Two new reports have highlighted the considerable costs and logistics of transitioning air transport to novel propulsion aircraft, both emphasising the need for urgent action to enable the switch. A report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as part of its Target True Zero initiative indicates that by 2050, the aviation industry will need to invest between $700 billion and $1.7 trillion to provide sufficient infrastructure for hydrogen, battery-electric and hybrid-electric aircraft. It argues the foundation elements must be in place by 2025 and says new partnerships are essential between the aviation sector and energy suppliers. A parallel report by European advocacy group Transport & Environment (T&E) says hydrogen-powered aircraft will cost 8% more to operate than fossil-fuelled planes but could be 2% cheaper from 2035 if their development is supported by government incentives, funded through taxes on conventional jet fuel and a price on carbon. “These pricing measures are key to the deployment of green technologies like hydrogen planes,” says T&E.

The WEF report was produced with the support of McKinsey and Partners, the Aviation Environment Federation and the Aviation Impact Accelerator of the University of Cambridge to help quantify challenges involved in the transition to new propulsion technologies. It estimates that by 2050, battery-electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft could comprise between 21% and 38% of total fleets, and require 15% to 34% of the industry’s total energy needs.

Of this power, says WEF, between 89% and 96% would be needed for hydrogen-powered aircraft, with the remaining 4% to 11% for battery-electric turboprops, regional jets and small narrowbody planes. The introduction of hydrogen and electric propulsion would also require separate infrastructure value chains and necessitate production of power away from airports, which would not have sufficient land for the energy infrastructure. “The investments needed to meet 2050 alternative-propulsion-related infrastructure goals must start now,” stresses the report, with the first elements required to be in place by 2025.

“Getting infrastructure right will be critical in allowing this new industry to take off – whether that means ‘on-airport’ infrastructure, such as chargers and refuellers, or ‘off-airport’ infrastructure, such as producing enough green electricity,” write McKinsey Partner Robin Riedel and WEF Climate Head Pedro Gomez in their foreword to the report. “There is a great deal at stake in getting this transition right. Collaboration across geographies, industries and stakeholders is critical to fast-track aviation’s trajectory towards a more sustainable future.”  

The sheer volume of energy needed to power the emerging generation of novel propulsion aircraft is identified by WEF as a key challenge in the transition to zero-emission commercial flights. Globally by 2050, it estimates alternative propulsion systems could need between 600 and 1,700 terrawatt hours of clean energy, “which is equivalent to the energy generated by around 10 to 25 of the world’s largest wind farms, or a solar farm the size of Belgium.”

As well, to power alternative propulsion aircraft, the WEF report says airports will need to massively increase their on-site energy use, with battery-electric and hydrogen-powered fleets each needing their own energy infrastructure. “For an airport that is a large hub looking to invest in on-site hydrogen liquefaction and charging for battery-electric powered aircraft, total on-site electricity consumption for terminals, ground support and other uses could be between 1,250 and 2,450 gigawatt hours per year, which is about five to 10 times more electricity than London Heathrow currently consumes.”

Producing new power would also present a major challenge, for while most airports would have room to develop hydrogen liquefaction and storage infrastructure, they would have nowhere near enough land for infrastructure to generate the clean energy required to power battery-electric or hydrogen aircraft.

“While airports have been touted as possible energy hubs, the scale of energy demand for alternative propulsion will make it extremely difficult to perform all energy production at airports,” says the report. “If Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport is used as an example of a major international hub, it would require approximately 5,800 hectares of solar panels to generate sufficient electricity to meet its demands under the Mission Possible Partnership’s prudent scenario. This far exceeds the size of the airport itself, which now occupies 3,300 hectares.”

The report says transition to novel propulsion aircraft would require capital investment of between $700 billion and $1.7 trillion by 2050, around 90% of which would be for off-airport infrastructure, mainly to generate power and for hydrogen electrolysis and liquefaction. On-airport infrastructure, which comprises the remaining 10%, will total “a more modest” $66 billion to $114 billion by 2050.

“Capital expenditures in green power generation for aviation alone would double the current projections for global airport capital infrastructures, $1.68 trillion by 2040 at $84 billion per year,” it calculates. “This makes it almost certain that aviation players will need to form partnerships with companies in other industries, such as energy providers and those in hydrogen-consuming industries, to secure the required investment. 

“The investments needed to meet 2050 alternative-propulsion-related infrastructure goals must start now. The first elements of on-airport infrastructure must be in place by 2025 to meet the expected energy demand.”

The report’s authors also say operators of alternative propulsion should expect to pay between 76% and 86% more than the market price for renewable electricity, pricing which reflects additional costs of operating aviation infrastructure.

The report commissioned by Transport & Environment, and produced by research group Steer, concludes hydrogen-powered jets could be operated less expensively than fossil fuel-powered aircraft from 2035 “provided kerosene is taxed adequately”.

It says: “In 2035, running planes on hydrogen could be 8% more expensive than using kerosene. But with a tax on fossil jet fuel and a price on carbon, hydrogen planes could become 2% cheaper to operate than their kerosene counterparts. These pricing measures are key to the deployment of green technologies like hydrogen planes.”

The T&E analysis shows that by 2050, deployment of hydrogen aircraft for intra-Europe flights would cost €299 billion ($320bn), of which only 5% (€15 billion) would be for the development of hydrogen planes. “This relatively small upfront cost must, however, happen before 2035, or risk jeopardising the success of these new planes.”

The balance of the cost would be outside the aviation sector, with green hydrogen production accounting for €161 billion, or 54%, then hydrogen liquefaction at 23%, hydrogen infrastructure at airports (12%) and distribution of the fuel to airports (6%).

