Hydrogen power is a clean energy alternative to fossil fuels. New investments from airlines and cruise lines are investing in it, but is it reality or just another well-intended idea?
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American Airlines Buys Hydrogen Aircraft Engines
This week, American Airlines officially ordered new engine technology that could be the cleanest ever made.
“American Airlines announced today that they have entered into a conditional purchase agreement with ZeroAvia for 100 hydrogen-electric engines. These engines are intended to power regional jet aircraft, such as the CRJ-700, with zero inflight emissions aside from water vapor.” – ATX JetSetter
The commitment follows American investing in ZeroAvia’s series C funding round and an MOU completed the prior year.
As the source article states, American specifically cited its use on the CRJ-700 for short-haul operations.
Explora Journeys Signs On For Hydrogen-Powered Cruise Ships
This site has been a fan of Explora Journeys, the luxury cruise line owned by the same family as MSC cruises. It looks forward to the expansion of its fleet from two ships (Explora II is slated to launch this fall) to six by 2028, the last two capable of hydrogen-powered operations for some services.
“The company said that Explora V and Explora VI will have new state-of-the-art energy efficiency measures and will also be capable of using alternative fuels such as bio and synthetic gas and methanol and the Cruise Division will work in the future with Fincantieri to equip the ships with future technologies including carbon capture and more advanced waste management systems.
The two confirmed additions to Explora Journeys’ fleet will be delivered in 2027 and 2028.
…
The two new ships will pursue the use of liquid hydrogen with fuel cells for their hotel operations while docked in ports to eliminate carbon emissions with the vessels’ engines switched off.” – Cruise Industry News
Of note, most ports don’t offer hydrogen fuel stations currently, though that could change in the coming decade.
Hydrogen Fuel Plant At Pittsburgh International Airport
One of the largest energy producers in the United States, CNX Resources (formerly Consol Energy), is looking to build what could be a landmark project at Pittsburgh International Airport.
“Natural gas producer CNX Resources said it plans to build a $1.5 billion facility at Pittsburgh’s airport to make hydrogen-based fuels, but only if President Joe Biden’s administration allows coal mine methane to qualify for tax credits that are central to the Democrat’s plan to fight climate change.” – Associated Press
The AP notes that this clean energy initiative will be used to offset carbon emissions related to its coal operations. The method does a few things to achieve this. It captures methane releases from its coal mining operations and blends it with natural gas to create the fuel source. This will help utilize the excess methane from coal. Natural gas is two times cleaner than petroleum as a stand-alone fuel source. In essence, it takes something mostly unusable and not great for the environment, adds a cleaner additive, and at the same time replaces petroleum jet fuel.
“Climate change activists don’t want coal mine methane and other fossil fuels to qualify for the tax credits. They don’t like coal mine methane escaping into the atmosphere, but producing hydrogen from fossil fuels, instead of from carbon-free electricity, would undermine the purpose of the entire hydrogen program to displace fossil fuels, they say.” – Associated Press
Regardless of under which pretenses the site is built, this could lead the way for additional locations across the country. CNX is headquartered in Pittsburgh and holds lease rights for fracking underneath Pittsburgh International Airport. The facility would nearly replace all Jet-A fuel used at the airport which served just shy of 10 million passengers in 2023 and is on track to exceed that number in 2024. Hydrogen stations would need to expand beyond Pittsburgh to make an impact and prove the model.
What About BioFuels?
Every couple of years another landmark flight using clean biofuels hits the headlines and it seems that the future might finally be here.
But it never is. Not even a little bit.
As recently as 2019, the path to the regular use of biofuels was clear:
“The first flight using blended biofuel took place in 2008. Since then, more than 150,000 flights have used biofuels. Only five airports have regular biofuel distribution today (Bergen, Brisbane, Los Angeles, Oslo and Stockholm), with others offering occasional supply. But the [centralized] nature of aviation fuelling, where less than 5% of all airports handle 90% of international flights, means SAF availability at a small number of airports could cover a large share of demand.” – IEA
The rollout to 90% of international flights using biofuels is no closer in practical terms today than it was pre-pandemic. It was the end of 2023 before the first trans-Atlantic flight had been completed.
