Wardrobe malfunctions are never fun. When on Earth, they might be a nuisance or prove somewhat embarrassing. In space however, they could be a matter of life and death. Not to mention, how do you handle, uhm, laundry on the Moon?
The European Space Agency (ESA) says that the next generation of lunar explorers will be kitted with a wholly upgraded set of spacesuits. And textile tech has come quite a way since the iconic string of Apollo missions in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Other than having to stand up to an extra-terrestrial environment characterised by high vacuum, radiation, extreme temperatures, and space dust, spacesuits are also subject to good old fashioned germs.
As we gear up to send humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, ESA is conducting a project called PExTex to assess suitable materials for future spacesuit designs.
Keeping your underwear clean, in space
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It is joined by the Austrian Space Forum (OeWF), which is leading a sub-project called BACTeRMA, trying to find ways of limiting microbial growth in the inner lining of the material. (The abbreviation stands for Biocidal Advanced Coating Technology for Reducing Microbial Activity.)
“Think about keeping your underwear clean; it’s an easy enough job on a daily basis, thanks to detergent, washing machines and dryers,” ESA materials and processes engineer Malgorzata Holynska commented. “But in habitats on the Moon or beyond, washing spacesuit interiors on a consistent basis may well not be practical.
“In addition, spacesuits will most probably be shared between different astronauts, and stored for long periods between use, potentially in favourable conditions for microorganisms. Instead we needed to find alternative solutions to avoid microbial growth.”
Bacteria can be vibrantly colourful. Credit: ESA
The researchers had to forego traditional antimicrobial materials such as copper and silver as they are likely to tarnish over time, not to mention chafe. The team then turned to what are called “secondary metabolites.”
These are organic compounds produced by plants, fungi, and microorganisms, but they are not directly involved in basic cellular processes required for growth, development, and reproduction. Their functions involve protection from pathogens and other organisms, which is what lends them their antibiotic qualities.
Austrian textile startup has ‘unique collection’
To work out the details on how to actually get these materials onto fabric, the OeWF has enlisted the Vienna Textile Lab. Apparently, the Austrian startup, which focuses on developing organic colours for textiles using microbes, is in possession of a unique “bacteriographic” collection.
Violacein pigment produced by bacteria. Credit: ESA
The two have collaborated on various “biocidal textile processing techniques,” such as dying cloth with the metabolites and then exposing them to both human perspiration and all other kinds of stressors they will encounter in space.
These newly developed fabrics are currently being integrated into a spacesuit simulator, and are scheduled to undergo field testing in March 2024.
Where humans go, bacteria will follow. Many of these microorganisms are literally vital to life on Earth. They may also become essential in everything from producing rocket fuel to manufacturing food on longer space missions to Mars. However, as anyone who has ever suffered from food poisoning can attest, they can also be downright nasty little buggers. What’s more, there is evidence some species can survive in the harsh environment of space for years.
Keeping harmful bacteria at bay is crucial to a successful space mission. NASA says it “puts a lot of effort” into knowing which microbes might hitch a ride on the spaceships heading out to orbit, and continuously monitors what’s going on with bacteria on the International Space Station (ISS). Some teeny-tiny astronauts are even brought along on purpose, for space microbiology research.
Next year, a Dutch company will put a new kind of battery in a drone and — if all goes according to plan — that drone will fly for 50% longer than it could with a standard lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery. Flight times of nearly an hour, say, rather than 34 minutes. The souped-up drone won’t be any heavier than before and the new battery will actually be smaller than the old one, despite offering more juice.
Fixed wing and multi-rotor drones are just the beginning. LeydenJar is also targeting electric vehicles and Tim Aanhane, the company’s business developer, estimates that the firm’s batteries could allow an electric car to achieve a range of 800 or 900km — roughly double the current market standard.
“The battery industry is moving fast,” Aanhane says. Leydenjar’s battery uses a silicon, rather than graphite anode. This component, also known as the negative electrode, is where negatively charged particles called ions lose electrons. The electrons then travel through an electrical circuit, providing current.
Europe needs to stay in the battery tech race
It’s just one startup among many in Europe working on improving battery technology. A key goal for many in this space is high energy densities — batteries that offer significantly more power than the existing Li-ion options. This tends to be measured in terms of the amount of energy available in watt hours (Wh) per unit of volume (litres, l) or mass (kilograms, kg).
