Hydrogen planesQuiet and Green: Why Hydrogen Planes Could Be the Future of Aviation

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

Published 9 July 2020

Today, aviation is responsible for 3.6 percent of EU greenhouse gas emissions. Modern planes use kerosene as fuel, releasing harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But what if there was another way? One possible solution is to use a new type of fuel in planes that doesn’t produce harmful emissions – hydrogen. Long touted as a sustainable fuel, hydrogen is now gaining serious traction as a possibility for aviation, and already tests are under way to prove its effectiveness.

Today, aviation is responsible for 3.6percentof EU greenhouse gas emissions. Modern planes use kerosene as fuel, releasing harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But what if there was another way?

One possible solution is to use a new type of fuel in planes that doesn’t produce harmful emissions – hydrogen. Long touted as a sustainable fuel, hydrogen is now gaining serious traction as a possibility for aviation, and already tests are under way to prove its effectiveness.

Planes using hydrogen would emit only water, and initial tests suggest they can be just as fast as traditional planes, carrying more than a hundred passengers per flight over thousands of kilometers. A recent report on the potential of hydrogen-powered aviation said such planes could enter the market as soon as 2035.

There are still significant challenges to make this happen. But if they can be overcome, the future of aviation could be much greener than it is today and be a functioning component of a decarbonized world.

Propellers
Hydrogen planes would be similar aesthetically to traditional planes, albeit with a slightly longer length needed. Smaller planes would likely use propellers, with hydrogen-powered fuel cells providing electric propulsion to turn the propellers. Bigger planes could burn hydrogen to power jet engines.

The hydrogen-powered aviation report, released on 22 June, said that hydrogen could feasibly be used by 2035 to power a commercial passenger aircraft on a flight of up to 3,000 kilometers. By 2040 or beyond, a medium-range flight of up to 7,000 kilometers should also be possible, leaving just long-range flights for traditional aviation.

‘By 2035 it should be possible for a short-range flight plane,’ said Dr. Bart Biebuyck, executive director of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, a European public-private partnership to accelerate the market introduction of these technologies, which jointly commissioned the report. ‘That means on European soil, you could connect all the big cities in Europe using hydrogen-powered planes. By 2050, the ambitious scenario is that 40 percent of the (European aviation) fleet would be powered by hydrogen.’