As much as we have to cut aviation emissions, batteries will not work. Replacing turbine-powered aircraft with similarly sized electric aircraft will require a quantum leap in battery technology – and we’re just not there yet.

How can we make aviation more sustainable?

According to studies of the UK Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) aviation can achieve the net zero target for 2050 through the development of both sustainable jet fuel (SAF) and green liquid hydrogen technologies.

They also emphasize that green liquid hydrogen is the optimal fuel for the first generation of zero-emission aircraft.

According to the ATI, targeted investment in the technology could help the UK increase its civil aerospace market share from 12% today to 19% in 2050. This would increase the sector’s gross value added to the economy from £11 billion to £36 billion – and the number of aerospace jobs from 116,000 to 154,000.

Accordingly, the UK has gradually ramped up its hydrogen efforts in the field in recent years.

In March 2021 British Airways invested in ZeroAvia – a British/American developer of hydrogen-electric aircraft – in an effort to accelerate the development of hydrogen-powered aircraft.

A few months later, the government supported FlyZero initiative unveiled a liquid hydrogen aircraft concept capable of transporting 279 passengers non-stop to San Francisco or with one stopover to Auckland.

At the beginning of 2022, the British startup EAG started announced the creation of Hydrogen Storage Systems, a spin-off company focused on developing and commercializing hydrogen storage solutions – one of the technology’s greatest challenges.

The spin-off will help with that EAG in the development of the world’s first “True Zero” (i.e. targeting zero carbon and NOx emissions) 90-seat hydrogen hybrid electric regional jet – the H2ERA.

Major players in the mobility industry are also betting on the technology, which shows how the sector is gaining momentum.

As part of their decarbonisation strategies, Rolls Royce and easyJet have embarked on a multi-million pound partnership to prove that hydrogen could be a carbon-free aviation fuel of the future.

Monday the companies revealed the results of the first ground test they performed on an early concept demonstrator claimed to be “the world’s first” to run a modern aircraft engine on hydrogen.

Testing took place at an outdoor facility in the UK using a converted Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A regional jet engine. The green hydrogen for the tests was produced by wind and tidal energy.

“The success of this hydrogen test is an exciting milestone. We only announced our partnership with easyJet in July and we are already off to an incredible start to this milestone,” said Grazia Vittadini, CTO of Rolls-Royce, said.

“We are pushing the boundaries to discover the carbon-free possibilities of hydrogen, which could help reshape the future of aviation,” he added.

The companies are planning a series of further rig tests leading up to a full ground test of a Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 jet engine – with the aim of deploying the technology to easyJet-sized aircraft.

As promising as hydrogen sounds, there are still many challenges ahead.

Hydrogen has a lower energy density per volume compared to conventional fuel. That is 8 MJ/L versus the 32 MJ/L of gasoline, which means that larger quantities must be stored to provide the equivalent energy.

Thus, an entirely new infrastructure would be required to store and transport it at airports, which would be a costly endeavor as it does not yet exist on a large scale.

And while it’s debatable whether hydrogen will mark the new dawn of the industry, the urgency to reduce aviation emissions undoubtedly requires the advancement of technologies that can help meet that goal.