With research and development racing ahead, especially in countries such as China, there’s no time to lose. Europe must come up with some seriously good battery tech, fast, or face being left behind.
LeydenJar, which has a headcount of more than 70 people and has raised €100 million in funding to date, is currently testing its prototype batteries. Aanhane and his colleagues plan to open a large factory in the Netherlands in 2025. Annual production at the site is intended to reach 100 megawatt hours of total battery storage — roughly equivalent to the energy requirement of up to 100,000 homes.
“Silicon as a material can store 10 times the amount of lithium ions than graphite,” says Aanhane. For the battery as a whole, that means a yield of roughly up to 70% more energy per litre — 1,350 Wh/l or 390 Wh/kg.
Battle of the bulge
LeydenJar says it has solved a key problem that has held back silicon anode batteries in the past — excessive swelling. Traditionally, these anodes would bulge considerably when charged, reducing their lifespan and potentially making them unsafe. To counter this, LeydenJar makes its anodes by growing tiny columns of silicon, several micrometres thick, on copper foil.
“There’s space in between them,” explains Aanhane. “Within these columns there’s porosity as well.”
Those crucial spaces in and around the silicon columns mean the bulging is mostly contained within the battery material itself and the swelling of the battery cell overall is comparable to that of a graphite anode battery, he says. Aanhane adds that this limited swelling behaviour appears stable across hundreds of cycles — the process of repeatedly charging and depleting the battery.
To date, LeydenJar has tested its batteries over 500 cycles or so and Aanhane suggests they are aiming to push beyond 1,000 cycles. An additional benefit of the technology, he says, is that it requires much less energy to produce than needed for graphite anodes, potentially making it more environmentally friendly. Safety tests have also shown no high risk of fires or explosions, so far, which is an important consideration in the development of new battery tech.
“Our dependence on China for this evolving industry is already growing at an incredible rate,” acknowledges Karl McGoldrick, chief executive and co-founder of LionVolt, another Netherlands-based battery tech startup. The firm has 16 employees and has received €16 million in funding, €11 million of which has been in the form of grants and subsidies.
LionVolt is working on solid-state batteries that don’t contain the liquid lithium common in standard Li-ion devices. Instead, they use billions of tiny pillars between which the ions flow. McGoldrick explains that this heightened surface area inside the battery allows for increased energy densities, of 450 Wh/kg.
He also claims that LionVolt’s technology does not suffer from dendrites, the growth of metal filaments that can cause dangerous shorts in a battery.
Innovate, adapt, overcome?
One of the most interesting things about the development of higher energy density batteries is the sheer variety of technologies currently afoot. In Italy, startup Bettery, a spinout from the University of Bologna, is working on a flow battery that uses semi-solid electrodes.
In this case, the semi-solid is a fluid with particles suspended within it. Alessandro Brilloni, co-founder, says he and his three other co-founders have found a way of preventing the particles from depositing into a sediment.
There are trade-offs in choosing this approach, however. Flow batteries aren’t as energy efficient as Li-ion batteries. Though Brilloni states that they should have longer lifespans.
He and his three collaborators are now in the process of setting up their first dedicated lab and they also have a small prototype battery powerful enough to supply, say, a laptop computer. Brilloni says energy densities of 500 Wh/kg or higher should be possible with the technology. The company has raised €420,000 to date.
Thin and flexible
Finally, The Batteries in Poland has developed a solid-state device made using a powder-based electrolyte, which the firm says greatly reduces production costs.
Spokeswoman Izabela Bany suggests that the batteries, which could be made in thin, flexible formats, might soon power sensors, wearables, IoT devices, or self-contained emergency lighting, for example. The Batteries has raised $12.4 million (€11.9 million) in funding so far.
Another benefit, Bany adds, is that the technology won’t suffer from combustion or explosions even if there are manufacturing flaws. The Batteries is targeting energy densities of around 1,200 Wh/L.
This is just a handful of the approaches emerging among European battery tech startups and it’s anyone’s guess which will go on to thrive in the coming years. But McGoldrick stresses that, if Europe is to feature prominently in the great battery race at all, then investing in novel technology — which means taking a punt on young firms — is essential.
“We have to be braver,” he says. “Otherwise, we’ll be buying all our batteries from China.”
