Airbus' Zero-Emission Commercial Aircraft Concept - A320 Family

Airbus' Zero-Emission Commercial Aircraft Concept

Ben Schlappig — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:21:34 +0000

The future is officially here. Well, or at least only 15 years away… maybe.

Continue reading: WOW: Airbus’ Zero-Emission Commercial Aircraft Concept

Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.

Jared — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 10:27:29 +0000

@Gus - technically water vapour is a very potent GHG. It is in fact responsible for the majority of the warming effect. However, the major divergence from CO2 is that the amount of water vapour in our atmosphere is dictated by the temperature and not vice-versa. Excess vapour simply condenses as rain depending on the local pressure and temperature. The amount of CO2 in on the other hand affects the temperature and does not disappear as easily. So you are right but others are not wrong.

gus — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:20:26 +0000

the idea that the water vapor emitted would be a greenhouse gas is ridiculous. Ever heard of clouds? And rain? With the amount of air travel going on around the world even if all the planse switched to hydrogen fuel it would not be so much water vapor to impact the climate measurably - it would just come down as rain somewhere - whereas CO2 stays in the atmosphere pretty much forever.

Gerard Tremeaux — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 06:53:02 +0000

@Michael Walbrach - already done. My dissertation topic on the gasification of biomass in the presence of carbon-dioxide, extracted from the atmosphere and recirculated within the process, followed by F-T to create synthetic fuels is under development by the USAF in their mission to go green.

Michael Walbrach — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 11:37:28 +0000

I don't get the point. Can anyone explain it to me please? We have an infrastructure (airports, planes) built for jet fuel, why not simply produce jet fuel in a sustainable way? Power-to-gas technology can do that, by actually turning CO2 from the atmosphere into fuel powered by solar/wind energy. Of course, there is research to be done, and the conversion into usable jet fuel is certainly not easy, but in the long run solar and wind energy is almost for free, so if just 20% of the energy comes out as jet fuel the problem is solved. I would guess this will be thousands times cheaper than constructing new aircraft that will explose in a fire ball when they hit a goose inflight.... Is there anything I am not getting?

Emily — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 08:10:09 +0000

Oh - also; are they sure about the LCA? How do they intend to source this hydrogen. Depending on the method used, current jet-fuel powered aviation may be the greener alternative. At the moment, this seems a marketing gimmick.

Emily — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 08:06:51 +0000

It would be interesting to see how the hydrogen is compressed and stored cryogenically during flight so that the fuel has the volumetric energy density needed to make this concept feasible. That I feel is the major hassle from idea to market. Combustion of hydrogen is well studied but with adiabatic temperatures far higher than that for jet fuels, heat management of the turbines will also be a challenge. Perhaps a concept similar to that used in Saturn V can be used where the hydrogen is used as a coolant for the combustor. On-ground infrastructure will be relatively easy to sort out.

Omar — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 02:59:48 +0000

2035 is too little too late. Even if we cut carbon emissions to zero today we’re still looking at catestrophic warming in the near future.

MammothLover — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 01:55:49 +0000

It's awesome to see that things are in the works and ideas coming out. Key part is the hydrogen production and infrastructure is also zero emissions and energy efficient.

dgfjdh — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 22:24:30 +0000

The claim in this article that the biggest challenge will be airport infastructure and hydrogen supply is completely incorrect. That will be the easiest thing. Getting the aircraft to actually work and perform properly at a financially economical level will be the biggest challenge. Also the certification process and finanancing the project. There are a large range of significant technical isues that would need to be overcome to make these work. Just have a look at BMW's "production ready" Hydrogen7 that burnt hydrogen through combustion to get an idea of the issues. Compared to a normal petrol car, it uses fuel at a rate 4 times higher for half the power and half the range from a tank twice the size of the petrol tank.