Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- How good is the COMAC C919? March 20, 2025
- Boeing CFO Brian West: OK on tariffs for now, backlogs and inventories help March 20, 2025
- Pontifications: Southwest’s core problems are not solved by business model changes-yet March 19, 2025
- Boeing 2024 Proxy Statement: Executive Compensation includes retirement gifts for Calhoun, Deal; housing support for Ortberg, Pope, and other stuff March 17, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 13. March 14, 2025
Another One Bites the Dust; alternative energy gives way to realities
Grounded: Eviation’s Alice, a concept that had more questions than answers. Credit: Eviation.
By Scott Hamilton
Feb. 18, 2025, © Leeham News: Universal Hydrogen. Lilium. Volocopter. Tecnam’s electric airplane. Airbus electric. Airbus hydrogen. ATR hybrid.
Eviation was just the latest alternative energy project to bite the dust.
And these are just the ones we’ve heard about.
Boeing declined comment on the status of its WISK autonomous electric air taxi. Its future may have as much to do with the company’s current financial condition and efforts to recover from a series of crises since the March 2019 grounding of the 737 MAX than with technology or business model concerns.
The alternative energy aviation industry, the soup du jour in recent years, is running out of gas, so-to-speak. LNA’s aerospace engineer, Bjorn Fehrm, predicted years ago that battery-, and hybrid-powered airplanes were concepts that wouldn’t fly and that hydrogen’s availability at airports is tough nut to crack.
The International Air Transport Association in October 2021 adopted a goal for the airline industry to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Aggressive milestones also were adopted. Included were ambitious goals to significantly increase the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), the path favored by Boeing.
Tim Clark, the president of Emirates Airline, said then, Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
The industry, it now increasingly admits, can’t keep these promises.
Failure is an option after all
Simply put, none of the technology is ready—and it won’t be for decades. As LNA has been writing for years, battery weight-to-power isn’t efficient. The life cycle of battery production and disposal remains environmentally challenged. eVTOLs must operate under visual flight rules and have endurance generally in the tens of miles. Battery-powered airplanes require charging infrastructure and have impractical range.
Hydrogen-powered aircraft have storage issues on and to-and-from the airplanes; and high-volume production is completely absent.
Air New Zealand gave up its goals of making progress toward net zero. ANA and Japan Airlines are taking different approaches amid slower than expected progress. Production facilities remain anemic. Feedstock isn’t remotely adequate to meet demand. Depending on how reliant production is on land-based feedstock, SAF conceivably is worse for the environment than Jet A fuel. SAF is more expensive than Jet A fuel, measured in multiples. Synthetic SAF is even more expensive.
SAF use globally, and even among participating airlines, is only a fraction of 1%. This hasn’t changed since IATA’s 2021 initiative, nor from decades before.
Replacing current airplanes will take generations
Environmental advocates so far fail to fully recognize that the aviation industry flies 25,000 airliners each day, and that this amount of airplanes will take generations to replace with much more efficient airliners. Airbus A320ceos and Boeing 737 NGs—the older generation single-aisle airplanes dominating operations today—will be flying for years to come. The last ceo was delivered around 2018. The last 737 NG was delivered around 2019. Typical passenger service for an airliner is around 25 years. The older generation single-aisle aircraft will likely be in service until 2041 and 2043, respectively. Freighters can fly up to 40 years before retirement.
The A320neo and 737 MAX are expected to remain in production throughout most of the 2030 decade, perhaps to 2040. This means the last of these airplanes won’t exit passenger service until around 2065.
Widebody aircraft often have similar life cycles.
What’s the answer?
In ground transportation, there is a principle called multi-modal. This means transportation is a combination of cars and trucks, buses, trains, light rail, motorcycles, bicycles and walking. In commercial aviation, work must continue on alternative energy sources, but real advances probably are a generation or more away.
This means that the next generation of airplanes and engines, whatever shape these take, must have significant improvements to have a real positive impact on the environment.
JetZero, a start-up company, is developing the first passenger Blended Wing Body aircraft, for the 250 seat class. Officials claim it will offer fuel consumption that is up to 50% better than Boeing 767s and Airbus A330ceos it’s intended to replace. LNA is skeptical of this claim, but this isn’t the biggest challenge facing the new company. It has only a fraction of the billions of dollars needed to bring the BWB to the market.
