Potter, Ned. “Airbus Plans Hydrogen-Powered Carbon-Neutral Planes by 2035. Can They Work?” IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News, 12 Oct. 2020, 21:30 GMT, spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/airbus-plans-hydrogenpowered-carbonneutral-planes-by-2035-can-they-work.
Article title:
Airbus Plans Hydrogen-Powered Carbon-Neutral Planes by 2035. Can They Work?
Photo-illustration: Airbus
My summary of the article:
Airbus prospects that their blended body-wing, hydrogen fuel based aircraft would be a popular means of transportation in the near future – 2035. The main motivation for Airbus to engineer this aircraft, as Airbus has mentioned themselves, is to tackle the problem with global climate change due to excess release of carbon into the atmosphere. There are several advantages of this aircraft system, including more efficient energy use due to hydrogen molecules having more potential chemical energy than hydrocarbon-based molecules and increased fuel efficiency due to the unique blended body-wing shape of the aircraft.
Airbus justifies their commitment in trying to change the world by alluding to a research done by the European Commission, which states that between 2 and 3 percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions are produced by aviation (aircrafts) alone.
My response to the article:
Firstly, I was quite shocked by how much of the total global carbon emissions aviation technology (or aviation services) is responsible for. Then again, the statistics does indeed appear as very accurate when I consider the long flight time and distance and the high velocity of traveling by aircraft. Indeed, I am definitely not against the use of hydrocarbons in transportations. To argue that humanity must stop using hydrocarbons in order to stop excess carbon emissions is such an emotional and unrealistic approach. At the same time, it is also true that the continuation of humanity will not be sustained when we would have to rely on hydrocarbon energy for the rest of the future, and due to this a long term effort to transfer to a different energy source is necessary. As airbus is proposing, hydrogen fuel may be the answer, considering that electricity is such a difficult means of energy to manipulate freely, especially in air and spacecrafts. Whatever that may be, it would require humanity's combined effort and intelligence to solve this long term problem, and time is ticking.
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