus reducing its life-cycle carbon emissions by between 50% to 94% compared to conventional jet fuel. But because SAF is currently about 2.5 times as expensive as jet fuel from fossil fuels, policy plays an important role in determining its likelihood of adoption, according to Helbing.
Helbing joined Penn State’s Center for Energy Law and Policy (CELP) as a staff attorney in 2022 and is now serving as executive director. He is involved in many of CELP’s research and educational activities, including projects related to sustainable aviation fuel, solar policy, hydrogen development, renewable natural gas and critical minerals. Prior to joining CELP, he worked in positions that integrated law with science and policy. Most recently, he worked as an attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where he was associate chief counsel for litigation and senior enforcement adviser. He has also served as a staff attorney for Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture), where he advised on legal and policy matters related to energy and the environment. In that role, he served on former Governor Wolf’s Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force in 2015. Helbing earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Penn State and a juris doctor degree from Yale Law School.
His talk is part of the EarthTalks fall 2024 series, “Legal Elements of the Energy Transition,” which is exploring the legal elements of decarbonizing our energy system. For more information about the fall 2024 series, visit the EarthTalks website.