T&E highlights the commitment by Airbus to launch hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2035, but said the airframer had since warned of delays due to slow development of hydrogen infrastructure.

“Building these planes is feasible,” said T&E’s aviation technical manager Carlos Lopez de la Osa, “but if we want Airbus to walk the talk, we’ll need to create a market for zero emission aircraft by taxing fossil jet fuel and mandating zero emission planes in the future. “For hydrogen planes to take off in the next decade, we need to enter the virtuous circle of regulation, investment and a fall in prices, followed by stronger uptake. But the cost must be shouldered by the aviation industry and its users by ring-fencing part of carbon and kerosene tax revenues for green tech like zero emission planes and clean fuels.”

Image: The Airbus ZEROe concept hydrogen-powered aircraft

European NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) and a coalition of 13 partners have launched a campaign urging corporates to address their travel emissions and lower the level of trips being made for business. They say the dramatic fall in business travel and the rise in the use of videoconferencing as a result of the Covid pandemic presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lock in emission reductions from global corporate flying. Reducing business flights can also make a significant contribution at a time when there is pressure to reduce dependency on oil, they add, as highlighted in a recent 10-point plan issued by the International Energy Agency to cut oil use. To coincide with the launch of the Travel Smart campaign, T&E has published the results of an assessment of global companies that were evaluated and ranked in terms of business travel commitments, air travel reduction targets, timelines and reporting. It found current targets were not yet sufficient to reduce GHG emissions in line with 1.5C warming scenarios and reporting is “fuzzy and unstandardised”.

In a 2020 report, McKinsey & Company estimated that business travel accounted for between 15% and 20% of all air travel in 2019, representing around 154 million tonnes of CO2. If this was reduced by half in Europe alone, it would result in an emissions cut of 32.6 MtCO2 by 2030, says T&E, whose new campaign is asking companies to commit publicly to an absolute target of at least a 50% reduction in flying by 2025 or sooner, based on 2019 levels.

The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has estimated business travel spending, which typically accounts for between 60% and 70% of airline revenues, declined by 52% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, from $1.4 trillion in 2019 to $694 billion in 2020. What the future holds for business travel is currently uncertain, with the GBTA predicting it will fully recover to 2019 spending by 2025, whereas a survey by McKinsey of sustainability professionals at 100 global businesses found overseas travel in the next two to three years will significantly come down compared to pre-Covid levels.

“It is difficult to know whose prediction is the more accurate, but what is clear is that if old habits return, it will be harder to break them,” says a report of the T&E study. “A short window exists right now to encourage companies to adopt emission reduction targets and lock in the lower emissions habits they have acquired during the pandemic.”

T&E’s Corporate Travel Campaign Manager, Denise Auclair, who joined the organisation last year, explained the reasoning behind the Travel Smart campaign. “We think there are a number of elements in place showing a movement towards maintaining reduced levels of travel and flying,” she told GreenAir. “Business people have found how easy it is to have an online alternative, particularly to long-distance flying, where the majority of emissions are.

“One bank told us they were going to reduce their levels of flying to less than 50% of pre-pandemic levels. A head of a major bank said recently he would be taking fewer trips of two to three days duration and replacing them with longer ones. Morgan Stanley reported around 25-30% of their business could be done online.”

Auclair said companies were recognising a need to provide employees with an alternative to frequent air travel and corporate investors were paying greater attention to climate action by companies, as well as ways costs could be cut quickly. “We’re not saying there should be an across the board halt in company travel, just that there should be a more purposeful approach to it.”

The study by T&E, carried out with Stand.Earth Research Group, created a database to enable it to rank 230 companies based in Europe and the US, with each company attributed a final grade of A to D according to their business travel reduction targets and reporting levels.

It found the majority of companies that are currently reporting business or air travel emissions have only broad emissions reduction pledges. “This provides an opportunity for these companies to further improve their climate commitments, by refining them to include ambitious air travel reduction commitments and timelines, in line with the reductions they experienced in 2020,” says the report.

Eight companies, including Zurich Insurance Group, Lloyds Banking and Ernst & Young, ranked highest for their corporate travel emissions reduction plans, while others with the lowest D score were predominantly from the technology sector, such as Microsoft, IBM, Google and Facebook (now Meta). The so-called “laggards” were ranked low because they mainly lacked business travel commitments and reduction targets, even while disclosing their emissions.

However, “laggards” such as Microsoft and Meta have joined corporate programmes to stimulate demand in the use of sustainable aviation fuels as a way of reducing their travel carbon footprints. Microsoft recently purchased SAF for use on a United Airlines flight as part of a ‘book and claim’ pilot initiative (see article) and its Climate Innovation Fund invested $50 million to support construction of a SAF facility (see article).

“It’s important that companies are looking at different options to reduce their emissions, including sustainable aviation fuels, but what we need to look at is by when those changes will be felt,” responded Auclair. “At T&E we look closely at SAF and our best estimate is that by 2030 we could be at 5% levels of SAF – maybe 10% if we’re ambitious – of total fuel use. Right now, until then, the best way we have to reduce emissions is to fly less, while SAF is building up and investments are taking place.”

She said there were signs some companies were starting to move away from carbon offsetting as a means of compensating for business travel emissions, describing it as “yesterday’s game”. “While the motivation behind offsetting isn’t wrong, we at T&E think offsetting has been shown to be ineffective and not addressing the core problem of rising emissions.”

Having published the study, Auclair said she wanted to work with leading companies on how they could “step up” commitments to target setting and reporting. “There is a job to be done on detailed and transparent reporting of emissions so that we can actually look at performance and measure progress. There’s a lot happening now on company sustainability reporting. We want to inspire and support this movement towards more purposeful travel.”