Consultants believe the best chance for the project is for JetZero to be purchased by Boeing or Airbus, which have the muscle to do so. Boeing is hardly able to do so for years to come, and in any event, it has its own BWB research acquired in the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas. Airbus is skeptical of the BWB.
Under the previous CEO David Calhoun, Boeing seemed enamored with a Transonic Truss Brace Wing (TTBW) concept. Mated with new conventional engines, Calhoun said the airplane might be able to bring 25%-30% better economics. But there are a lot of certification challenges to a high wing airplane (like water and wheels-up landings) and flight characteristics associated with the super-wide wingspan. It’s not at all clear that this will be the Next Boeing Airplane (NBA).
The next single-aisle airplane will likely be a conventional tube-and-wing design.
Engines are the key—as always
Engines are the key to the next airplane. They always are. Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce are pursuing improvements in conventional engine technology. These might improve fuel consumption by around 10%. CFM International (GE Aerospace and Safran) is placing its bet on the Open Fan RISE engine. The Open Fan is a refinement of the Open Rotor counter-rotating propfan engines under study since the 1980s. GE says the Open Fan will result in a 20% improvement in fuel burn (and with it, emissions). But there remains some real skepticism that all the 1980s vibration, noise and blade-out concerns have been solved. GE and Airbus plan to initiate flight testing on an A380 in 2027.
Improvements in the airframes are harder to come by. Aerodynamics for conventional tube-and-wing aircraft can only incrementally improve fuel efficiency. Weight is the key. So, new materials and production methods may become major contributors.
These are the realities. The alternative energy pie-in-the-sky has come down to earth.
I’m sceptical that any new type of aircraft will come from the existing big players. It’s a bit like with the cars. The established manufacturers have been completely established and organised around gasoline engines. Investing in a new concept is expensive, requires new expertise and trashes the existing assets. This all comes with a lot of risks and uncertainty, while making a new, conventional car is a lot easier and the safer choice.
It took a complete outsider to mix up the market, proofing that electric cars work and have a certain demand, once the rest of the infrastructure has slowly been built up.
So for Airbus and Boeing it is as well a much safer bet to just continue what they have been doing well for the last few decades. It came at no surprise, that Airbus gave up on their Hydrogen initiative.
Its worth a note to delve into Jet Zero and the aspects.
As I understand it, Northrup Grumman has a share of Jet Zero. That would fall on the defense side of a tanker/freighter (particularity the tanker aka more stealthy – keeping in mind, stealth is not invisibility, its a low Radar Cross Section that allows you to ge4t close to an enemy radar without them seeing a return)
That said, there was a survey of Airlines and between TTBW and BW, the BW was much higher preferred. I was disappointed t hat they also did not do a RISE engine question in the mix. I believe it would have been almost zilch if not zlich.
A BW has issues in that its control surfaces for normal ops needs to be massive which in turn negates any savings.
Jet Zero is using a Jack in the Box front gear to raise the nose. Pops up, give them the angle of attack for takeoff.
If that fails in theory a longer takeoff run. Or a long enough runway for a rejected takeoff.
I am puzzled Boeing did not have the lead on the BW, they certainly did a lot of research on it. Maybe enough to convince them it was not viable.
They burnt their fingers with the 787 and the moderately complex 777-x update is not going well either. The whole company is close to bankruptcy.
And you expect them to go all in and bet the company on the ultimate moonshot? Not gonna happen.
Boeing is still making efforts to recover from the issues of the N787 Dreamliner programme that saddled the company accounts with a massive amount of carry forward red ink so the ‘efforts to recover from a series of crises since the March 2019 grounding of the 737 MAX’ is an addition to that earlier likely still unresolved, not fully recovered financial and developmental impact and others accumulated along the way. Your book detailed this in addition to the other issues that resulted from a redirection of company policies and priorities. As you made clear in your book it is management problems that have placed Boeing in the situation it is in today so the Max issues, the several, are just a part of the result of the central problems crippling Boeing.
