Google's contrail-avoidance technology offers a cost-effective and scalable solution to aviation emissions that could drive future revenue opportunities in climate tech.
Too little corroboration in the last 3 days to call a trend (3 articles). Watching for it to gain traction.
"The company calls it the world's first state-backed trial aimed at mitigating warming contrails across an entire flight corridor — specifically the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, which accounts for around 5 percent of global contrail warming. Google has been working with American Airlines to help pilots find more sustainable flight paths."
"Google and the UK government are collaborating on a project to test whether airplanes can avoid creating contrails. Previous research and smaller trials suggest that AI forecasts can identify atmospheric areas where flights are most likely to create warming contrails."
"Contrail avoidance is cheap next to rebuilding fleets or inventing new engines, which is what makes it attractive... The partners argue it does, and by a wide margin... the carbon penalty at under 1 percent of the contrail warming avoided."