Abu Dhabi clean energy company Masdar believes there is a "compelling business case" for using hydrogen to make air travel greener, a senior executive said on Monday.
Mohammad Abdelqader El-Ramahi, Masdar's chief green hydrogen officer, said synthetic aviation fuels were a "low-hanging fruit" in the industry.
Airlines are banking on sustainable fuels to "drop in" to existing jet engines and cut the bulk of CO2 emissions caused by flying.
More radical remodelling of aircraft, involving electric batteries and alternative engines, is expected to take a smaller part of the slack.
Using hydrogen is an alternative to the most common type of sustainable fuel made from cooking oils and plant waste, of which supplies are limited.
This involves splitting hydrogen off from water (H2O), ideally using climate-friendly means such as wind or solar power, and combining it with CO2.
European Union rules will require this variant, known as eSAF, to make up 1.2 per cent of jet fuel by the early 2030s, eventually rising to 35 per cent by 2050.
"One could say the 1.2 per cent is very low. It is not," Mr El-Ramahi told a summit of green hydrogen investors in London.
"If you look at the current evolution of the aviation sector and you look at this quantity, this quantity is ginormous."
He said biofuels would "not be able to scratch the surface" of the volumes of cleaner fuel needed, especially when competing with land needed to grow food.
Fines for failing to comply with EU rules also mean that an aviation company could end up paying double if it does not go down an eSAF route, he said.
"We believe that sustainable aviation fuels or eSAF synthetic fuels are one of the low-hanging fruits," Mr El-Ramahi said. "It's a very compelling business case."
Aviation chiefs are also looking at burning hydrogen directly in jet engines, although these would need to be larger as it is less dense than traditional jet fuel.
Lower expectations
The London summit heard the market for green hydrogen – as it is known when it comes from renewable sources – has fallen short of optimistic predictions from a few years ago.
Insiders talk of a "chicken-and-egg problem" in which there is little demand for hydrogen until it is cheap, but it will not be cheap until there is enough demand to invest.
"We're at an inflection point in terms of the growth of the market. The inflection is probably not going to be as steep as we would have expected two to three years ago," said Felipe Arbelaez, a BP hydrogen executive.
"I think the ramp-up and the penetration of low-carbon hydrogen is definitely going to be a bit slower than the market would have anticipated two or three years ago."
Sopna Sury, a hydrogen executive at German company RWE, said the focus of the industry was on "smaller, mid-size" business opportunities.
"There has been reality kicking in which I think is very healthy, because there was a lot of naivety four years ago," she said.
Masdar told The National in May it hopes to beat a 2030 target of a million tonnes of green hydrogen production capacity.
The company intends to sell some hydrogen to UAE industries and export the rest as the world seeks alternative fuels in industries such as steelmaking, air travel and shipping.
"If you look at the legacy of Abu Dhabi in the past 50 years, you will see that we've always been pioneers, risk-takers," Mr El-Ramahi said.
"We always like to be first movers and we pride ourselves on being one of the visionaries when it comes to the energy transition."
World record transfers
1. Kylian Mbappe - to Real Madrid in 2017/18 - €180 million (Dh770.4m - if a deal goes through)
2. Paul Pogba - to Manchester United in 2016/17 - €105m
3. Gareth Bale - to Real Madrid in 2013/14 - €101m
4. Cristiano Ronaldo - to Real Madrid in 2009/10 - €94m
5. Gonzalo Higuain - to Juventus in 2016/17 - €90m
6. Neymar - to Barcelona in 2013/14 - €88.2m
7. Romelu Lukaku - to Manchester United in 2017/18 - €84.7m
8. Luis Suarez - to Barcelona in 2014/15 - €81.72m
9. Angel di Maria - to Manchester United in 2014/15 - €75m
10. James Rodriguez - to Real Madrid in 2014/15 - €75m
More on Quran memorisation:
The Details
Article 15
Produced by: Carnival Cinemas, Zee Studios
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
THE SPECS
BMW X7 xDrive 50i
Engine: 4.4-litre V8
Transmission: Eight-speed Steptronic transmission
Power: 462hp
Torque: 650Nm
Price: Dh600,000
THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
If%20you%20go
%3Cp%3EThere%20are%20regular%20flights%20from%20Dubai%20to%20Kathmandu.%20Fares%20with%20Air%20Arabia%20and%20flydubai%20start%20at%20Dh1%2C265.%3Cbr%3EIn%20Kathmandu%2C%20rooms%20at%20the%20Oasis%20Kathmandu%20Hotel%20start%20at%20Dh195%20and%20Dh120%20at%20Hotel%20Ganesh%20Himal.%3Cbr%3EThird%20Rock%20Adventures%20offers%20professionally%20run%20group%20and%20individual%20treks%20and%20tours%20using%20highly%20experienced%20guides%20throughout%20Nepal%2C%20Bhutan%20and%20other%20parts%20of%20the%20Himalayas.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The Intruder
Director: Deon Taylor
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy, Meagan Good
One star
Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
The biog:
Languages: Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, basic Russian
Favourite food: Pizza
Best food on the road: rice
Favourite colour: silver
Favourite bike: Gold Wing, Honda
Favourite biking destination: Canada
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Read more about the coronavirus
Match info
Wolves 0
Arsenal 2 (Saka 43', Lacazette 85')
Man of the match: Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal)
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
UAE squad
Humaira Tasneem (c), Chamani Senevirathne (vc), Subha Srinivasan, NIsha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Esha Oza, Ishani Senevirathne, Heena Hotchandani, Keveesha Kumari, Judith Cleetus, Chavi Bhatt, Namita D’Souza.
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Scores
New Zealand 266 for 9 in 50 overs
Pakistan 219 all out in 47.2 overs
New Zealand win by 47 runs
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
Company Profile
Name: JustClean
Based: Kuwait with offices in other GCC countries
Launch year: 2016
Number of employees: 130
Sector: online laundry service
Funding: $12.9m from Kuwait-based Faith Capital Holding