German multi-modal travel unicorn Omio has teamed up with compatriot search engine Ecosia to create a tree-planting rail travel booking tool. It means users will be able to search and book train journeys through Ecosia’s website, powered by an API-integration with Omio’s travel platform.
The booking platform will automatically pop up via a simple query search for trains, or for destinations where train travel is possible, say London to Paris. It will be available in 15 countries: the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Nordics, North America and Canada, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.
The intention behind the new tool being rolled out this month is two-fold. Firstly, to make sustainable rail options more visible as an alternative to air travel. Secondly, all the commission Ecosia receives from successful bookings will go directly toward the search engine’s green initiatives.
Note that this is nota form of offsetting, meaning that it is not intended to “cancel out” any carbon emissions produced by your journey (a popular but, let’s face it, greenwashing tool employed by airlines during the booking process).
Providers accessible through the new tool include Amtrak in the United States, LNER, GWR, Avanti in the UK, SNCF in France, OBB in Austria and Eurostar.
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Born from the Berlin startup scene
In the land of internet searches, where one company is so synonymous with the activity that it has become a verb, you’d be forgiven for not having heard of Ecosia. However, the platform does see 20 million users globally every month.
Founded in 2009 by Christian Kroll, the tech company dedicates 100% of its profits to planet-friendly initiatives. These include having planted over 175 million trees all over the world, in collaboration with local communities.
The company, the first to become an accredited B Corp in Germany in 2014, has also supported regenerative agriculture projects, and invested into renewable energy.
“Our users want choice over how they travel, and they want to travel sustainably — that’s evident in the sheer volume of searches we’re seeing each month on Ecosia,” said the company’s Chief Product Officer Michael Metcalf.
“If a healthy proportion of the two million searches made for train journeys on Ecosia each month translate into bookings, this will allow us to invest in our other environmental initiatives pushing back against the climate emergency,” he continued.
Fellow Berliner Omio was first introduced as GoEuro in 2013 by founder Naren Shaam. Today, the multi-modal platform issues travel tickets across 37 countries, in 21 different languages, and 26 different currencies, for 1000+ travel transportation providers.
Following a growth of 100% up until 2019, Omio experienced a couple of incredibly tough years during the pandemic where 98% of the company’s revenue basically evaporated overnight. However, almost exactly a year ago, Omio announced a Series E funding of $80mn (approx. €72mn) to take its total funding up to $480mn (€434mn).
Paris-based and female-founded AI startup Pathway has announced the general launch of its data processing engine. Reportedly, it is up to 90x faster than existing streaming solutions, and promises to be the “fastest data processing engine on the market.”
The secret? A unique ability to mix batch and streaming logic in the same workflow, which lets the system forget things that are no longer useful. Basically, this means it can learn and react to changes in real-time — like humans.
Traditionally, the complexity of building batch and streaming architectures has resulted in a division between the two approaches, says Pathway CEO and co-founder Zuzanna Stamirowska.
This, she adds, has slowed down the adoption of data streaming for AI systems and fixed their intelligence at a moment in time. Not to mention the added complexity of a third workflow — generative AI.
According to Stamirowska, there’s now a “critical need” for rapid data processing and more adaptable AI. “That’s why our mission has been to enable real-time data processing, while giving developers a simple experience regardless of whether they work with batch, streaming, or LLM systems,” she states.
Stamirowska says Pathway’s aim is to give developers a simple experience, regardless of whether they work with batch, streaming, or LLM systems. Credit: Pathway
Revisions to data points without AI retraining
Machines “forgetting” incorrect or outdated information in real-time has been a near-impossible feat in the past, due to models being trained on static data uploads. Traditionally, unlearning would require retraining of the model.
Indeed, when we put the question to ChatGPT for fun — can you unlearn things should they prove to be inaccurate — this is the response we received:
“As an AI language model, I don’t have the ability to “unlearn” information in the same way humans do.
“However, the developers and researchers at OpenAI can update and retrain the model based on new data and improvements.”
But Pathway says it can make revisions to certain data points without requiring a full batch data upload, akin to updating the value of one cell within an Excel document. The updated cells doesn’t reprocess the whole document, but just the cells dependent on it.
One of the startup’s existing clients, German logistics specialist DB Schenker, reduced the time-to-market of anomaly-detection analytics projects from three months to one hour. Meanwhile, French postal services company La Poste saw a fleet CAPEX reduction of 16%.
