Net Zero has been left on life support after the aviation industry abandoned hydrogen-powered planes, despite billions in investment, with no alternative ‘green’ technology on the cards. The Telegraph has more.
The push to develop hydrogen-powered planes was once a key part of the aviation industry’s bid to eliminate carbon emissions. But in the last few weeks, it has fallen suddenly and dramatically out of favour.
First, European airlines and manufacturers drastically downgraded their target for the contribution of hydrogen to their goal of reaching Net Zero by 2050.
Then Airbus, the world’s biggest plane maker, put the industry’s most advanced programme for developing a hydrogen-powered passenger aircraft on hold.
Boeing, always a comparative sceptic, has meanwhile confirmed that it sees little or no role for hydrogen in decarbonising its own jets for decades at least.
The decline in hydrogen’s fortunes represents a potential setback for the UK, where British companies and the Government have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in the technology.
It also leaves the European aviation industry facing a bill of more than €1 trillion (£830bn) to decarbonise by the middle of the century, a total it will struggle to fund alone.
Hydrogen planes “have almost vanished from the road map”, says Carlos López de la Osa, of Transport and Environment (T&E), which promotes sustainable flying.
As a result, the only realistic fuel alternative to fossil fuels for full-size passenger jets appears to have been swept off the board.
Electric airliners are regarded as a little more than a pipe dream by many experts because of the excessive weight and low energy density of batteries, while the credibility of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is in doubt.
Climate campaigners question its carbon-reduction credentials and the gap between production volumes and industry requirements widens every year.
Worth reading in full.
Michael Deacon notes that, for all their climate anxiety and Greta Thunberg’s chastening of oldies, young people are actually the worst offenders when it comes to air travel and ‘green’ behaviours:
It turns out that the young are wrecking the planet, too. In fact, they may be doing even more to wreck it than their grandparents.
Just look at the results of a new poll by the Civil Aviation Authority. It found that those aged 18-34 fly a lot more frequently than those aged 55 and over. In the past year, almost three quarters of the former group travelled by plane, compared with only half of the latter group.
This may seem unexpected, given that members of Greta’s generation are always telling pollsters – and everyone else who will listen – how terrified they are about climate change. But then, perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised. In 2023, a poll by YouGov found that young adults did less recycling than Baby Boomers. They were also less likely to save water, wash their clothes at low temperatures, and switch off electric lights when leaving a room.
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Yeay!
At last, reality hits back
The AGW die-hards will just want to ban flying for the hoi polloi and reserve it for their elites. The true believers won’t care that it will harden public opinion against them. This is a good thing.
So what next to kill aviation for the masses?
Let’s have a think…
Yep, tax them out of the skies. Got to save the planet.
A UK no-fly zone? Yep. I’ll believe it of Milliband. The only permitted holidays will be a week away polishing soar panels – within walking distance, of course..
Now we start to see whether the “Net zero” advocates across the world in various governments want to destroy our civilisation completely, or want to make nice things unaffordable for all except them and their mates, or whether they were just posing all along and they will quietly shuffle back because they feel too much pushback.
Is that true? What about using Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)? https://energyindustryreview.com/construction/saf-and-hvo-unit-construction-at-petrobrazi-refinery-started/ as an example. Whether it’s suitable globally is another question, given that this trial is in Brazil.
The article says
without any reference given.
I suspect SAF’s credibility as “sustainable” is about on a par with Virginian wood-chips creating “sustainable” electric power in the UK.
HVO has the benefit that if you are running low on fuel, you can land at any McDonalds to top up the tank.
A hydrogen powered aircraft would require a complete redesign. Hydrogen isn’t as energy dense as kerosene and, molecules being smaller, leaks more. Plus, you’d have to liquefy it to get it into the fuel tanks in sufficient volume to get from A to B. It’s a nonstarter.
How long before Miliband suggests that aircraft use wood chips? It’s about as logical as anything else he spouts….
Miliband has a martyr complex, he wants to fight to the bitter end, demanding that he is right and everyone else is wrong. I know a yacht club called The Bitter End YC, I’m happy to set up the showdown ASAP
If we could have only shorted Hydrogen Planes!
Or Windmills, for that matter.
The sums of money bandied about are staggering. Billions and Trillions, I wonder if anyone has actually thought of it in context.? Consider seconds, not pounds.
A Million seconds is 11.6 days
A Billion seconds is 31.8 years
A Trillion seconds is 32,000 years
It’s just Monopoly money to these people – they don’t care or perhaps even understand
Has someone told Rachel from Accounts? Not much point constructing a 3rd runway at Heathrow (yes I know) if there are no planes to fly from it.
Won’t make a jot of difference to Miliband. He will simply advocate for the rationing of flying.
I fear so. This could help fuel the anti-aviation lobby.