Uploaded November 2022 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
The Future of Aviation - Zero Carbon. Patrick Dixon keynote on sustainable aviation for ZAL Innovation Forum in Hamburg, November 2022. Green tech innovation in aircraft design, new fuels such as hydrogen.
The future of innovation in aviation will be dominated by three words: EMOTION, SPEED and SCALE.
EMOTION: travel has always been driven by emotion, by the deeply rooted human desire to explore, experience, engage. 85% of humanity lives in emerging markets and most have yet to experience their first flight.
SPEED: I am not referring here to supersonic air travel or space travel – both of which will continue to be exotic and unusual for the next 20-30 years. Just look instead at the speed of recovery of airline ticket sales the moment that COVID restrictions relaxed, as I predicted. And this speed is of course driven by emotion. We will also see massive acceleration in speed of innovation in the race towards carbon zero.
SCALE: the investment required to deliver a new world-class passenger aircraft is so vast that only 2-3 companies have the ability to do so. The same applies to massive infrastructure that will soon be needed to carry the world’s aviation fleet towards alternative fuels.
Most board debates about the future of aviation are not about what is going to happen but are about timing.
And yes, sudden events also crash into strategy, especially in aviation. Large volcanic eruptions, COVID, war and so on.
The world can change faster than you can hold a board meeting, but at the same time, many aviation trends are changing more slowly than you might imagine.
For example, there are still 446 Jumbo Jets / 747s flying the world – a plane that first took off in 1969. And the average age of the global aircraft fleet is 11 years.
There are 23,000 planes in active use globally, another 11,000 sitting redundant in the desert somewhere, and only 2700 new planes are sold each year.
So we need to run much, much faster towards radical change, if we are going to achieve major CO2 reductions in aviation emissions by 2050.
We can expect huge investment by fuel suppliers and plane manufacturers in Sustainable Aviation Fuel, but this cannot be the answer. It’s a similar technology to biofuels to power vehicles, but that has already created huge competition for food.
10% of all global grain is already burnt in vehicles, including 33% of the US maize harvest each year, just to produce 30 billion tons of diesel or petrol, still only a fraction of what US vehicles use in their engines. At the same time, 1 billion people experience hunger regularly.
SAF is made from waste such as used cooking oil, but there is not enough of such materials, nor will there ever be.
Only 200,000 tons of SAF was made in 2022, not even enough to power 0.1% of all flights. The world would need 450 billion litres of SAF to power 65% of flights by 2050 according to the IATA, or 360 million tons a year.
A much more interesting fuel for the longer term future of aviation is hydrogen.
Hydrogen-powered flights are nothing new – the first took place in the 1950s. Hydrogen contains 2.8 times the energy per kilogram than carbon-based aviation fuel, but this very light gas needs four times the space for storage.
To replace 360 million tons of aviation fuel would take 128 million tons of green hydrogen. But making even 70 million tons of green hydrogen would consume the entire power output of the EU (3,600 terawatt hours) according to the International Energy Agency.
A key feature of hydrogen production is that it converts spare power into a long term energy store. And there will be a lot of spare power in future.
We are still only in the first hour of the first day of the global solar revolution. Solar cells in 1975 were 400 times the price today.
What is more, we now have the technology to be able to transport power over 5000 kilometres with very little power loss.It means that in theory the whole of the US can be powered from 100km by 100km of Arizona desert, using existing technology.
So what does all this mean?
1. Expect huge investment in simple solutions to save plane energy
Better winglets on every plane; free flying between airports rather than following congested flight paths; more efficient flight management to reduce circling above airports.
2. Expect major investment in bio-enriched fuels such as SAF
This will continue to be controversial and will never fuel more than 30% of flights.
3. Expect huge innovation in green hydrogen production, distribution, storage, refuelling and in-flight use
Some planes will use hydrogen in fuel cells to drive electric turbines; most are likely to be traditional jet engine designs burning a new fuel.
4. Expect huge investment in short range battery powered flight
Most of these planes will be vertical take-off, drone-like vehicles with multiple downward facing propellers, small passenger load, with flight times of less than 30 minutes.