The best option for Jetzero is if Northrop and USAF goes for its design for the next tanker aircraft NGAS, that will give room for a passenger aircraft just like Boeing did with the KC-135 from the Dash-80 and maybe Embraer joins in then. So with luck and skill can the Z-5 be the Dash-80 of the 2000’s.
Aircraft emissions increased by 7% last year
There is only one option to even try and slow down the rate of increase,never mind hope to decrease emissions and that is massive increases in tax.
I’m sorry,I know this is not going to be popular with the aviation industry but nothing they have promised is going to work
Grubbie, The economic system in use in the US allows the one offering the goods or services to set the price for what they are offering and let the market decide by demand if that will make their business operation viable. Go bust if not.
Aircraft emissions cannot be ignored though I do not believe they are the major pollutants that should be addressed when others contribute far more to the toxic load the environment with us included must tolerate of suffer from.
A recent presentation suggested that about 45,000 flights occur daily in the US with ALL the rest of the planet conducting around 110,000 flights per day. A large portion of the population on this planet consume daily a mere fraction of what the so called developed societies do which translates fairly well into the same ratio for emissions I think. The US population as a nations sits very much at the top of per head consumption and I dare to suggest emissions too.
We ALL must contribute to cleaning up the way we live that pollutes this environment and no finger pointing will help us co-operate in doing so. Each of us must recognize and accept our own contribution and reduce what we can and not when ever we feel inclined to do so.
Taxes are a VERY blunt instrument to apply to this essential project, usable but taxes are a weapon that can harm as well as motivate.
“We ALL must contribute to cleaning up the way we live that pollutes this environment and no finger pointing will help us co-operate in doing so. Each of us must recognize and accept our own contribution and reduce what we can and not when ever we feel inclined to do so.
Taxes are a VERY blunt instrument to apply to this essential project, usable but taxes are a weapon that can harm as well as motivate.”
Someone should make these very points to your new President, who seems more interested in more beachfront property development around the world! Until we all start to learn and accept that our standards of living have perhaps peaked, and that inexorable economic growth is just not sustainable in a world with limited resources, I think it must be assumed that we’re all doomed!
He aint my president, I did not get a vote even though Australia is a vassal state largely controlled via the US.
Not mine either and I did get to vote!
But we are stuck with it, democracy has its downside and that is what we have right now, huge downside.
And as an education endeavor, the US Constitution was written such that people do not have direct power (aka so called representative democracy)
As a method of control by the uppers, a think called the Electoral was created as was the Slave Clause given Southern State higher numbers even though slaves were not deemed human beings.
If your state votes red, your blue vote does not count because the state as a whole votes in the Electoral Collage red.
A blue vote in a red state has no meaning other than symbol of, I disagree.
Its true a Red vote in a blue state has the same affect.
I am for popularly elected, Trump would have failed the first time and we would never have seen him for a 2nd time.
So, is your idea to stop the enormous growth of harmful emissions?Whats going happen when the rest of the world gets anywhere near American levels of flying?
There is NO WAY the rest of the world will EVER get anywhere near America. Something the Americans will have to consider when they make their own decisions on what is acceptable, or not for themselves.
At times I wish I was no where near America either, this is one of them.
The only way to reduce the amount of flying that Americans do is to increase the price. Airplane tickets are so cheap now that large portions of the population make discretionary flights 5-10 times per year. If prices were doubled, demand would be reduced significantly.
Passengers flights have increased 4.5% every year for the last 50 years.Population has doubled. I can’t see anything stopping emissions following fairly closely behind for the next 30 years
you will not see any decrease while the market makes the decisions driven by those seeking to profit from aviation who at the same time have more influence, much unseen or heard, on the political people and system.
Excellent post, Scott. I would also add that Green Hydrogen is not cheap to produce in the first place because it is such an energy-intensive process.
Hydrocarbons have unbeatable features so realistically SAF is the likely the only practical low carbon fuel for longer range air transport. JetA1 is engineered for high energy density, easy handling, low mass/volume storage, good safety and zero transport mass after energy use.