‘Lingua franca’ for developers
Polish-French duo Stamirowska and Claire Nouet, the company’s COO, founded Pathway in 2020. Thus far, the startup has raised $4.5mn (approx. €4mn) in a pre-seed round December last year, and counts 20+ employees across Europe and North America.
The female-led deep tech startup is hoping for its system to become a “lingua franca” of all data pipelines (stream, batch, and generative AI). Beyond cutting costs for clients, it says it is looking to democratise the ability for developers to design streaming workflows, which have typically required a specialist skill set.
Greek shipping software startup DeepSea Technologies has sold a majority share to Japan’s automation giant Nabtesco for an undisclosed amount.
DeepSea will continue to develop the company’s fuel optimisation platforms that reduce emissions (and cut costs) of fossil-based maritime fleets, while also becoming a “centre of excellence for AI research and product development.” Furthermore, the Athens-based startup will support Nabtesco Marine Control Systems in its quest for scalable semi-autonomous shipping.
The company will continue to function (fittingly enough) autonomously, and carry on work on its two platforms — Cassandra and Pythia — and on “the broader digital transformation of the maritime industry.”
Cassandra is a vessel monitoring and optimisation platform that allows customers to see emissions for a specific vessel and across an entire fleet, while also understanding how each component of the ship contributes to its performance. In addition, the tool offers notifications in real-time when something requires attention, such as fuel waste and maintenance requirements.
Meanwhile, Pythia is a world-first weather routing platform, tailored to the exact performance of a specific ship. It comes up with tailor-made routes, speed and trim policies, assessing overall cost and CO2 emissions, while providing minute-by-minute updates on conditions.
The company claims that it is possible to unlock energy efficiency improvements of up to 10% across almost any fleet in 12 months, using its optimisation technologies.
Best of both worlds
DeepSea was founded in 2017 and has previously raised €8mn, five of which came from Nabtesco Technology Ventures in 2021. The company has offices in Athens, London, and Rotterdam, and employs over 70 specialised engineers, most in AI and software development. The two co-founders of DeepSea, Dr. Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos and Roberto Coustas, will continue on in their roles of CEO and President, respectively.
“The deepening of our existing partnership with Nabtesco unlocks even greater potential for our technology and approach, and will be key to unlocking the next wave of innovation for our customers,” Kyriakopoulous stated when announcing the news last week. “It’s truly the best of both worlds: DeepSea will maintain its startup culture and focus on disruptive technology, whilst harnessing all the expertise and support of a global powerhouse.”
Staying on top of CO2 emissions will become increasingly important for shipping companies worldwide. Not only from a “the world is burning, let’s get our act together” kind of perspective, but also from a business and regulatory point of view.
Maritime carbon emissions regulations
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2022, maritime shipping accounted for about 2% of energy-related global CO2 emissions. While there is no legally binding agreement holding the industry to emission reduction targets, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), a specialised agency of the UN, has adopted measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from international shipping.
As stated in the latest version of the IMO’s GHG strategy from July 2023, it is now targeting net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Member states have agreed to “indicative checkpoints.” These include reducing total emissions by 20% and striving for 30% by 2030, with targets increased to 70% and 80% by 2040.
From 2024, shipping will also be included in the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS), which means that every kilogram of CO2 will be of financial — not to mention planetary — importance.
Hydrogen-powered planes are, essentially, nothing new. The USSR flew the alternative fuel testbed Tupolev Tu-155 on hydrogen (and liquid natural gas) more than 35 years ago.
However, challenges associated with the technology meant that it was basically moth-balled for commercial aircraft operations (rocket fuel is another matter) — until now. With the future of the planet in peril, almost everyone in air transport wants to talk about hydrogen propulsion.
From startups to multinational original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), much of the industry is adamant that hydrogen can make zero-emission flights a reality.
It is just a matter of actually building the engines and the planes, ensuring adequate and economically viable fuel supply and infrastructure, scaling the technology — and, of course, convincing regulators that it is safe enough for commercial flights carrying passengers.
“Most technologies required for a hydrogen-powered aircraft are emerging already in other industries and we have been working on this for some time already,” aerospace giant and hydrogen-propulsion proponent Airbus shared with TNW. “We’re not starting from scratch. The main challenge will be to certify them to airworthiness standards.”
Researchers have indeed been hard at work for years studying both direct combustion and the conversion of hydrogen into electrical energy through fuel cells. (Both are applicable to aviation and we will look more closely at them further on.)
