Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Dana Perkins and you're listening to Bloomberg Switched
Speaker 1: on the b n F podcast. Now. You might have
Speaker 1: noticed that over the last couple of weeks we've put
Speaker 1: out a few podcasts that deviate from our typical format.
Speaker 1: Instead of interviewing bienn F analysts, we've interviewed some prominent
Speaker 1: external voices that participated in our recently held BANEF London Summit.
Speaker 1: We currently have six of these summits worldwide and they
Speaker 1: convene leaders in energy industry, transport, technology, finance and government.
Speaker 1: My colleague Brianny Collins, who's a part of BANFS editorial team,
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to interview Glenn Leewlin and he's a
Speaker 1: general manager and the electrification chief Technology Officer at air Bus.
Speaker 1: So maybe you think zero emissions air travel is the
Speaker 1: substance of dreams or something far off in the future
Speaker 1: that only the Jetsons would have. Well, today's interview with
Speaker 1: Glenn might convince you that it's all coming sooner than
Speaker 1: you think, just one decade away. In the twenty etees
Speaker 1: quick reminder to everybody that does not provide investment or
Speaker 1: strategy advice, and we have a more complete disclaimer that
Speaker 1: will play at the end of today's show, But for
Speaker 1: right now, let's hear Briany's interview with Glenn Louivin. Hi. Glenn,
Speaker 1: thanks very much for joining us today. So ab US
Speaker 1: is Europe's largest supplier of commercial and military aircraft, so
Speaker 1: you must have a great outlook into the various technologies
Speaker 1: available to reduce emissions from flight. As things stand, how
Speaker 1: do you see the pathway to zero emissions flight panning out?
Speaker 1: On the one September we revealed three concept aircraft which
Speaker 1: really explain our ambition to bring a zero emission airliner
Speaker 1: to commercial service by twenty We have a few steps
Speaker 1: to take before we get there. First, we have some
Speaker 1: technology which we need to develop, we have some flight
Speaker 1: demonstration to do, and we plan to have achieved all
Speaker 1: of that by in the same time frame. We need
Speaker 1: also to be working with partners inside the industry and
Speaker 1: also outside the industry, like energy suppliers, hydrogen supply companies,
Speaker 1: airports developing the hydrogen infrastructure, the hydrogen ecosystem in order
Speaker 1: to prepare for hydrogen to be available for the zero
Speaker 1: emission aircraft in the twenty thirties timeframe. That's really interesting
Speaker 1: thank you very much. So do you see fully electric
Speaker 1: flight being viable for commercial aircraft or other options such
Speaker 1: as hydrogen or hybrid electric more realistic. I think fully
Speaker 1: electric battery flight is very appropriate for small aircraft for
Speaker 1: general aviation, for two to four seed vertical takeoff and
Speaker 1: landing applications, So helicopters are helicopter replacements. So definitely batteries
Speaker 1: and fully electric architectures around batteries have their place in aviation.
Speaker 1: As soon as we start to go to larger aircraft,
Speaker 1: we see hybrid electric starting to be interesting. And if
Speaker 1: we really think about having zero emission large commercial aircraft,
Speaker 1: we really need to change the energy carrier to something
Speaker 1: much lighter than than batteries, and this is where hydrogen
Speaker 1: starts to get interesting. Hydrogen is also interesting because it's
Speaker 1: essentially a surrogate for renewable energy on board the aircraft.
Speaker 1: So there's increasing talk about green hydrogen generated from renewable energy.
Speaker 1: But what needs to happen in the hydrogen value chain
Speaker 1: to make this possible to use on board large aircraft
Speaker 1: in the future. So we see already massive increases in
Speaker 1: the amount of renewable energy that we're producing across the world.
Speaker 1: For example, wind energy production has multiplied by two over
Speaker 1: the last five years, Solar energy production has multiplied by
Speaker 1: four over the last five years. For sure, in absolute terms,
Speaker 1: it's not enough yet we needed to continue progressing in
Speaker 1: that same direction. We can see the growth going exponential,
Speaker 1: we can see the costs coming down and making sure
Speaker 1: that they compete with alternative ways of producing energy, but
Speaker 1: that for sure needs to continue. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we need hydrogen to be produced using that renewable energy,
Speaker 1: and there are several industries who are interested in in
Speaker 1: using hydrogen to allow them to meet the Paris Agreement.