Compressed or liquefied H2 gas storage is impractical (heavy) and inefficient (cooling/compression losses) making H2 a poor energy carrier. Adding nitrogen to H2 results in mediocre mass / energy characteristics and ammonia is deadly – sub-optimal for transport. Molecular framework storage of H2 may have potential, but the weight of the carrier may be 10x the H2 mass making it less effective that hydrocarbon.
A route using 3 tonnes of JetA1 has chemical energy of ~36MWh. To provide this from H2 requires a mass of ~900kg and the storage system adds more mass. Electron/ionic energy, lithium atoms at 3ev require 3600kg of lithium atoms. Anodes – sulphur increases this to ~10,000kg, electric motors might be more energy and mass efficient than a gas turbine, but not > 3x to reach anything like equivalence. Nuclear is impractical for mass/shielding reasons.
Societies are de-carbonising because they think/understand that increasing CO2 has a warming effect. The approaches employed are against economics and simply export carbon emissions to cheap coal fired power locations, plus transport, increasing overall emissions. Scientific illiteracy is so high politicians can lead people to fantasies that diffuse intermittent weather dependent energy sources can power their society at their accustomed living standards.
If humans want to keep the planet at a desired temperature level – say 1950s temps, managing this directly may avoid arguments about causation. 36.2 billion tons of CO2 are emitted per year, injections of 250,000 tonnes of stratospheric SO2 may mask the temperature portion of annual CO2 emissions. There are 20–30 million tonnes of SO2 natural annual emissions – but not into the stratosphere. There are ways to reduce atmospheric CO2, but the focus on intermittent energy approaches are too expensive, as are current wholesale CO2 reduction approaches – but CO2 consuming concrete compounds have promise.
If we google evtol order commitment future, environment, dozens of articles pop up of operators ordering dozens, hundreds of electric and H2 powered aircraft.
Imo some self reflection of those operators, reporters and supportive politicians is overdue.
Hope, played naivity, subsidies, green washing needs easily beat reality and available objective facts on these technologies.
We need to go back, call back into the spotlights these opportunists in responsible places, it’s not ok.
Aviation is not a significant contributor to transport emmissions.
Reducing ground transportation emmission but even just 10 % would have more effect than wipping out Aviation as a whole.
Governement and the aviaation industry need to understand this. This is the wrong fight.
But people would stave.I could probably survive without a gratuitous mini break that I only went on because it cost £30,or imported broccoli.
Even if the tax has no effect, the cash would be available for more applicable carbon reduction industries
If there was an easy answer it would have been pursued by now. Short of some kind of exotic propulsion system, the only real path to a zero emission system is likely to come from major improvements to battery technology. I don’t know whether solid state batteries alone can bridge the difference. It would help with charging time. There is no simple replacement for liquid fuel
Forget the Zero emission nonsense as it is practically unachievable and is a slogan of the Climate Change zealots who have no scientific evidence for their claims. Agenda 2030 is a political campaign not an environmental one.
Nothing wrong with researching efficiency improvements and electric propulsion can be in the mix too.
Ultimately it is the per mile or km traveled per individual environmental impact that should determine the best means of moving people around. The US was ‘given’ to the motor manufacturers to profit from which killed off the rail network and much mass transportation prioritizing individual travel by car and now also by airplanes. Not the best use of precious resources.
@Peter
I choose not to look at it from a political standpoint but an engineering basis. Airlines are already massively incentivized to minimize fuel consumption. The aircraft are purchased for their DOCs and commercial terms, not for political statement or “personal preference.” These are companies making purchases, not individuals.
The only way to get away from burning fuel is with storing electricity. Aircraft run on propulsion, not on a transmission that can be replaced with a battery equivalent.
Even SAF is not really carbon-neutral. I would posit that it is also much more desirable to produce “SAF” for ICE engines (and displacing conventional gasoline) that could have an immediate benefit over waiting for electric cars while waiting until better options are available in aviation. There are simply too many unturned stones in other modes of transportation that are not currently being pursued.
The best option for fluid-based propulsion would be hydrogen, but that commercially is not going to happen unless you have a world-wide agreement to create a production chain around that
Keeping in mind that with Hydrogen, you have the on board aircraft storage issue.
I have seen ships that were built to use Natural Gas (or propane). It takes a massive storage container in the middle taking up cargo space. In a ship you can offset that but its still a hit vs a petroleum using cargo ship.