The technology has, on the whole, been proven to work. But what will it take to make air travel “guilt-free” in earnest?
Past few years have seen ‘dramatic’ validation of hydrogen aviation
Aviation accounts for about 2.5% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. However, its share is rising quickly. The industry is expanding at an alarming rate, with the global fleet of aircraft predicted to grow by 80% by 2041, compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Furthermore, aviation has an impact on the climate that goes far beyond CO2.
“Sustainability in aviation used to be buying random offsets in various places,” Val Miftakhov, founder of hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain developer ZeroAvia, tells TNW. “In the last five years, we have seen dramatic validation of hydrogen aviation.”
Miftakhov is something of a veteran in zero-emission transportation, having founded eMotorWerks, developing SmartGrid-integrated EV charging technologies, in 2010. After selling the company in 2017, Miftakhov, a long-time pilot hailing from a family legacy of aerospace engineering, turned his attention to decarbonising one of the world’s most hard-to-abate sectors.
Zero emissions from the UK to the Netherlands by 2025
ZeroAvia has one of the most ambitious timelines in the hydrogen aviation industry. The company intends to have a fuel-cell engine capable of powering a 19-seater aircraft for flights between the Netherlands and the UK commercially ready as soon as 2025.
In January this year, ZeroAvia flew a Dornier 228 19-seater testbed, at the time the largest commercial aircraft powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, for the first time. (That title has since been — temporarily — nicked by US-based Universal Hydrogen and its 40-seat ATR 72 nicknamed ‘Lightning McClean’. ZeroAvia intends to steal it back with a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400.)
The testbed aircraft took off from Cotswold Airport in Gloucester, UK, and was powered by a conventional engine on the right wing, and ZeroAvia’s ZA600 600 kW hydrogen-electric engine on the left.
ZeroAvia is running a test flight campaign with a Dornier 228 aircraft. Credit: ZeroAvia
The company is also developing a powertrain for 40 to 80-seater aircraft with a range of 1,000NM (1,852km), the ZA2000, which it says will be ready for commercial use by 2027. Thus far, it has secured €10bn in pre-orders from a number of the major global airlines and lessors, who plan to use it to retrofit their regional fleets.
ZeroAvia is still mulling over a shortlist of potential manufacturing sites. “We are looking for the shipments of our engines to start in 2025. So we have to have production capacity next year, which means that we have to finalise locations this year,” Miftakhov told TNW, adding that the decision would probably be made by the end of summer.
Realistic entry-into-service projections?
Not everyone in the field shares ZeroAvia’s enthusiastic timeline. Josef Kallo, founder and CEO of H2FLY, a Stuttgart-based startup also developing a hydrogen-electric fuel-cell propulsion system, says that 40 seats with a range of about 2,000km is more likely to happen by 2029.
“I am a little concerned that we have to tell a realistic path to the realisation, even if it’s a little bit more risky for the financing,” Kallo tells TNW, adding that he believes his colleagues in the space might be underestimating how much effort and time needs to go into component development.
It’s not as if H2FLY hasn’t gotten far already. The company, founded out of the University of Ulm and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in 2015, performed the maiden flight of its four-seat hydrogen fuel-cell powered aircraft, the HY4, in 2016. It has since achieved several significant milestones, including the world altitude record for a hydrogen-powered aircraft, cruising at 7,230 feet.
H2FLY has successfully completed liquid hydrogen ground testing. Credit: H2FLY
Furthermore, H2FLY completed the successful integration of a new liquid hydrogen storage system in April this year. The ground fueling tests were part of the EU-funded Project Heaven (short for High powEr density FC System for Aerial Passenger VEhicle fueled by liquid HydrogeN), and the aircraft has now been shipped to Slovenia for a summer flight test campaign.
The company also recently announced the H175 program for its next generation fuel-cell system, capable of powering aircraft in the megawatt-class range, for 20 to 80 seats. H2FLY hopes to have it certified “by the end of this decade.”
Retrofitting existing airframes compared to clean-sheet designs
If anyone thinks that civil aviation regulators would allow operators to strap even a conventional tube-and-wing configuration to some hydrogen tanks and off into the zero-emission future we go, they would, naturally, be mistaken.
According to Airbus, hydrogen planes will “need to achieve equivalent or better safety levels [to kerosene-powered jets] before hydrogen-powered aircraft will take to the skies.”
