Boeing and Airbus ground green plane projects

Times

3 days ago

Two years ago, Boeing pulled an airliner out of the Victorville 'boneyard' in California — one of the giant desert storage lots for unwanted aircraft — and flew it 50 miles west to a classified plant for some radical surgery.
The 25-year-old MD-90, which in its former life carried passengers for Delta Air Lines and China Southern, was to be the test bed for technology that would cut the greenhouse gases emitted by future aircraft. Its existing wings were to be cut off and replaced with long, thin versions supported by struts projecting from the bottom of a new, deeper fuselage.
Boeing and Nasa, which was funding the work, had high hopes for the X-66A, as the plane was renamed. Or they did until four months ago, when the project was abruptly put on ice. Two months earlier, something similar happened to one of Europe's big environmental projects. In February, Airbus said it would 'pause' development of the ZEROe hydrogen plane, an aircraft with no carbon emissions that it had planned to have in service by 2035.
The two manufacturers enjoy a near-duopoly in the airliner market, and delays to their flagship green programmes have sounded an alarm on airlines' plans to get to net zero — adding no additional carbon to the atmosphere — by 2050.
'The airline industry does in my view have a serious intent to meet net-zero targets but faces increased challenges in doing so', John Strickland, an independent aviation consultant, said. 'Alternative technologies are being pushed further out, which means an increased emphasis on the use of sustainable aviation fuel, which is still in limited supply.'
The delays may also create another obstacle to the planned expansion of Heathrow. The airport said on August 1 that it would 'only deliver expansion in a way that is consistent with net zero 2050'. And some analysts believe the hold-up increases the chances of a challenge to Boeing and Airbus from new entrants more eager to take up the environmental mantle.
Aviation is estimated by the International Energy Agency to account for 2.5 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, with a slightly greater — 4 per cent — contribution to global warming thanks to the creation of vapour trails. In the UK, it has a greater share of direct emissions: 9 per cent this year, according to the Climate Change Committee, the government's independent advisers. That share is forecast to grow to 11 per cent by 2030 and 16 per cent by 2035.
That global emissions share is also likely to increase. After a severe decline during the pandemic, flights are now increasing fast. Iata, the airline trade body, has said passenger numbers will grow nearly 6 per cent this year to just under 5 billion and could hit 16 billion by 2050. As other energy-intensive industries find ways to cut their carbon emissions — electricity replacing blast furnaces in steel, new technology for making cement, and electric vehicles for land transport — aviation's share of total CO₂ could, by some estimates, rise to 20 per cent by 2050.
Carbon-cutting technology for aviation is proving slow to arrive. Most experts think battery-power will be limited to small commuter aircraft, but there are high hopes for hydrogen. Airbus had invested significantly, including a plan to test a hydrogen fuel-cell engine on a modified A380 superjumbo. But it paused work in February, saying progress on 'key enablers', in particular the production of large amounts of hydrogen from renewable energy, was 'slower than anticipated'.
Boeing has been less interested in hydrogen, but said the X-66A could lead to a 10 per cent reduction in emissions. When it cancelled the project it said it would instead concentrate on other designs for thinner, more efficient wings.
Neither manufacturer appears in any rush to bring out radical designs. Airbus's plan to replace its bestselling A320 family of aircraft envisages something familiar to passengers today, albeit with engines that can be powered by conventional fuels or 'sustainable' replacements. That plane is unlikely to enter service until 2035 at the earliest, and probably much later.
Boeing, which has been beset by a series of crises in the past year, also appears to be in no hurry. At its quarterly results on July 29, chief executive Kelly Ortberg said: 'I don't think the market is ready yet for a new airplane.'
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Slow progress on alternative technology means airlines' hopes rest on the rapid introduction of sustainable fuels — hydrocarbons not pumped from the ground, but made from plants or re-used oils, or directly synthesised. However, the current supply is tiny — a mere 0.53 per cent of total aviation fuel worldwide last year, according to Air Transport Action Group (Atag), which brings together airlines, airports and aerospace manufacturers.
Atag's Waypoint 2050 report concluded that making enough sustainable fuel to hit net zero would require the construction of 5,000 refineries, costing $1.45 trillion over the next 25 years. IBA, the aviation consultancy, has forecast production of sustainable fuels will hit 18 million tonnes a year by 2035 — but that will be 23 million tonnes short of demand.
Environmental campaigners are scornful. 'The only serious remedy [to increasing CO₂ emissions] is demand restraint,' Dr Douglas Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said. 'Everything else — the nonsensical offset schemes, the utopian technology forecasts and now the implausible optimism surrounding 'sustainable' aviation fuel — is primarily a collection of elaborate misdirection techniques.'
If aviation's emissions do grow as a proportion of the total, Airbus and Boeing could face societal pressure to do more. Nick Cunningham, managing partner at Agency Partners, an aerospace analysis firm, recently published a note on how 'complacency' on decarbonisation posed an 'existential risk' to the companies.
Cunningham said planemakers were understandably reluctant to make large investments in new technology. 'Boeing does not at the moment have the financial resources to develop an all-new aircraft. Airbus has reason to be wary because some of its development programmes — the A380 and the A400M for example — ended up way over budget.'
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The Chinese aerospace industry could be a potential challenger. There are now 16 Comac C919s, the first modern Chinese airliner, in service, with a second, larger aircraft, the C929, expected to begin commercial flights towards the end of the decade. Cunningham said, however, that carbon reduction is not China's main goal. 'There could be a challenge from China, but for the moment it is concentrating on replacing imports of western aerospace equipment,' he said.
One potential rival to the Airbus-Boeing hegemony is JetZero, a California-based company set up in 2021. It has ambitious plans to build a radical new type of passenger aircraft: a blended wing body, where the wings and fuselage are one smooth shape. The Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bomber, used by the US Air Force in the recent attacks against Iran, is such a design.
JetZero claims its design could cut emissions in half compared to conventional designs. It has secured backing from two big US carriers, United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, including a commitment from them to buy aircraft. The USAF has awarded it a development contract for a potential new transport aircraft.
'JetZero is extremely interesting,' Cunningham said. 'The backing it has from airlines and the air force give it credibility, and it has very ambitious production plans. Its design would be more efficient than conventional aircraft, and crucially it would lend itself to a switch to hydrogen fuel when that is adopted.'