So you have a double whammy of major range reduction and half the airframe used for storage.
So, range reduction, fuel and storage costs much higher, fewer pax, less range.
The problem in America is distorted by the lack of viable practical alternatives to air travel. I agree that aviation is way more efficient in DOC energy use compared to many other modes. BUT…
Is that the only yard stick that matters? In a money and business based society I guess it is, with one issue usually not included in people’s thinking – distortion of the market as a result of political influence. Incumbents that can dominate a market use their money to buy influence both direct through advertising and indirectly via lobbyists in the political system.
Outside of the US of A the world looks a lot different and is forced to think differently though has the same money based distortion effects as the Americans suffer. The results differ that’s all.
CO2 is Plant Food. The earth has been greening since levels have risen. All the models predicting The End of the World have failed to accurately predict climate.
The whole thing is a racket. Yes, airplanes should pollute less (especially on the ground). But CO2 is not a pollutant.
I had to scroll down to here to find someone who has not swallowed the whole man-made-global-warming enchilada.
Yes, the climate is changing, little by little, as it always has. Attributing these slight changes to CO², a trace gas in the atmosphere, is a political ploy aimed at promoting an agenda.
Let’s remember that the last Ice Age ended only 11 000 years ago. It was certainly not aviation, coal burning and SUVs that ended it.
The Milankovitch Cycles are a more plausible explanation for changes in Earth’s climate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFfwIOzVlh8
Human contribution for increased carbon is still the margin of error in the global natural carbon cycle.
Water vapour is the largest greenhouse gas.
Computer modelling of future climate changes is essentially junk science. When they do climate computer model runs the outcome is a spaghetti .
Even for weather – not the same as climate- rainfall prediction models for the next day would give different results- One is chosen from say 3-4 runs in a ‘beauty contest’. This I was told this by the weather forecasting agency, I called it a beauty contest..
Take away weather predictions that are -‘same as yesterday’- and the forecasting a day or two out is only a bit better than a coin toss. Yet a variation of those computer models is used to predict climate years ahead..
Something that should be clear is that Global Warming has been going on for a very very long time.
I don’t have the match of chemistry background to say one way or another, but it has accelerated impact wise the last 30 years.
We need to do as much as possible to control pollution.
Climate change as Global Warming is not a proven ‘FACT’ as it is presented as if it is fact with highly questionable modelling that is judged by many as inaccurate and unreliable. Too many factors are theoretically assumed. Strong argument exists supporting that instead earth is slowly entering a cooling cycle that may lead to a new iceage, but then again is it simply modelling based upon assumptions and theory? Greenland ice core sample reaching back millions of year tell a different story for example.
Pollution is nothing to do with the Climate, it is simply people shitting on the environment, our collective home, and collectively we ALL must clean up our act as we are poisoning ourselves as an integral and indivisible part of that environment.
Its a win to control pollution regardless of where you lean.
I see no evidence we are etnering a cold period. Its all gone the other way.
I have seen data back to the 1500s on ice depth on t he tip of South America, basically those rocks and passages were covered. Now its gone.
We had a lady geologist who wanted a core sample back 250,000 years, so she picked a crater that was full of ice. She got 50k worth of data, then hit rock.
For that spot (or area) there had been a warm spell and it melted all the data atop it, then started over again.
Hurricanes are stored ocean energy. We have had the worst ones ever logged in recent years. Were the worse ones or as bad beyond recorded data?
What we do know and see is a continued melt back.
Us on top of an existing trend? Seems very possible. But its in our best interest to reduce crud.
The problem is mainly drought where millions live from increasing global temperatures. It has happened before but not effecting 100’s of million people. To calculate different gases effect on global temperature is basic and done already in the 1800’s. Just go on a trip to the Alps and see the glacial retreating since year 1900 and talk to the mountain guides for non believers.
Yes the glacier have been retreating for around 150 years, but they are uncovering areas covered by trees in the medieval times or in roman times.
In Chamonix, the Mer de glace was around 800m shorter in the early 1300s or in roman times.
