British aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce is “advocating” the energy transition and decarbonising aviation, its outgoing CEO Warren East told AFP at the Farnborough Airshow on Tuesday.
This year’s Farnborough spectacle, returning after a four-year absence, comes as air travel begins to recover from the pandemic, as economic turmoil hampered production.
However, the focus of the airshow is on decarbonisation and sustainability in a sector often criticized for its climate impact, amid Europe’s blistering heatwave with record-breaking temperatures in England.
– Energy transition –
“The big issue is the energy transition,” East told AFP in an interview at the company’s airshow chalet.
“This is the number one issue for the industry. We’ve been campaigning for this for some time – and say it’s absolutely necessary, and we see it as an opportunity.”
East, 60, is retiring after more than seven years at the helm of the aerospace giant, a tenure marked by historic corruption penalties for the group, Trent engine problems and Brexit.
Rolls, whose products power Airbus and Boeing planes, then cut 9,000 jobs and divested assets in a drastic restructuring after the Covid pandemic grounded jets and sparked a collapse in air travel.
East then traced it back to benefit from Covid-related losses in 2021 after cutting costs.
Based in the central England city of Derby, the titan is now benefiting from the post-Covid aviation recovery, defense growth, a record power systems order book – and a long-standing focus on sustainability.
“I’m very happy with my time at Rolls-Royce,” added East, who took over the reins in July 2015.
“We’ve really modernized Rolls Royce culturally.
“We made many efficiency and productivity improvements which then crystallized during the Covid pandemic.
“And that has now created a very solid platform for the future (with) a great operational and financial endowment.”
– Clean fuel –
According to industry estimates, aviation accounts for between 2 and 3 percent of the world’s total harmful carbon emissions.
Airlines and manufacturers alike have now pledged to achieve net-zero emissions – or carbon neutrality – by 2050.
By then, however, global air traffic is expected to more than double.
Rolls-Royce, which specializes in engines for long-haul aircraft, military jets and helicopters, is therefore intensifying its research into a wide range of technologies, including electric and hydrogen propulsion.
At Farnborough’s first airshow since Covid, Rolls-Royce has announced a partnership dubbed H2ZERO with UK low-cost airline Easyjet to test the combustion technology of clean hydrogen engines.
Rolls also signed a deal with South Korea’s Hyundai to research all-electric propulsion and hydrogen fuel cell technology for future air taxis.
The company also unveiled a new research program into hydrogen propulsion technology that does not emit carbon dioxide.
Rolls, meanwhile, is working on developing a future fuel-efficient engine called UltraFan that emits fewer harmful pollutants.
UltraFan targets fuel savings of 25 percent compared to conventional long-haul engines.
“We’re a group that’s very focused on energy, and we run energy across multiple sectors, and one of the sectors where we obviously have decades of experience is aerospace,” East said.
– Costs –
However, the CEO warned that it would be “decades” before hydrogen would be used in aircraft engines.
The global aerospace industry should now embrace technologies such as sustainable biomass-based aviation fuels to reduce its reliance on polluting jet fuel.
However, SAF is between three and four times more expensive than regular kerosene.
“I think if we keep going – maybe we’ll get to hydrogen in a gas turbine – but we won’t make it for at least a couple of decades,” East told AFP.
“There is still work to be done to make this viable, safe and economical, and we need some transition technologies in the meantime, and that’s why we’re talking about sustainable jet fuel.”
He added: “Basically, we’re just saying that instead of kerosene, we have batteries, hydrogen and synthetic kerosene.”
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