What percentage of CO2 emissions is the aviation industry responsible for?

The aviation industry is responsible for approximately 2% of all CO2 emissions globally. This has prompted the industry to seek clean energy alternatives to reduce its environmental impact.

What are some proposed solutions to reduce aviation emissions?

The aviation industry is exploring several clean energy solutions, including sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), hydrogen fuel (both for combustion and fuel cells), and pure battery-electric aircraft. These technologies promise a reduction in emissions but face challenges such as energy density and cost.

What challenges exist for hydrogen as a fuel source for aircraft?

While hydrogen has a higher energy density than traditional fuels, the storage requirements significantly reduce its practical energy density. Storage tanks add weight, making it challenging to use in aircraft. Additionally, hydrogen is more expensive to produce compared to conventional fuels.

Logistics of Introducing Clean Energy into the Aerospace Industry

The aerospace industry is tackling its 2% contribution to CO2 emissions by aiming for zero emissions by 2050. New technologies such as sustainable aviation fuels, hydrogen, and electric aircraft are pivotal to this goal. Challenges such as energy density and cost of hydrogen fuel need overcoming for these solutions to scale effectively.

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By Cara Schildmeyer · March 23, 2022, 12:23 PM UTCClean EnergyEnergy ConservationEnvironmentally FriendlyGreen Energy

Key takeaways

Aviation aims for zero emissions by 2050.

Sustainable aviation fuels and hydrogen are key energy alternatives.

Cost and energy density hinder scalability of hydrogen fuel.

Aviation contributes 2% of all CO2 emissions, which is something the industry wants to change. Jason Riggs, director of strategy at Technetics, spoke with Tyler Kern on today’s episode of Getting Technetical. They spoke about some of the aviation industry’s plans to reach zero emissions by 2050 through clean energy such as sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), hydrogen, and pure battery-electric aircraft.

Hydrogen as a fuel source gets talked about a lot; however, until recently, it has been mostly all talk. “There are a couple of different ways you can use hydrogen to power an aircraft,” Riggs said. “One would be to burn hydrogen in the turbo engine. The second way would be to use hydrogen in a fuel cell. The fuel cell creates electricity, and the electricity then powers electric motors. And lastly, hydrogen can also be used to manufacture sustainable aviation fuels.” This all sounds great, but what’s the hang-up?

“The challenge is when you start adding in weight of the storage tanks, and all the weight required to hold that hydrogen, that energy density drops by roughly a third to two-thirds,” Riggs said. “It’s not a perfect solution even though hydrogen in and of itself has a higher energy density than some of these competing technologies.” The technology exists to make hydrogen-fueled aircrafts a reality, but its drawbacks prevent it from being a scalable solution at present. Overall, however, it’s one that holds promise for the future.

Getting to zero emissions is more than just the emissions coming out of the jet; the production of green fuels counts too, and the industry is looking at ways to balance out both ends. Producing hydrogen fuels today is more expensive than producing traditional kerosene jet fuels. Bringing costs down will be another factor in moving the industry forward in its path toward clean energy, and government incentives could help move the needle. However, without such intervention, green-fuel initiatives may not stand a fighting chance.