It is also important to know that CO² concentration was around 40 times higher than now in the early carboniferous times…
IPCC full report is around 8000 pages long, and the few people that analysed it in full will tell you that the “summary for decision makers” is severely biased. To know more about this please go to
clintel.org/about-us/, the CLINTEL team made a very serious report about this.
Bottom line: there is no climate emergency!
Thanks for this refreshing, reality-based article
of alternative energy-based aircraft.
You will be making an obituary article for Jetzero soon enough.
You forget or miss that Jet Zero is a USAF back program and while short term we will not see it, long term they want a lower RCS tanker.
The main failure here is to focus just on Aviation and forget its a system.
Treat it as a system.
You can offset Jet pollution by other means while you work on cleaning up jet burn as much as feasibly.
There still needs to be a balance. A complete world breakdown would stop a lot of pollution, but billions would die and the rest go back to the stone age.
I am not ready to go there. Selfish yes.
What is funny is industry gets to do carbon credits. I guy a new less polluting car and I don’t get no credits.
System thinking is fundamental to community based transport without question.
Why must we go back to the stone age and a depopulated world when so much knowledge and ability exists ALL potentially immediately available to everyone with a computer worldwide, that can support a quality of life with out becoming cave or tree dwellers or wander nomads (though that sound good to me).
Low environmental impact dwellings built locally , by locals using low tech readily available materials and systems, already proven long term are possible that are far more healthy, sustainable and far far cheaper than the cardboard ticky tacky stick frame structures incorrectly called ‘low energy houses’. A similar approach to the other issues such as mobility that do not automatically seek expensive so called high tech systems and uses would yield far better environments. One size fits all works best or maybe only for global sized financial controlling businesses, not people.
Because people keep propagating and if you advocate for paying for things, you get thrown out of office.
As a species we see what is in front of our face (ergo the recent election). Price is up, throw em out, the next guy says it stops day 1.
Well he says a lot of stuff that is lies, why soul you believe that one? But there you are.
Actually the population was expected rather convincingly to stabilise at between 8-9 billion after peaking at around 10 billion. If everyone on the planet had 600 square feet of land the LOT would supposedly still fit in Texas – the whole world population. The issue is waste and destruction of environments due to inefficiency inbuilt to facilitate commerce which benefit the few at the expense of the many. Basic principal.
If we stay within the paradigm of what is for all our thinking we will never even conceive of any other. And by the way Democracy can NEVER be prescribed or proscribed and effectively never exists and has never existed anywhere. Its a propaganda PsyOps slogan to mislead and misdirect.
This whole thread, its underlying article, and Bjorn Fehrm’s piece overemphasize batteries and underemphasize mass and lift/drag. Recent progress on platform physics (fitness) makes current batteries suffice for many important use cases, as NASA Langley showed a decade ago. My annual Stanford lecture on this whole-system approach (“Flight Without Fuel,” 28 May 2024) is at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/661ed88a9b053e2b6cb43b04/t/66aae003fb619572d082fc56/1722474510503/StanfordExploreEHouse_FossilFreeFlight_85m_28May2024v.pdf. The next version will be presented 20 May 2025 at 236 Santa Teresa St, Stanford CA.
I looked at Whisk as a way to get background on/in automation.
“But there remains some real skepticism that all the 1980s vibration, noise and blade-out concerns have been solved. GE and Airbus plan to initiate flight testing on an A380 in 2027.”
My skepticism is that people will accept a prop job.
Its also a one way street. You can have a prop job or you can have a jet, you can’t have one or the other (it has to be specifically engineered for that prop job).
What airline exec in their right mind is going to go all in on dubious?
I think the TTBW has the same issue, it does not look like a modern jet.
BW does but you still have its tech issues.
Far lighter and lower-drag electric planes should win on both capex and opex, valuing any avoided environmental costs at zero.
However, I’m surprised and disappointed to see how many people in this engineering-oriented site and thread, many with good aviation knowledge, seem not to understand basic climate science. The most common fallacies debunked at skeptical science.com are well represented here. And the topic is hardly relevant. Could we please switch back from climate theology to aerospace engineering?
@TW
There is one simple reason why neither Airbus or Boeing are going to stick their neck out. They have no reason to.