Speaker 1: Aviation is one, the trucking industry is another. Maritime is
Speaker 1: also interested in it, and we need to to to
Speaker 1: see that scale up over the next few years in
Speaker 1: order for the cost of hydrogen to come down to
Speaker 1: the levels that we need for it to be appropriate
Speaker 1: for aviation. Then we need also with the work we're
Speaker 1: doing with the airport to be preparing for the hydrogen
Speaker 1: to come to airports and for aircraft to be able
Speaker 1: to be refueled with hydrogen in the twenty thirties. So
Speaker 1: that will require quite a lot of collaboration with airports
Speaker 1: to be able to to ensure that the hydrogen can
Speaker 1: be can be refueled in a safe manner at airports.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? For sure? The whole topic requires a
Speaker 1: lot of collaboration outside of the aviation industry with the airports,
Speaker 1: around the detailed infrastructure at the airports, with energy companies
Speaker 1: looking at the infrastructure to get the hydrogen from its
Speaker 1: production site to the airport, and with the renewable energy sector,
Speaker 1: because we need part of the renewable energy that's that's
Speaker 1: got to be planned and that eventually needs to be
Speaker 1: produced for the aviation industry. So will this require quite
Speaker 1: a lot of government support in the form of subsidies
Speaker 1: to try and reduce the cost of producing hydrogen from
Speaker 1: renewable energy in order to make it economic for the
Speaker 1: aviation sector to use the renewable energy and hydrogen economy
Speaker 1: for sure needs to be supported. It's probably likely that
Speaker 1: over the next ten years it's not going to be
Speaker 1: more economic than perhaps the fossil fuel equivalent, and like
Speaker 1: what we've seen in the renewable energy sector up until now,
Speaker 1: certainly support incentives to build the scale and then with
Speaker 1: the scale the cost starts to come down. That that
Speaker 1: government support that those incentives are definitely required over the
Speaker 1: next ten years, but you do see it as viable
Speaker 1: that we actually get zero emission aircraft in the sky
Speaker 1: by the mid thirties, for sure. This is a very
Speaker 1: clear target. We've said ourselves. There are a number of
Speaker 1: independent institutes that of mapped out how hydrogen cost can
Speaker 1: come down over the next decades. We see a thirty
Speaker 1: percent reduction in renewable hydrogen cost in twenty compared to
Speaker 1: where it is today. We see a fifty percent reduction
Speaker 1: in hydrogen cost by twenty fifty. They're exactly the kind
Speaker 1: of cost figures that are interesting for us because it
Speaker 1: makes zero emission aviation commercially viable in the excellent that's
Speaker 1: so exciting. I know that hydrogen has is less energy
Speaker 1: dense by a long way compared to fossil fuel, going
Speaker 1: to make the aircraft too bulky to fly if you
Speaker 1: need to have a lot of hydrogen on board. Yes,
Speaker 1: so hydrogen has a lot more energy in it per
Speaker 1: unit weight, but it has a lot less energy and
Speaker 1: a per unit of volume. So you're you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: It uses a lot more volume than than kerosene, in fact,
Speaker 1: four times more. So we have to change the aircraft
Speaker 1: configuration somewhat in order to adapted to that new energy carrier.
Speaker 1: In the concepts that we revealed on the twenty one September,
Speaker 1: we see that some concepts have a longer fuselage because
Speaker 1: we put the tanks behind the cabin in the very
Speaker 1: rare part of the aircraft, and that requires a longer fuselage.
Speaker 1: Other concepts that we're looking at include the flying wings
Speaker 1: of the blended wing body aircraft, and this is a
Speaker 1: concept which by definition has more volume inside it, and
Speaker 1: that lends itself really to to using hydrogen on board
Speaker 1: and could be the ultimate high performance hydrogen aircraft in
Speaker 1: the future. That sounds really exciting. So does that mean
Speaker 1: that in future the whole kind of shape and design
Speaker 1: of the way we see airplanes today could actually change?
Speaker 1: For sure. I think what we have seen over the
Speaker 1: last decades are incredible improvements in performance. We've had an
Speaker 1: eight cent reduction in CEO two emissions, for example per
Speaker 1: passenger kilometer since the beginning of commercial aviation. That's incredible,
Speaker 1: and now that's our starting point for probably the next
Speaker 1: stage and disruption to bring the emissions of the aircraft
Speaker 1: down to zero in terms of fully electric flight. You
Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning that this might be best suited
Speaker 1: to short urban routes, and you've got a vertical takeoff
Speaker 1: and landing project going on, so could you tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that, and also where you
Speaker 1: see the subject of autonomy going our autonomous electric aircraft,
Speaker 1: will they be of benefit in the future as well.
