Tag: Airbus

Airbus’s Hydrogen Fantasy Crash Lands

For years, Airbus held a front-row seat in the theater of climate virtue signaling. With grand fanfare and a hefty €1.5 billion injection from French taxpayers during COVID-era bailouts, the European aerospace titan promised a hydrogen-powered, zero-emission aircraft by 2035. The project was christened as nothing less than “historic” by Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury. Now, like so many green-energy pipe dreams, that fantasy is unraveling fast.

From Watts Up With That?

By Charles Rotter

For years, Airbus held a front-row seat in the theater of climate virtue signaling. With grand fanfare and a hefty €1.5 billion injection from French taxpayers during COVID-era bailouts, the European aerospace titan promised a hydrogen-powered, zero-emission aircraft by 2035. The project was christened as nothing less than “historic” by Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury. Now, like so many green-energy pipe dreams, that fantasy is unraveling fast.

According to The Wall Street Journal article by Benjamin Katz, Airbus is retreating from its hydrogen ambitions—cutting the project’s budget by 25%, reallocating staff, and initiating a new “development loop” after discovering, shockingly, that the laws of physics still apply to aviation .

Let’s step back to 2020. Flush with pandemic cash and climate fervor, Airbus unveiled concepts for three futuristic, hydrogen-powered aircraft, one of which was to fly 200 passengers over 2,000 nautical miles. As Faury boldly proclaimed, Airbus would lead “the most important transition this industry has ever seen.”

But as many of us skeptics warned, this was always a bet against thermodynamics, not a technological revolution. The project depended on storing liquid hydrogen at -423°F, modifying engines to burn it, and constructing a global hydrogen supply chain from scratch—because, of course, hydrogen doesn’t occur naturally in usable form.

Airbus soon discovered what everyone outside the climate policy echo chamber already knew: the technical challenges are monumental, and the economics are worse. Even their “conservative” redesign—a plane for just 100 passengers with half the range—couldn’t dodge the mass-to-energy problem. Hydrogen fuel cells proved too heavy, and their power output too weak for commercial viability.

So why did Airbus press ahead with something so clearly unfeasible?

For the same reason so many corporations have thrown themselves into ESG posturing: taxpayer money and regulatory appeasement. The French government made its pandemic bailout contingent on green promises, while EU policymakers continue pushing decarbonization regardless of engineering feasibility.

As the WSJ notes, Airbus’s hydrogen project helped it tap into a firehose of government funds and green finance. It also attracted engineers and burnished its ESG credentials, particularly in Greta-fied Europe where “flight-shaming” has become a secular penance.

In short, this wasn’t about innovation—it was about compliance and optics. Airbus cashed in on green virtue while buying time to keep real aircraft production humming.

‘We Don’t Think Hydrogen’s the Answer’

Perhaps the most telling contrast comes from Boeing, Airbus’s American rival. Then-CEO David Calhoun minced no words in 2022: “We don’t think hydrogen’s the answer.” Instead of wasting billions on green moonshots, Boeing focused on improving existing designs. That realism now looks prescient.

Even oil giants like BP and automakers like Porsche are walking back their green ambitions. BP is pivoting back to fossil fuels, and Porsche is doubling down on combustion engines. Airbus, meanwhile, has been forced into a rebranding retreat, swapping hype for “development loops” and comparing its hydrogen plane to the Concorde—another technological marvel undone by economics.

The unraveling of Airbus’s hydrogen fantasy underscores a hard truth that no amount of EU regulation or climate activism can obscure: physics trumps policy, and engineering reality doesn’t care about carbon targets.

This is not an isolated incident. From offshore wind cost overruns to the collapse of EV startups and the continued flops of carbon capture projects, green technologies are consistently failing to deliver on their promises. Yet governments remain locked in ideological pursuit of Net Zero, heedless of cost, feasibility, or collateral damage.

As Faury himself conceded, being “right too early” is the wrong move. But the real problem isn’t being early—it’s being wrong altogether. The idea that hydrogen is the fuel of the future was always a marketing campaign disguised as a strategy.

Airbus’s retreat is not just a technical course correction. It’s a tale about the perils of politicizing engineering and treating speculative technologies as settled solutions. It shows, once again, that green policies too often chase headlines, not hard science, engineering, or economics.

The final tally? €1.7 billion gone, timelines extended by a decade, and the “historic moment” quietly shelved.

Hydrogen isn’t the future of aviation. It’s just another expensive detour in the long road of climate policy delusion.

Source:
Benjamin Katz, Airbus Promised a Green Aircraft. That Bet Is Now Unraveling, The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2025. Archived version here.