They cannot make everything that they sell now, so why would you invest billions on technology unless you are 100% confident that there is a market. Moonshots have not gone well recently.
I have no expectation that one of the major OEMs will organically go with a radical design anytime soon. Maybe propfans for single aisle aircraft, but that would have to be launched by Boeing and hard to see Boeing going down that path right now.
Industry is capable of radical transformation. It usually takes goverment legislation to make it happen. HD tvs were expensive at first; now they practically give them away. Electric cars are expensive now, but a lot of that cost comes down with scale (and a lot of that cost has nothing to do with cars being electric).
I will disagree with Boeing place, though I agree a wild risk is not in the cards.
I do take exception to the word Moonshot. That was nothing but management fig leaf for them hosing up the 787. The Core issues were they blew up the method of build (scattered it all over the world with no supervisions) and the tech itself. The tech has proven to be amazingly solid. Going to mostly electric was part of it and they have been very reliable in that regard. The composite tech had a few issues but so has the 777X with its standard fuselage.
That said long term Boeing is getting squeezed in the Single Aisle. A220 eating from below and the A321 from above with the A320 a match for the MAX8/9.
For now they can sell all they build. Its the future mid and long term that bites them if they don’t do something.
Even if its an updated wing and tube per Scott prediction (and I would say its a solid one).
Issue is that Airbus has responses in a new A320 series wing (or an A321 wing) and the A220-500.
I am not seeing how Boeing gets out of that box. TTBW has some promise, but it also has to sell and I tend to think like prop jobs, it won’t.
As for RISE, I think its CFM way to freeze the field while they get a new core and a gearbox working.
I can generally agree with TransWorld’s post here. Boeing dump its history of engineering design and designed by perceived marketing advantage and off-loading of technical, investment and production risks to a widely distributed international collection of ‘partners’. Boeing had limited if any experience of doing such at such scale distributed development, design, and production of a new aircraft.
As TransWorld says, new systems, new materials and as primary structure needing extensive and new certification processes and testing protocols. AND the not to be underestimated integration of ALL these issues and systems to produce commercially ready aircraft to deliver. What else did Boeing management load the company with?
The sales team basically promised and aircraft which the engineers could not provide at that time with the primary purpose in my view of signing up orders and commitments which blocked Airbus from doing so. And part of those promises were performance metrics in all regimes including operating and maintenance costs that were completely unknown at the time of their offers and contract commitments.
PLUS the sales people tried to lock in a totally unachievable delivery timeline even as I suspect they knew it was one engineering most likely would not achieve. history has proved that it required at least three years of desperate effort to overcome some though not all of the issues to produce a usable production and certification possible aircraft.
The B787 programme was a sales led commercial one and involved and effectively was leap into the unknown with so many never before aspects. The engineering people, all, did an amazing job to make a production aircraft that met many of the goals set by the marketing department, not engineering nor the production people. And knocked a $23 billion Blob of red ink into the company accounts. Well done Boeing.
@TW
I don’t disagree Boeing needs new planes. But they won’t be wild redesign. Coming at it from the other side there was nothing that profound about the B787 or the Max that should have been a problem, but it was a disaster anyway. But Boeing needs to figure out how to certify planes again. I don’t hear anything about their current development projects except crickets and deflection.
Any new designs are going to lean on more efficient engines. I would point out the current engine designs in narrow body feel like they are pushing the limits of materials technology. Taking a product that already cannot last on wing and burning it hotter is not likely to end well.
All of what I am getting at is that if world governments are really serious about building seriously new designs it is going to take some direct investment from a state led effort. Boeing cannot afford another development disaster and Airbus has no viable competitive threat in the next 10-15 years.
There is one thing that will cut emissions more than any SAF share, new engine or new fancy blended wing-body design. And the best thing, it can be done instantly without any further investment in new technologies. Time and cost is very important when we are cutting in emissions.
It is long haul that is the main factor that contributes to emissions of CO2 etc
from civil aviation.
We can greatly reduce emissions by banning those large and heavy business class seats. For each seat in business class the emissions is approximately six times higher, due to weight and space requirements etc.
Thru regulations there could be emissions limits per passenger per flight, thereby significantly reducing overall and average emissions.