Speaker 1: We have over a hundred flight tests completed of fully
Speaker 1: electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. We're not just interested
Speaker 1: in bringing let's say zero emission technology to large scale
Speaker 1: commercial aviation, which is for sure an ambition, but we're
Speaker 1: also interested in bringing those technologies to the complete product line,
Speaker 1: including helicopters and vertical takeoff and landing. And we've got
Speaker 1: one demonstrator completed with over a hundred flights that we
Speaker 1: developed in the United States. We have another program which
Speaker 1: is currently underway and which is currently undergoing flight testing
Speaker 1: in the south of Germany. It's called City Airbus. And
Speaker 1: both of those concepts are quite different if you look
Speaker 1: at them from outside. There is one which looks like
Speaker 1: a multi rotor. It's got several blades on the top
Speaker 1: of the vehicle and it's got no wings. The other
Speaker 1: concept that we call the Hannah is a tilt wing aircraft,
Speaker 1: so the wings actually tilt in order to transition from
Speaker 1: vertical takeoff and ending into forward flight. Those two different
Speaker 1: approaches are then going to be combined in what we
Speaker 1: ultimately bring to market in that in that sector. So
Speaker 1: it's it's an extremely exciting space. Lots going on in
Speaker 1: that area, and for sure that market segment is adapted
Speaker 1: well adapted to battery fully electric technology. So what kind
Speaker 1: of application do you see those aircraft being used for?
Speaker 1: Would it be like on demand city transport. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: definitely an application where those aircraft are extremely relevant. You
Speaker 1: could imagine, for example, in some cities where it takes
Speaker 1: a long time via ground transportation to go from an
Speaker 1: airport to a city center. In some cities it can
Speaker 1: be a one hour or even two our journey. With
Speaker 1: this kind of aircraft, that trip could be done in
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and because of the electrical propulsion systems on board,
Speaker 1: the cost starts to even be competitive with the ground
Speaker 1: transportation equivalent. So it's it's really a way to potentially
Speaker 1: bring low cost, high speed alternative to ground transportation for
Speaker 1: certain cities. That's really interesting. I look forward to that,
Speaker 1: So when do you see that technology becoming cost competitive
Speaker 1: in the future for cities. So the urban air mobility
Speaker 1: market segment and the aircraft that we are developing for it,
Speaker 1: we expect to be at maturation around the middle or
Speaker 1: second half of this current decade. So what we're talking
Speaker 1: about is in the next five to ten years, really
Speaker 1: seeing these aircraft flying around and carrying people great. I
Speaker 1: know that several companies are developing concepts for electroc flight,
Speaker 1: including Boeing and Uber, So is it an industry race
Speaker 1: to see who can get there first? I think there's
Speaker 1: a real need for the complete industry to reduce its
Speaker 1: climate impact. I think Airbus has certainly positioned itself in
Speaker 1: a leadership position when it comes to that challenge, whether
Speaker 1: we talk about urban air mobility and and smaller vehicles
Speaker 1: are now with the zero E project large commercial aircraft.
Speaker 1: I would encourage any player, whether it's startups or larger players,
Speaker 1: to join us on this adventure, to even collaborate on
Speaker 1: eliminating aviations climate impact. Aviation is an incredible service to society,
Speaker 1: connecting us in physical ways which are not otherwise possible.
Speaker 1: But we have to recognize that there is a climate
Speaker 1: impact associated and we need to bring that climate impact
Speaker 1: down to zero. That's a really good point. So you
Speaker 1: see quite a lot of opportunity for collaboration among industry
Speaker 1: participants on reaching their emissions technology and flight sure. Sure,
Speaker 1: and I think it's an opportunity for everybody to play
Speaker 1: a role in meeting the Paris Agreement and eliminating the
Speaker 1: climate impact of aviation. What are your thoughts on autonomous flight,
Speaker 1: particularly for these shorts urban trips made by for the
Speaker 1: electric aircraft. Yeah, autonomy is definitely a very relevant technology
Speaker 1: for aviation. It can bring the cost down even further
Speaker 1: if these aircraft don't require a pilot on board. It's
Speaker 1: a topic which will be dealt with in a very
Speaker 1: step by step manner, where we will see initially perhaps
Speaker 1: single pilot on board instead of sometimes two pilots, will
Speaker 1: see remotely piloted aircraft as a second step, and then
Speaker 1: we'll see potentially full autonomy much later. It's it's definitely
Speaker 1: a huge opportunity, but it will be dealt with in
Speaker 1: discrete steps to in sure that we achieve all of
Speaker 1: the safety and operational objective switch we need to while
Speaker 1: implementing that technology. That's a very good point. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for speaking with us today, Gland. It's
Speaker 1: really great to hear more about a US as path
Speaker 1: to zero emissions technology. Thank you, my pleasure, Thanks for
Speaker 1: your interest. Today's episode of Switched On was edited by
Speaker 1: Rex Warner of Grace Stoak Media. Bloombergini app is a
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Speaker 1: recording does not constitute, nor it should it be construed,
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