Air transport giant Lufthansa would need to consume half of Germany's electricity production to run its entire fleet on green fuel, its boss has said, illustrating the complicated challenge of reducing emissions in the aviation industry.

Lufthansa, which has the largest airline fleet in Europe, "would need around half of Germany's electricity to convert it into synthetic fuel," estimated Carsten Spohr, the group's CEO, at a national aviation conference in Germany's Hamburg.

But both economics minister Robert Habeck and Federal Network Agency, which regulates Germany's electricity "won't give me that amount of energy," he added.

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Synthetic fuels or e-fuels, which combine hydrogen - produced from decarbonized sources such as renewable energies - and CO2 captured from the air or from industrial fumes, are one way of decarbonizing the aviation sector.

However, the process requires a large quantity of green electricity to be produced, which Germany does not have, the head of Lufthansa pointed out. And because it has not yet been developed on an industrial scale, this fuel is still much more expensive than fossil fuels.

Earlier this month, the European Parliament adopted a deal to set binding targets for airlines in Europe to increase their use of sustainable aviation fuels, or SAFs, which have net zero or lower CO2 emissions than the fossil fuel kerosene.

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday set out his ambitions to become a strategic production center for such sustainable jet fuel and to lure investment to build on its importance as one of aerospace group Airbus' manufacturing centers.

However, Lufthansa's Spohr said it seemed more "realistic" to produce synthetic fuel "abroad, where wind or solar energy is available in practically unlimited quantities," he added, without naming any specific countries. It will be a "long road, but it's the right one", Spohr said.

Aviation accounts for 2 to 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, synthetic fuel is likely to remain a transitional technology, according to the sector's manufacturers, who are already planning the next stage of decarbonization, involving hydrogen-powered aircraft.

Aircraft manufacturer Airbus is developing technologies that should make it possible to launch the first hydrogen-powered aircraft in 2035, probably for short-haul routes.

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