It can usually take anywhere between five to nine years to certify a new aircraft. Established OEMs will have a leg up on startups when it comes to certifying clean-sheet designs, due to experience of the process.
This is why startup powertrain developers have decided to go down the route of retrofitting existing airframes with their propulsion systems. However, converting older airframes is not going to go on forever.
“Really visionary is to have a new aircraft designed for the [hydrogen] propulsion and then use that with all the benefits to really have long-range, high-efficiency, low-noise aviation,” Kallo states.
Those who are looking to design larger aircraft powered by hydrogen will need a new approach to everything from aerodynamics, structural reinforcement, thermal management, and systems integration.
Solving the storage problem
Hydrogen has a higher energy density by weight than jet fuel. However, it has a lower energy density by volume. This means that putting hydrogen tanks on a plane entails throwing out seats or cargo capacity, i.e. paying customers or payload, or altering the design of the aircraft.
In addition, storage of hydrogen as a gas requires high-pressure tanks (350–700 bar tank pressure), whereas hydrogen as liquid, albeit taking up less space, requires cryogenic temperatures of -252.87°C.
For instance, a blended wing body design (BWB) could offer potential benefits to storing hydrogen on board due to larger internal volume compared to traditional tube-and-wing designs.
A few intrepid companies out there are already intending to build new planes specifically designed for hydrogen propulsion. One is Swiss startup Destinus, which is developing a hypersonic hydrogen-powered jet capable of travelling at Mach 5 and above.
Another concept is the blended wing body Kona, designed to “revolutionise the status quo of freight transportation,” from aerospace startup Natilus. The company recently completed flight testing of a quarter-scale prototype aircraft, following three years of extensive wind-tunnel testing.
Clean-sheet design startup Natilus has chosen ZeroAvia’s fuel-cell hydrogen-electric engine to power its BWB aircraft. Credit: ZeroAvia
While ZeroAvia has decided to go after existing types of aircraft for certification purposes, the company has all critical technologies, such as high-temperature fuel cells, motor and electronics development, in-house, and for very practical reasons.
“There’s no supply chain for this yet, because it’s so new,” Miftakhov states.
There might not be a supply chain for parts yet, but OEMs are also labouring away at new propulsion technologies. For example, British engine maker Rolls-Royce is also developing a range of products based on hydrogen fuel cells.
Hydrogen-electric vs. direct combustion
A hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity. Fuel cells enable aircraft to produce electricity autonomously without the need for a built-in battery that requires charging from an external power source.
They do not have any moving parts and, as such, operate in near silence. As previously mentioned, this requires extensive component development.
However, this is not the only technological pathway to flying planes on hydrogen. A more immediate means of using existing gas turbine technology would be through direct hydrogen combustion.
Hydrogen combustion works in the same way as conventional internal combustion. It can work equally well in turboprop and turbofan engines and is scalable for different types of aircraft configurations and ranges. However, it comes with a different set of considerations.
The technology eliminates most emissions and reduces some remaining ones such as nitrous oxide (NOx). But, it does produce water vapour, which in turn produces contrails. Research shows that contrails may be responsible for as much as 50% of aviation’s warming effects.
However, the contrails produced by hydrogen combustion differ from those generated by burning fossil fuels. In July last year, Airbus announced a project called Blue Condor, which will use two gliders — one fitted with a H₂ combustion engine and one with a conventional kerosene engine — to study hydrogen contrail formation.
ZEROe
Airbus is looking into both technological pathways. A little over two years ago, the European aerospace behemoth unveiled four possible hydrogen aircraft concepts — known collectively as ZEROe — with the promise of delivering one into commercial service by 2035. Three of the designs under the ZEROe umbrella use hydrogen combustion.
One of these is a BWB. However, Airbus has said it will not be the first hydrogen plane out of the gate, as designing both a new propulsion system and a new airframe at the same time would be incredibly complicated.
The BWB design could solve storage issues, but will not be the first to fly. Credit: Airbus
The fourth concept aircraft, representing a high-wing 100-seat regional airliner, features six eight-bladed propellers attached to removable fuel-cell engine pods. Essentially, each pod is a stand-alone propeller propulsion system.
