Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment and Operating Cost Analysis of Long-Range Hydrogen and Biofuel Transport Aircraft

Global aviation operations contribute to anthropogenic climate change and its increasing awareness results in a social shift in the attitude towards flying, which has lead governments and industry to set emission target goals. Especially for long-range flights, there are no viable solutions to attend the goal. Among promising candidates for achieving emission targets are hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels such as biofuel. To provide a meaningful ecological and economic assessment, an environmental life cycle assessment method supplemented by a direct operating cost analysis is developed and applied. A wide-body transport aircraft (A330 class) serves as a reference design for developing conceptual aircraft designs with an entry-into-service in 2040 considering liquid hydrogen and drop-in algae biofuels (based on oil-rich biomass (BtL) or hydration of vegetable oil (HVO)) as propellants. The results for the long-range hydrogen aircraft in the current scenario show an increase in energy consumption of 17.2% leading to an increased environmental impact of 57%. Due to the high energy demand of biofuel production, the environmental and economic impact is increased by 556% (BtL) and 246% (HVO). Nevertheless, for a future scenario with renewable electricity production, the environmental impact is reduced by 28%, 24%, and 104% compared to the reference aircraft. However, the introduction of the new propellants involves a high direct operating cost penalty of 19% for hydrogen and 116% for biofuel.     «

Global aviation operations contribute to anthropogenic climate change and its increasing awareness results in a social shift in the attitude towards flying, which has lead governments and industry to set emission target goals. Especially for long-range flights, there are no viable solutions to attend the goal. Among promising candidates for achieving emission targets are hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels such as biofuel. To provide a meaningful ecological and economic assessment, an enviro...     »