The Future of Aviation - Zero Carbon. Patrick Dixon keynote on sustainable aviation for ZAL Innovation Forum in Hamburg, November 2022. Green tech innovation in aircraft design, new fuels such as hydrogen.
The future of innovation in aviation will be dominated by three words: EMOTION, SPEED and SCALE.
EMOTION: travel has always been driven by emotion, by the deeply rooted human desire to explore, experience, engage. 85% of humanity lives in emerging markets and most have yet to experience their first flight.
SPEED: I am not referring here to supersonic air travel or space travel – both of which will continue to be exotic and unusual for the next 20-30 years. Just look instead at the speed of recovery of airline ticket sales the moment that COVID restrictions relaxed, as I predicted. And this speed is of course driven by emotion. We will also see massive acceleration in speed of innovation in the race towards carbon zero.
SCALE: the investment required to deliver a new world-class passenger aircraft is so vast that only 2-3 companies have the ability to do so. The same applies to massive infrastructure that will soon be needed to carry the world’s aviation fleet towards alternative fuels.
Most board debates about the future of aviation are not about what is going to happen but are about timing.
And yes, sudden events also crash into strategy, especially in aviation. Large volcanic eruptions, COVID, war and so on.
The world can change faster than you can hold a board meeting, but at the same time, many aviation trends are changing more slowly than you might imagine.
For example, there are still 446 Jumbo Jets / 747s flying the world – a plane that first took off in 1969. And the average age of the global aircraft fleet is 11 years.
There are 23,000 planes in active use globally, another 11,000 sitting redundant in the desert somewhere, and only 2700 new planes are sold each year.
So we need to run much, much faster towards radical change, if we are going to achieve major CO2 reductions in aviation emissions by 2050.
We can expect huge investment by fuel suppliers and plane manufacturers in Sustainable Aviation Fuel, but this cannot be the answer. It’s a similar technology to biofuels to power vehicles, but that has already created huge competition for food.
10% of all global grain is already burnt in vehicles, including 33% of the US maize harvest each year, just to produce 30 billion tons of diesel or petrol, still only a fraction of what US vehicles use in their engines. At the same time, 1 billion people experience hunger regularly.
SAF is made from waste such as used cooking oil, but there is not enough of such materials, nor will there ever be.
Only 200,000 tons of SAF was made in 2022, not even enough to power 0.1% of all flights. The world would need 450 billion litres of SAF to power 65% of flights by 2050 according to the IATA, or 360 million tons a year.
A much more interesting fuel for the longer term future of aviation is hydrogen.
Hydrogen-powered flights are nothing new – the first took place in the 1950s. Hydrogen contains 2.8 times the energy per kilogram than carbon-based aviation fuel, but this very light gas needs four times the space for storage.
To replace 360 million tons of aviation fuel would take 128 million tons of green hydrogen. But making even 70 million tons of green hydrogen would consume the entire power output of the EU (3,600 terawatt hours) according to the International Energy Agency.
A key feature of hydrogen production is that it converts spare power into a long term energy store. And there will be a lot of spare power in future.
We are still only in the first hour of the first day of the global solar revolution. Solar cells in 1975 were 400 times the price today.
What is more, we now have the technology to be able to transport power over 5000 kilometres with very little power loss.It means that in theory the whole of the US can be powered from 100km by 100km of Arizona desert, using existing technology.
So what does all this mean?
1. Expect huge investment in simple solutions to save plane energy
Better winglets on every plane; free flying between airports rather than following congested flight paths; more efficient flight management to reduce circling above airports.
2. Expect major investment in bio-enriched fuels such as SAF
This will continue to be controversial and will never fuel more than 30% of flights.
3. Expect huge innovation in green hydrogen production, distribution, storage, refuelling and in-flight use
Some planes will use hydrogen in fuel cells to drive electric turbines; most are likely to be traditional jet engine designs burning a new fuel.
4. Expect huge investment in short range battery powered flight
Most of these planes will be vertical take-off, drone-like vehicles with multiple downward facing propellers, small passenger load, with flight times of less than 30 minutes.