They feature propellers, electric motors, fuel cells, power electronics, liquid hydrogen tanks, cooling systems, and a set of auxiliary equipment. Due to the removable fixtures, the pods can be quickly disassembled and reassembled, potentially creating rapid solutions for refuelling at airports.
In order to try the associated technologies, Airbus will use an A380 flying testbed equipped with liquid hydrogen tanks, and hydrogen engines mounted on the fuselage. The double-decker airframe employed for the mission is none other than MSN 001 — the very first A380 to roll out of the factory. Airbus says the demonstrator will take off on its first flight in the next five years.
Airbus will mount hydrogen engines to an A380 testbed. Credit: Airbus
Not all are convinced by Airbus’ efforts thus far. William Todts of Transport & Environment states that the company is spending more time and money building the hype than the planes.
Meanwhile, there is another crucial element missing — the actual fuel to power all this innovation. Nobody will buy an aeroplane they cannot operate. Not only does the promised land of zero-emission aviation need access to an abundance of hydrogen; it needs it to be green.
Green hydrogen
Green hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis using renewable electricity. Currently, it accounts for less than 1% of global hydrogen production, with the other 99% derived from non-renewable sources that produce greenhouse gas emissions. So what will it take to scale?
Carol Xiao, an expert on hydrogen with the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT) in the Netherlands, says that, contrary to what she first thought when learning about the industry, money is not the problem.
“The money is there,” Xiao tells TNW. However, she adds, investors will not commit as long as the supply and demand chains are not secure.
According to Xiao, aviation can have a substantial impact when it comes to creating a market for green hydrogen. “If they say ‘we will use hydrogen’, especially green hydrogen, they will be a market which people can supply,” she continues. “It will help the supply chain make a decision on equipment, and it will also help get the infrastructure ready.”
Technology without a business case?
In addition, the industry will also be competing for materials to build hydrogen electrolysis production plants — and the renewable energy to run them.
“I think if we fail, we will fail on the renewable energy provision, and not on the technology,” Josef Kallo says. “And this has to go hand in hand. Otherwise, we’re working on the technology but there is no business case because there is no infrastructure and fuel.”
Guillaume Faury, Airbus chief executive, seems to share these concerns. At a company event last year, Faury said that availability or lack of availability of clean hydrogen at the right quantity in the right place at the right price in the second half of the decade was a “big concern.” He further added that a lack of green hydrogen could be a reason for delaying the launch of the ZEROe programme aircraft.
The renewable energy equation
Using renewable energy to produce hydrogen could help solve problems around what is known as intermittency — the unpredictable and fluctuating nature of certain renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power.
“You can use hydrogen production and hydrogen storage as a grid storage mechanism; you can generate it when the renewable power is abundant on the grid, and then utilise it when you need to on the aircraft,” says Miftakhov.
“That allows you to, in fact, increase the renewable penetration of the grid. We know that we can make it economical, and we can scale it.”
Achieving economies of scale will also bring the cost of renewable hydrogen down, with predictions that the price will drop from the 2020 cost of 5–7$/kg, to ~3$/kg in 2030, and ~2$/kg in 2050. One recent study showed that, taking into account a potential tax on fossil jet fuel and the price of carbon, it could become cheaper to run a hydrogen plane than its kerosene-powered counterpart by 2035.
How aviation can be certain it will get priority when it comes to accessing a limited supply — or all the renewable energy it will require — is another matter.
Aviation’s decarbonisation journey is anything but easy. Nor is it moving at a fast enough pace. With record-breaking aircraft orders happening as we speak, it is clear that neither airlines nor aircraft manufacturers have any intention of curbing the industry’s growth.
With all the challenges that hydrogen-powered aviation still has to face, it may seem like a long shot. But with concerted efforts and the potential for widespread adoption, it could maybe, just maybe, make zero-emission air travel a reality.
A group of 150 NGOs including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Transparency International, and Algorithm Watch has signed a statement addressed to the European Union. In it, they entreat the bloc not only to maintain but enhance human rights protection when adopting the AI Act.
Between the apocalypse-by-algorithm and the cancer-free utopia different camps say the technology could bring, lies a whole spectrum of pitfalls to avoid for the responsible deployment of AI.
As Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg, et al., dive head first into the black box, legislation aiming to at least curb their enthusiasm is on the way. The European Union’s proposed law on artificial intelligence — the AI Act — is the first of its kind by any major regulatory body. Two different camps are claiming that it is either a) crippling Europe’s tech sovereignty or b) not going far enough in curtailing dangerous deployment of AI.