“Last year, U.S. production totaled 15.8 million gallons — less than 0.1 percent of total fuel consumed by U.S. airlines and far short of the Federal Aviation Administration’s previous goal to use 1 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel annually by 2018.” – Scientific American
It doesn’t seem as though BioFuels will be a path forward, is hydrogen different?
Conclusion
Climate purists are willing to fight a cleaner airline fuel because it’s not the cleanest possible option. While idealistically a principled approach could lead to a better alternative for the tax credits, in practical terms it seems foolish to not pursue hydrogen fuel plants. It seems akin to the trade that electric vehicles make with the addition of hazardous batteries over vehicle emissions. American Airlines could lead the way in real-world implementation but for hydrogen to really work in a way that biofuels have not yet materialized, it will need scale to succeed. CNX, American Airlines, and Explora Journeys could be that path.
What do you think?
Isn’t that the type of fuel the Hindenburg used?
No, not really. the Hindenburg used diesel engines and fuel for propulsion. It contained hyrdogen for lift, but did not use hydrogen as a fuel in the traditional sense.
As the AP article stated, how green hydrogen is depends how it is made. If it is made from coal, probably not a net win.
For the long term, there is a of R&D needed to figure out how to use hydrogen in airplanes, especially for long haul flights. Issues include it not as energy dense as jet fuel, harder to store, tanks may be heavy, etc. Better to get this process started now, than waiting for a perfect solution.
The replacement of jet fuel with anything else is one of the highest hang fruit on the green energy tree. The energy demands of a long haul plane that can fly 10,000 miles at hi subsonic speed, and carry up to 400 passengers are truly staggering, and taken for granted by way to many people who should know better.
Aviation should be one of the last transportation systems to go to reusable fuel. It should wait until nearly all the worlds electrical demand is supplied by green sources, all land based transportation systems have made the switch, and also until after all the worlds heating and AC demand is met with green energy sources. Only when that threshold has been met, should aviation get serious about switching. Not to say the experimentation should begin to see what is possible though.
As has been stated, hydrogen is not an energy source, it is merely a transfer mechanism. If the hydrogen is to be made from electricity, batteries are also an option. If it is to be made from conventional energy sources, it is no more green that burning the energy supplying fuel directly.
We are only a couple percent along the way to supplying all of the much, much lower hang fruit with green energy. Aviation can wait as there is plenty of much easier results to be obtained.
H2 is physically impossible for aviation except in limited circumstances. H2 is the first element on the periodic table and is therefore the lightest so it always wants to escape, so the onboard storage, piping, valves, pumps and seals must be lock tight. As aircraft ascend, they move into a lower atmospheric pressure and temperature environment which physically challenges such systems which are subjected to these pressure differentials and a lot of the physical motion of flight. Creating such systems with the required dispatch reliability of commercial aviation is a fantasy.
Universal Hydrogen just went bust last week, and destroyed $100M of investment capital chasing this idea with an ATR commuter aircraft scheme. The energy density of H2 is also way below that of Jet-A fuel so the tanks would have to be so big, 1/2 of the seating/cargo capacity would be taken up by the H2 tanking. Not viable for a profitable business case.
Lastly, NASA has been using H2 for flight and spaceflight since the 1950’s. They call it “that pesky molecule” and for good reason. Note that the latest (stuck) Starliner launch had 2 delays due to H2 issues at the launch pad. No one has more experience with H2 than NASA and they still struggle making it work to this day – on the ground!
I agree with jcil that aviation is a special use case with an overall low carbon contribution compared to other industries, so expectations should be lowered by this certainty.
I am constantly impressed at airlines’ ability to toss a bit of cash at some far-fetched “green” technology and reap many times their investment in free press. Hydrogen is impractical as an aviation fuel source for many reasons listed above. More than that, it isn’t “green” at all unless the production is powered by nuclear energy (which we seem to have abandoned). Producing H2 uses an enormous amount of energy, so while the actual burning of it produces only water vapor, significant emissions were likely produced in its production. Like most “green” solutions, it is expensive, impractical, and not nearly as environmentally-friendly as it presents itself to be.