The roar of low-flying Rafale fighter-bombers and the acrobatic spectacles continued to captivate the public, as always, at the recent Le Bourget air and space show, north of Paris. But in this year’s edition –after the forced pause since 2020 due to the covid pandemic–, the real stars of the fair were the electric propulsion aircraft. The sector is at the gates of a transition, very complex in its case, towards decarbonization.
The position of the Slovenian company Pipistrel (“bat”, in Venetian dialectal Italian) was one of those that brought together the most curious people. It is a pioneer firm in electric motor planes that is in full expansion. “Not only is energy spent very little, but they are extremely quiet,” remarked a vendor. The Alpha Electro two-seater model, for example, is designed for training pilots. Its very low operating cost – the brand’s advertising ensures that one euro is enough to charge the battery and fly for an hour – makes it possible to greatly limit the price of courses in piloting schools and makes the hobby of emulating Icarus more accessible.
Pipistrel’s proposal does not work, for the moment, for commercial aviation. It is unimaginable that a jetliner with hundreds of passengers or even a business jet could function in the near future due to the energy stored in batteries. However, air transport faces a huge paradox in the coming years: a sharp increase in traffic is expected and, at the same time, the commitment to rapid decarbonization must be met to meet the global goals of mitigating global warming and the crisis. climate in general.
At Le Bourget, the concepts “sustainability”, “decarbonization” and “energy saving” were read on many panels and brochures. No one dares to question this philosophy. It was the unofficial leitmotiv of the room. There was a specific space dedicated to innovation, the modest-sized Paris Air Lab pavilion, where the technical problems that must be solved to move forward were raised. In the corner dedicated to hydrogen, it was noted that, despite being three times lighter than kerosene, liquid hydrogen occupies four times more volume and, in its gaseous version, seven times more.
Aviation’s ambitious goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. While aircraft are responsible today for only 2.5% to 3% of CO2 emissions—estimates vary, as some take into account the effect of the contrails they leave and other factors) – it is clear that the increase in traffic will push this figure up if drastic measures are not taken. The two main variables are fuel and engine efficiency, as well as aircraft design.
Pending substantial progress in hydrogen technology, the most effective and fastest way at present to reduce CO2 emissions is through sustainable alternative fuels (sustainable aviation fuels, SAF, in aeronautical jargon), that is, They are not of fossil origin. Among them are advanced biofuels, derived from lignocellulosic biomass (vegetable materials, forestry and agricultural residues), as well as from the recycling of animal oils and fats. Another alternative is electrofuels (e-fuels), synthetic, carbon-neutral fuels that are obtained by storing electrical energy from renewable sources such as solar panels or wind farms.
The European Union has set itself the goal of rapidly increasing the incorporation of sustainable fuels to lower the percentage of kerosene in aircraft tanks. It must gradually but quickly go from the current 0.1% to 70% in 2050.
Industry experts are skeptical about the pace, even those who have invested heavily in energy transformation. “Unless we drastically increase the consumption of French fries, we will have a problem,” joked the CEO of the startup Global Energies, Marc Delcourt, quoted by the newspaper Les Echos. He was referring to the massive resource of recycling used oils by individuals or restaurants. There is an almost insoluble logistical problem to collect – in a viable and ecological way – this material that can be transformed. His company is now embarking on making fuel from sugars obtained from wood and straw, something that requires less logistics. The results are encouraging.
Beyond the technical difficulties posed by the SAF revolution, the problem of price emerges. Alternatives to kerosene are, for now, significantly more expensive. According to a study by the American strategic consultancy Bain
These types of future projections are approximate. The truth is that in Le Bourget, which closed its doors last Sunday after receiving some 400,000 visitors, more than half of them professionals, there was an air of optimism, almost euphoria. “It’s a return to the good old days of the excitement of the lounge,” Airbus boss Guillaume Faury congratulated himself. Orders reached figures not seen since the best years of the pre-pandemic era. In a period of about ten years it is estimated that twice as many planes will fly through the skies of the planet than today. Airbus and Boeing, the two giants of the industry, will manufacture, between them, more than 40,000 new devices.
During the days of the fair, the low-cost Indian company IndiGo gave the bell. Its $55 billion order from Airbus for 500 A320 Neo aircraft broke a record in the industry’s history. “It is a day I will never forget,” said Airbus commercial director Christian Scherrer. The executive predicted that the Indian market will be one of the fastest growing, hand in hand with an economy that will soon become the third largest in the world. Together with IndiGo, Air India also confirmed in Le Bourget an order for 470 aircraft (250 to Airbus and 220 to Boeing) that it had placed in February.
The host of the show, President Emmanuel Macron, arrived on the day of the inauguration aboard a helicopter that carried 30% sustainable fuel in its tanks. It was his contribution to raising awareness about the transformation that awaits the aviation industry. The French head of state defended a “reasonable ecological sobriety” and “non-punitive”. Macron considered that it is not advisable, despite the circumstances, “to give up growth”. The aeronautical industry employs more than 200,000 people in France and the forecast is to continue increasing in the coming years.
Enthusiasm was curbed by environmental NGOs. Fourteen of them, associated in the Stay Grounded initiative (stay on the ground, or be realistic, according to the double meaning of the English term), protested against what they described as “climate denial”. “Without limiting air traffic we will not be able to significantly reduce emissions, noise and pollution in the sector in the expected time,” they warned. “We cannot ignore climate science due to dreams of unlimited mobility,” these activists warned against air travel and the “socioeconomic oligarchy” that promotes the expansion of this means of transportation. In his opinion, “the carbon balance of the plane is not sustainable and responds above all to non-essential travel needs, 52% for leisure reasons.”
Judging by the success of the fair, which they asked to boycott, the opponents of the airplane still have a lot of work to do, perhaps even more than the engineers determined to reduce its impact on the planet’s natural balance to almost zero.