Such regulations would also reduce travel demand for business trips, further reducing emissions by reducing flight frequency and the hub-model. Travelling thru hubs increases travel distance and increases emissions. In other words, we can get people where the need to be more efficiently.
I agree wholeheartedley, but airlines and business travellers will not like it. For many airlines, business class margins cover losses in coach causing significant ticket price increases. Reduced demand could also cause prices to increase. And reduced demand will make it harder for airlines to offer more point to point services and actually increase the use of inefficient hubs.
In time we probably can discuss feasible concepts / business cases for 150-250 seat short and medium range aircraft next decade.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/images/nma-image4.jpg
I don’t see politicians doing anything to well off to rich people in their first class seats.
Equally a lot of travel is optional, not need.
But try to throttle that down.
Just enact legislation that you have to submit a requirement application to travel. Problem solved.
And the entire industry bites the dirt. Well several.
I don’t see any of it happening.
Here’s an article directly on topic:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/how-hydrogen-planes-helped-blow-a-1-trillion-hole-in-europe-s-net-zero-quest/ar-AA1zkV8h
I see Nikola went belly up.
Some guys in Canada are working on a Diesel Electric system.
Curious how big a power station you would need to charge a Tesla Semi?
Harbor Air is still working on their Electric Float plane (modified Beaver as I recall).
What about ÈVE and its evtol ecosystem ? Air taxi, short urban hauls , air traffic softwares? The company seems to be well funded and on a by-the-book regulatory pathway. More than 3k e told sold…
“Net zero” has been and remains a greenwashing fantasy not just in aviation but pretty much anywhere you see it mentioned/claimed.
Greenhouse gas “emissions” from aviation will continue to rise as total seat/miles and operations increase. These increases will be moderated somewhat (maybe by 20%) by reduced fuel use per seat/mile as more fuel efficient aircraft replace older ones.
SAF could reduce net emissions somewhat but since only total global “emissions” matter and there are vastly cheaper ways to reduce “emissions” (like substituting natural gas and wind power for coal fired electrical generation, changing the way cement is made and, possibly, substituting hydrogen for coke in steel making) it shouldn’t be a high priority in the real world of finite resources.
If we are honest, it is clear that there is near zero likelihood of significant global (the only metric that matters) greenhouse gas reductions in the foreseeable future. While technically possible it is clearly politically impossible. We have known about the problem for 50 years or more and “emissions” just keep climbing (they have not even plateaued yet).
So if you want to make a tiny but real dent in global “emissions” change your own lifestyle which would include, but not be limited to, traveling much less.
“…include, but not be limited to, traveling much less…”
A much more effective choice would be to properly insulate your home — starting with high-performance glazing.
Aviation is 2% and should be the last cab off the rank due to cost and engineering challenges with the possible exception of space travel.
The only western political game in town is exporting manufacturing to countries with cheap coal electricity. Politicians literally say “we will de-industrialise” but fail to finish the sentence “and import product made with cheap coal generation”
The futility is going against “Money was invented before written history began.” Humans have evolved to spend as little money as possible, spending more to limit emissions is a hard sell to someone hungry. Regulations just make working around the regulation the problem to solve.
Calling natural gas a “green” fuel is… NG generation produces 60% of the emissions of coal, a fairly pointless reduction considering plant life and investment.
Concrete has potential to consume CO2, maybe more than 5% “reduction” Steel however is 11% of world wide emissions. H2 is expensive and,steel is bought from the cheapest provider, ie made with coking coal.
Lets face the facts, if we don’t like the temperature going up, then we need to focus on that.
Then first get the actual evidence that the temperature IS going up AND that there is a people component of why that IS happening. Not claims supported by more claims, but ACTUAL hard evidence and NOT computer modelling, as is the case up til now.
Aviation, I suggest, is NOT anywhere near the biggest producer of environmental destruction which IS the issue. Supposedly increasing Carbon Dioxide is NOT proven with hard evidence to be an issue, and the contribution from the Aviation industry as a whole is, I believe, a lessor component, so the propaganda about supposed Climate Change needs to be put aside and Aviation people should get on with what they have done so successfully for well over 100 years. That is making Aviation in all ways possible more efficient and with less impact on the environment.