Climate Impact and Economic Assessment of Liquid Hydrogen and Synthetic Kerosene Long-Range Aircraft Concepts

Abstract

Economic efficiency, energy demand and environmental impact are the key design drivers for the next major change in aviation towards a sustainable aviation industry. For the long range market segment, alternative energy carriers are essential to meet the goals of the European Green Deal, as battery electric flight or hybrid propulsion system architectures are not suitable at the current state of the art. Therefore, this paper covers the economic and climate impact assessment of fossil kerosene, sustainable aviation fuel and liquid hydrogen as energy sources for the long range market segment of a potential next generation aircraft assuming a technology scenario expected to be ready in 2035. To explore additional potential of climate impact reduction mainly related to the contrail induced cloudiness and NOx emissions, variations of flight altitudes and design Mach numbers are carried out. These studies are conducted for the three types of fuels with aircraft designed for each specific parameter combination. The impact of those design changes on the average temperature response and the direct operating costs are finally evaluated.