  In late 2022, ICAO member states adopted a long-term global aspirational goal
(LTAG) to achieve net zero carbon emissions from international aviation by
2050. To date however, no economically scalable solution to the aviation
decarbonization problem has been proposed. Despite considerable research on
potential alternative fuels including e-fuels, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF),
Hydrogen or Ammonia, and extensive research on purely electric propulsion,
low-carbon propulsion methods are unable to replace fossil-fuels with identical
or better economics. A possible alternative to current propulsion technologies
is to directly beam the required propulsive power to aircraft. Several
techniques have been considered to date, in particular laser energy beaming and
microwave energy beaming. This paper proposes a possible concept where future
airliners are mostly powered with ground-generated power. With expected
improvements and scaling in solar panel manufacturing, the proposed concept
would be economically competitive even with current jet fuel prices, while
considerably reducing CO2 emissions.