Transparency and redress
The signatories of Wednesday’s collective statement warn that, “Without strong regulation, companies and governments will continue to use AI systems that exacerbate mass surveillance, structural discrimination, centralised power of large technology companies, unaccountable public decision-making, and environmental damage.”
This is no “AI poses risk of extinction” one-liner statement. It includes specific segments of the Act the writers feel must be kept or enhanced. For instance, a “framework of accountability, transparency, accessibility, and redress,” must include the obligation of AI deployers to publish fundamental rights impact assessments, register use in a publicly accessible database, and ensure people affected by AI-made decisions have the right to be informed.
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The NGOs are also taking a strong stance against AI-based public surveillance (such as the one deployed during the coronation of King Charles). They are calling for a full ban on “real-time and post remote biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces, by all actors, without exception.” They also ask that the EU prohibit AI in predictive and profiling systems in law enforcement, as well as migration contexts and emotional recognition systems.
In addition, the letter writers urge lawmakers not to “give into lobbying efforts of big tech companies to circumvent regulation for financial interest,” and uphold an objective process to determine which systems will be classified as high-risk.
The proposed act will divide AI systems into four tiers, depending on the level of risk they pose to health and safety or fundamental rights. The tiers are: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal.
High risk vs. general purpose AI
Unacceptable are applications such as social scoring systems used by governments, whereas systems used for things like spam filters or video games would be considered minimal risk.
Under the proposed legislation, the EU will allow high-risk systems (for instance those used for medical equipment or autonomous vehicles), but deployers must adhere to strict rules regarding testing, data collection documentation, and accountability frameworks.
The original proposal did not contain any reference to general purpose or generative AI. However, following the meteoric rise of ChatGPT last year, the EU approved last minute amendments to include an additional section.
Business leaders have been hard at work the past few months trying to influence the EU to water down the proposed text. They have been particularly keen on what should be classified as high-risk AI, resulting in much higher costs. Some, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman, went on a personal charm offensive (throwing a threat or two in the mix).
Others, specifically more than 160 executives from major companies around the world (including Meta, Renault, and Heineken), have also sent a letter to the Commission. In it, they warned that the draft legislation would “jeopardise Europe’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty.”
The European Parliament adopted its negotiating position on the AI Act on June 14, and trilogue negotiations have now begun. These entail discussions between the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council, before they will adopt the final text.
With the law set to establish a global precedent (albeit hopefully one capable of evolving as the technology does), Brussels is, in all likelihood, currently abuzz with solicitous advocates — on behalf of all interested parties.
This week, after nearly three decades of providing Europe access to space, the Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket completed its final mission. On Wednesday, July 5, at 22: 00 GMT, the rocket took off from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Its final flight launched two payloads into geostationary orbit. The first was the 3,400kg Heinrich-Hertz-Satellit that will test advanced communication technologies on behalf of the German government. The second was the 3,750kg Syracuse 4B satellite belonging to the French military.
Ariane 5’s storied career began back in 1996. Since Wednesday evening, it includes 117 orbital liftoffs. Both satellites were successfully deployed about 30 minutes after launch. Shortly thereafter, Stéphane Israël, CEO of France’s Arianespace which operates the rocket, said, “Ariane 5 is now over. Ariane 5 has perfectly finished its work. It’s really now a legendary launcher. But Ariane 6 is coming.”
The saga of the Ariane 5 has come to a close. Credit: ESA
Delay for ESA’s SpaceX competitor
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Indeed, the era of the Ariane 5 is over, which leaves Europe in want of a launch vehicle. The construction of its successor, the Ariane 6, has been hit by delays. The more affordable (as far as heavy-launch rockets go) upgraded version, intended to better compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, is currently scheduled for its first test launch by the end of the year. If all goes well, it will enter commercial operations in 2024.
The rocket was rolled out to the launch pad in Kourou. Credit: ESA
The rocket Europe has relied on for smaller payloads (Ariane 5 could carry over 11 tonnes), Italy’s Vega, has also hit technical bumps in the road during its upgrade process. The Vega C had a second failed launch attempt late last year, and remains grounded.
Meanwhile, access to the medium-payload Russian Soyuz has been suspended because, well, Russia went and started a war of aggression against Ukraine at the tail-end of a global health crisis.
