The Vertical Flight Society (VFS), a non-profit organisation working to advance vertical flight, has published a whitepaper for multimodal hydrogen airport. The goal of the VFS H2-Aero whitepaper, “Multimodal H2-Airport Hub,” is to propose a repeatable hydrogen hub for the airport, first with a ground vehicle fueling station, and later expanding to an airport-based hub supplying multiple modes of transportation.
In a press release the VFS says “Aircraft emissions equate to approximately 10% of US transportation greenhouse gas emissions and 3% of overall. By 2050, it is expected that commercial aircraft emissions could increase to over 22% of the world’s total CO2 emissions. Since the average aircraft life is 30 years, it hastens the need to replace fossil fuels and their powertrains as soon as possible. To abate this impending reality, the VFS H2-Aero Team’s mission is to help decarbonize aviation using zero-emission propulsion (e.g., fuel cells) fueled by carbon-free hydrogen.”
Jesse Schneider, the H2-Aero Team’s Chair, and CEO of ZEV Station says “Though SAF has taken the forefront as the primary means to reduce aircraft carbon emissions, hydrogen offers numerous benefits, such as 5x less water usage and 3x less cost at scale (less than kerosene), while greatly accelerating the transition to replace fossil fuels. To stimulate the transition to hydrogen in aviation, it is advantageous to create a multimodal ecosystem at the airport. The H2-Aero whitepaper proposes using a ground vehicle station as an ‘anchor’ or starting point that would later grow into a Hydrogen Hub to serve the entire airport. The whitepaper gives the first complete overview of hydrogen storage per transportation type and status of standards to assist entities to appropriately size H2-Hub in stages. The H2-Aero lays the framework also for hydrogen airport demonstrations in the form of a public-private partnership to help validate the fueling and aircraft technology.”
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(Image: VFS)