How decarbonising shipping and aviation will boost UK green growth
Last week we were thrilled to host Scott Pendry of Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, Peter Aylott from the UK Chamber of Shipping and Dr Maria Nelson from the Aerospace Technology Institute at our webinar 'How decarbonising shipping and aviation will boost UK green growth'!
Our brilliant panel covered lots of ground in only an hour and gave us lots to think about – here are our highlights from the event.
1. There is a clear need for effective industrial and infrastructure policy
All of our panellists outlined reasons why there is a clear need for industrial and infrastructure policy. They questioned how we set out policy in a sensible clear way that gives investment clarity across the entire sector in both aviation and shipping.
Peter Aylott, Director of Policy at the UK Chamber of Shipping, explained that in shipping, there is a problem of not joining up the supply as well as the demand. “We are already producing ships with hydrogen capability, but we have to remove the red line and this is a problem in terms of investment. This is something that the government could look at and come in with a means of collaborating and a way to enable us to invest from an infrastructure perspective, not a pure 'buying a ship' perspective, into a place where we can take this forward.”
In aviation, Scott Pendry, Director of External Relations at Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, would like to see more ambition on how products in the initial stages of R&D could be taken forward and given help to become commercialised.
“Aviation has not had the same support as others like the automative industry, so there’s definitely more support that can be provided to companies pursuing zero emission flights,” he said. “There will come a challenge when it comes to thinking about the capital cost of manufacturing the product that we’ve developed.”
2. We need more clarity from government on the fuels that will help to decarbonise these sectors
“There's competition for hydrogen outside of our two sectors, so arguing for the harder to decarbonise sectors makes a lot of sense, but we would appreciate increasing clarity,” said Dr Maria Nelson, Head of Innovation & Sustainability for the Aerospace Technology Institute. “This will give the sector the confidence to make investment decisions and know that the fuels will be there.”
One specific idea that was raised by Scott was the idea of a merit order for the use of green hydrogen. “I’m fairly confident that aviation will feature quite highly because it is a genuine fuel of the future for very specific applications,” he said.
Peter agreed that an industry strategy that recognises where the merit order is would also be helpful from shipping’s perspective, but added that something similar for other fuel types and solutions would also be welcome.
“There’s competition for hydrogen outside of our two sectors, so arguing for the harder to decarbonise sectors makes a lot of sense.”
3. The source of renewable electricity is a fundamental challenge
“One of the fundamental challenges is the source of electricity that isn’t currently available in the national plan,” explained Peter.
Short shipping straights, such as the one between Dover and Calais could easily be electrified, for example, but it would leave local areas in the dark.
In addition, producing green hydrogen fuels for ocean-going vessels will require a huge amount of electricity input – regardless of what the final fuel will be – but this is not yet being planned for by the UK government. This will also be the case for aviation, and this was highlighted as a potential area of collaboration between both the aviation and shipping industries.
4. International alignment is key
When it comes to economic competitiveness, Maria outlined the need for international alignment, explaining that both aviation and shipping are incredibly internationally complex and networked.
“In order to drive the sector forward we need to jointly create an innovation space where everyone benefits – because either the ecosystem benefits and we all move forward or a whole number of players don’t benefit – but it requires international alignment at a political level.”
5. Opportunities for economic and job growth
Finally, a key discussion point was about the opportunities that green hydrogen development can bring for economic and job growth.
“We think liquid hydrogen is the most viable candidate for long-haul aircraft. If we’re moving to hydrogen being used on aircraft, we’re looking at fundamental redesign of aircraft architectures. This is a shift that the sector has not seen at that scale,” said Maria.
This means that the sector will need to look closely at skills and ask how to we build cryogenic skills and hydrogen fuel system skills? There is a big opportunity for cross-sector collaboration and learning from adjacent sectors.
“A lot of this topic revolves around the economic opportunity. In the aerospace sector we see a £34 billion industry by 2050 of which we think the UK could up its market share from currently around 13% to 18% if we develop leading hydrogen-aircraft capability,” explains Maria. “There’s a huge market opportunity and that means jobs for people across the county – better than average paid jobs – and it means the future of economic stability.”
If you would like to watch the webinar again, or if you missed the event, it’s available to watch here:
