Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation
lemming741@lemmy.world 4 days agoMaybe one day but for now it’s just green washed big oil
At present, however, just 2 per cent of the 600 billion cubic metres of hydrogen manufactured each year around the world is produced by water electrolysis, while 98 per cent is produced from natural gas, with carbon dioxide as a by-product.
More than 90 per cent of this hydrogen is used as a building block for fertilisers or is consumed within the oil, refining and wider petrochemicals industry.
hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 4 days ago
The technology plans for these fuel cells aren’t “for now”. They’re for a future where we’ve hopefully already decarbonized most of the electric grid, as doing so is way more important than decarbonizing aviation. Converting fleets of airplanes to electric is a long process that will probably not be started for a while yet while there are more important carbon emission sources to tackle (aviation is only 2-3% of the emissions right now).