Integration of Hydrogen Aircraft into the Air Transport System

Integration of Hydrogen Aircraft into the Air Transport System

The aviation industry, through the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), has set a global goal to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050 compared to those of 2005. Efficiency projections indicate that even a combination of measures, which include the increased use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) along with the introduction of technologies that improve the energy efficiency of aircraft and improved operations, will not be enough to meet this target.

To be able to reach this, or any other more ambitious goal, the industry will likely have to rely on all the above plus introduce aircraft that use new alternative energy sources, such as hydrogen. Figure 1 from ATAG7 illustrates that all approaches, electrification via batteries (red), use of hydrogen (blue) and increased use of SAF (green) will be required to drastically reduce the emissions from civil aircraft.

The circles represent how conventional aviation fuel could be replaced by alternatives. SAF occupies the largest share since most aviation fuel is burned on long-range missions for which electric aircraft using existing and projected battery technologies are not yet technically suitable and, for now, neither are hydrogen-powered aircraft due Figure 1: ATAG schematic indication of potential aviation energy use in 2050. Red: batteries, blue: hydrogen, green: SAF 7 Integration of Hydrogen Aircraft into the Air Transport System 4 to the large volume required to store the fuel and the storage space limitations in conventional tube and wing aircraft.

Hydrogen Aviation