This text is taken from the Courrier de l’économie of December 5, 2022. To subscribe, click here.
Do you know the story of the madman who repaints his ceiling? It is also a bit like that of global aviation and its climate promises.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and its 193 member countries made a commitment in Montreal last summer that all aircraft in service by 2050 will be fully carbon neutral. Intermediate targets from 2030 are also in place to ensure as smooth a transition as possible to a world where the industry will have gotten rid of the approximately 240 billion liters of kerosene that it consumes annually these days.
And that’s because COVID has reduced the number of travelers. In 2019, global aviation consumed 400 billion liters of fuel. Its fuel needs are expected to double within 20 years.
Imperfect Solutions
The two options currently on the table to decarbonize commercial aircraft are SAF fuel, produced from biomass, and hydrogen. However, these two solutions are produced in clearly insufficient quantities. In fact, they are not the miracle solutions hoped for by the transport sector as a whole.
“Hydrogen is the fashion of the day,” summed up last week in Munich at the facilities of the military division of Airbus Peter Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a pro-environment NGO.
In the short term, Krupp fears it may not be possible to produce enough SAF fuel to turn things around. 125 million liters were produced in the last year. The objective is to produce 5 billion liters in 2025. A drop of water in a kerosene tank.
Hydrogen has a whole other problem: it leaks. And no one can quantify these leaks, during its production, in its distribution or even in its use on board an aircraft.
These leaks, once in the atmosphere, warm the planet. Hydrogen forms water vapour. It also combines with tropospheric hydroxyl radicals that would otherwise eliminate ambient methane.
The solution ? “We will have to think about finding a catalyst that will convert hydrogen leaks into water before they leave the planes,” says Airbus technical director Sabine Klauke. A very small bandage over an open wound.
In other words, the supposedly carbon neutral planes of tomorrow could accelerate global warming.
What about that madman repainting his ceiling? Another madman passes by and says to him: “Hold on to the brush, I’m taking the ladder away!” »