Airbus’ Hydrogen Plane Crash — Time for a Reality Check – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

Two years ago, I denounced the fool’s game Airbus is playing around its hydrogen plane, accusing them of building hydrogen hype, not planes. Everything makes sense now: has Airbus invested €15 billion in this program? No. Will they support European regulation to ensure the development of the hydrogen market? No. Will they push Boeing to join the race for hydrogen aviation? Certainly not.

Airbus’s quiet admission late on a Friday evening that they are delaying their hydrogen dream is in stark contrast to the gushing press releases of previous years. After lulling us with stories of aviation at the cutting edge of innovation—brave like the Wright brothers, visionary like Mermoz—the industry is now facing reality. Airbus is, in the end, just another company guided by profit maximization, whether that comes at the expense of the climate or not.

Who ever thought that, without binding regulation, a company like Airbus, which enjoys a near-monopoly, would invest €15 billion in a risky program that is less profitable than its cash cow, the A320 program, no matter how polluting it is? Airbus is now hiding behind the excuse of the slow start of the hydrogen ecosystem to justify delaying its program, even though the first planes were supposed to be commercialized in … 10 years. Yet, it is precisely a signal from a major player like Airbus which has the power to drive the rest of the industry in the right direction—not the other way around.

Did French and European decision-makers really believe in this fairy tale? I’ll leave it to French taxpayers to judge whether the 1.5 billion euros in public money handed to the sector under the guise of a “green plane” and a “decarbonized future for aviation” were well spent. What I see instead is that the hydrogen plane program was used to distract political leaders. The sad reality is that now we will end up with more fossil planes in the sky than ever before and are no closer to any breakthroughs, not on hydrogen, not on electric, not on hybrid aircraft or new designs. It was all smoke and mirrors.

The news of the program’s demise should serve as a wake-up call for French and European policymakers. As we have demonstrated, the sector’s growth prospects are irreconcilable with climate goals. Abandoning the hydrogen plane only worsens the prospects of the sector reaching zero.

The first lesson is that the industry’s promises are not worth the paper they are written on—regulation is essential to achieving environmental goals. This has been true for electric cars, for clean energy, for chemical pollution. … Why should aircraft be an exception?

The second lesson is that no empire lasts forever. Just think of our once proud car industry. Airbus reminds me of Volkswagen pre-Dieselgate. It looks unassailable but is it? It’s only a matter of time before China joins the clean aviation race in earnest. Can we really afford the European aircraft manufacturing industry to rest on its laurels?

The third lesson is that if we want change, governments need to act. Alongside regulation, there should be more targeted funding to deploy zero-emission aircraft, looking at the most promising technology. Even if their contribution to reducing emissions may be limited, We should promote zero-emission aircraft, exempting them from airport charges, giving them free slots, and prioritising and ultimately requiring them on publicly funded routes (e.g. to islands); we should reward electric flying, not just biofuels, in the EU’s clean aviation regulations and last but not least, we should accelerate the certification of new technologies and designs.

The time for grand promises is over; we need to face reality. Will the Paris Air Show in June be a grand celebration for green aviation or yet another farcical spectacle? I leave it up to governments to decide.

By William Todts, Executive Director

Originally published on T&E website.