Rolls Royce & Easyjet Successfully Test World’s First Hydrogen-Powered Jet Engine

According to the latest reports, Rolls Royce and a European-based airline easyJet have successfully tested a hydrogen-powered jet engine. Both companies announced this in a press release on Tuesday. The duo says the goal is to eliminate emissions by 2050 and said the ground test marks “the world’s first run of a modern aero engine on hydrogen.”

Rolls Royce & Easy Jet Aim To Curb Emissions by 2050

Reports claim that the test used a converted Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A regional aircraft engine in order to carry out the tests at an outdoor facility at MoD Boscombe Down in the UK. The fact is that flights are one of the most carbon-intensive forms of travel, and airline emissions have a significant impact on the planet.

Recently, the Energy Industry Review reported the Réseau Action Climate Association found that aviation is responsible for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The point worth mentioning here is that these numbers don’t account for plane stopovers, emissions, in reality, may be far higher, reaching upwards of 15% of global emissions.

Moreover, the aviation industry says it’s trying to curb emissions by working to develop planes that use alternative fuels, like hydrogen, for air travel. Hydrogen produces water vapors rather than carbon dioxide, making Rolls-Royce and easyJet’s experiment quite significant. In recent years, many difficult-to-decarbonize industries, like airlines, have invested heavily in hydrogen technologies to reduce their emissions. No doubt, Hydrogen is far from being a silver bullet. The fuel is prohibitively expensive and is in short supply. U.S. Department of Energy says that Hydrogen is difficult to store as it “requires high pressures, low temperatures, or chemical processes to be stored compactly.”

Rolls-Royce Chief Technology Officer Grazia Vittadini stated in the press release:

“The success of this hydrogen test is an exciting milestone. We only announced our partnership with easyJet in July and we are already off to an incredible start with this landmark achievement. We are pushing the boundaries to discover the zero carbon possibilities of hydrogen, which could help reshape the future of flight.”

Let me tell you that not all hydrogen types are created equal. Separating hydrogen from other elements requires a lot of energy, and what kind of energy is used is very important. If hydrogen is created using fossil fuel, studies have shown that the end result’s fossil fuel footprint can be astronomically high. On the other hand, if the hydrogen-fueled jets are to be effective in reducing emissions, they will need to run on what’s known as “green” hydrogen, which is made with renewable power like solar and wind. The EasyJet and Rolls-Royce test was conducted with hydrogen fuel made from wind and tidal power which means renewable sources, making its fuel “green” hydrogen.

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