Air Industry Abandons Hydrogen Planes with No Alternative on the Cards Leaving Net Zero on Life Support

Net Zero has been left on life support after the air industry abandoned hydrogen-powered planes, despite billions in investment, with no alternative ‘green’ technology on the cards.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Will Jones

Net Zero has been left on life support after the air industry abandoned hydrogen-powered planes, despite billions in investment, with no alternative ‘green’ technology on the cards. The Telegraph has more.

The push to develop hydrogen-powered planes was once a key part of the aviation industry’s bid to eliminate carbon emissions. But in the last few weeks, it has fallen suddenly and dramatically out of favour.

First, European airlines and manufacturers drastically downgraded their target for the contribution of hydrogen to their goal of reaching Net Zero by 2050.

Then Airbus, the world’s biggest plane maker, put the industry’s most advanced programme for developing a hydrogen-powered passenger aircraft on hold.

Boeing, always a comparative sceptic, has meanwhile confirmed that it sees little or no role for hydrogen in decarbonising its own jets for decades at least.

The decline in hydrogen’s fortunes represents a potential setback for the UK, where British companies and the Government have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in the technology.

It also leaves the European aviation industry facing a bill of more than €1 trillion (£830bn) to decarbonise by the middle of the century, a total it will struggle to fund alone.

Hydrogen planes “have almost vanished from the road map”, says Carlos López de la Osa, of Transport and Environment (T&E), which promotes sustainable flying.

As a result, the only realistic fuel alternative to fossil fuels for full-size passenger jets appears to have been swept off the board.

Electric airliners are regarded as a little more than a pipe dream by many experts because of the excessive weight and low energy density of batteries, while the credibility of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is in doubt.

Climate campaigners question its carbon-reduction credentials and the gap between production volumes and industry requirements widens every year.

Worth reading in full.

Michael Deacon notes that, for all their climate anxiety and Greta Thunberg’s chastening of oldies, young people are actually the worst offenders when it comes to air travel and ‘green’ behaviours:

It turns out that the young are wrecking the planet, too. In fact, they may be doing even more to wreck it than their grandparents.

Just look at the results of a new poll by the Civil Aviation Authority. It found that those aged 18-34 fly a lot more frequently than those aged 55 and over. In the past year, almost three quarters of the former group travelled by plane, compared with only half of the latter group.

This may seem unexpected, given that members of Greta’s generation are always telling pollsters – and everyone else who will listen – how terrified they are about climate change. But then, perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised. In 2023, a poll by YouGov found that young adults did less recycling than Baby Boomers. They were also less likely to save water, wash their clothes at low temperatures, and switch off electric lights when leaving a room.

Waking Up to Harsh Reality: Airbus Abandon’s Hydrogen Powered Airplanes

Like communism did in the 20th century, the green revolution has produced an infinite number of fantasies, promises and unrealistic dreams. Amateurish plans that look wonderful on paper are turning out to be complete nonsense when put to the test of reality.

From NoTrickZone

By P Gosselin

Green pie-in-the-sky dream crash lands on the runway of reality.

Like communism did in the 20th century, the green revolution has produced an infinite number of fantasies, promises and unrealistic dreams. Amateurish plans that look wonderful on paper are turning out to be complete nonsense when put to the test of reality.

Blackout News reports on the latest green wake-up call: European aviation giant Airbus has halted the development of hydrogen-powered aircraft, which originally had been slated to be introduced by 2035, has been canceled. The major reason for the halt is reported to be the lack of necessary hydrogen infrastructure. In short: planners realized that it isn’t financially feasible, and it isn’t going to work.

And as is the case with almost every pie-in-the-sky green project, the cancellation always gets followed by a statement that the project is simply being put off temporarily and that it still remains the target for the future.

“The company still wants to develop a marketable hydrogen aircraft and make a contribution to the decarbonization of aviation. The industry is pursuing the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050,” reports Blackout News. “However, experts are increasingly questioning whether this goal is achievable.”

According to analysts, the focus remains on alternatives such as synthetic aviation fuels, but these face formidable technological and investment hurdles as well. That too probably will soon join the “it remains the target of the future” club.

Currently demand for air travel is increasing rapidly and is expected to continue on its current trajectory for the next two decades. Converting over to a completely new aviation infrastructure is far more daunting and complex than naive climate activists could ever understand.

“The focus will now be on the further development of sustainable fuels and increasing the efficiency of existing aircraft,” adds Blackout News. “The vision of a hydrogen-powered aircraft is a distant prospect for the time being.”