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Can smarter flight paths help save the climate?

In this episode of Hamburg Aviation Green, we explore why adjusting routes by just a few kilometres could massively cut climate heating effects of aviation – and why this isn’t happening yet.

Together with Alexander Lau from the Institute of Air Transport at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), we dig into the science behind contrails, climate effects, and the barriers to change.

One line that stuck with us: “Innovation isn’t always about building new aircraft. Sometimes it’s about using the ones we have – but flying them better.”

Thank you, Alexander, for your insights and a fascinating discussion!

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In our latest podcast, we speak with Julian Klaaßen, an environmental engineer at Hamburg Airport, about the ambitious plans to achieve fossil-free operations by 2035. Here are some highlights: 

Net Zero 2035: Since 2009, the airport has been working on reducing emissions and has already cut 80% of them. The goal is to be completely fossil-free by 2035.

A new wind park: The airport plans to build its own wind park to generate 100% green electricity, investing €70m 

Green Hydrogen Corridor with Rotterdam: Since 2013, the airport has been testing hydrogen technologies and plans to expand them. A notable highlight: the planned demonstration flight route between Hamburg and Rotterdam with a hydrogen-powered aircraft

Baltic Sea Region Project: Julian explains how this EU-funded project expands expertise across Europe preparing airports for hydrogen technologies

Many thanks to Julian for the great conversation!

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We’re back in the air – Season 2 is here!
…and now you can watch us too!

What will it really take to make aviation sustainable? In the second season of Hamburg Aviation Green, we’re taking another deep dive into the big questions – and even bigger solutions.

Our first guest: Björn Nagel, Director of the German Aerospace Center's Institute of System Architectures in Aeronautics, based in Hamburg at ZAL Center for Aeronautical Research. From hydrogen breakthroughs to the unexpected future of battery-powered flight, from digital engineering to global collaboration – Björn shares powerful insights on the systemic shift aviation needs to go green.

🚀 New aircraft designs
 🌍 The hydrogen ecosystem in Hamburg
 📊 The role of digital twins
 🌫️ Non-CO₂ effects
 🇨🇳 Global perspectives from Asia
 💡 Startups, SAF and future trends

Listen wherever you get your podcasts – or watch the full episode on YouTube!

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What links Airbus' ZEROe project with Germany's salt caverns? 

Hydrogen. A promising carbon-free fuel, it's an attractive energy vector for Hamburg's future energy needs. Industry and the City of Hamburg are investing heavily in hydrogen infrastructure and research. Moving from fossil aviation fuels to hydrogen is going to be a complex, costly business. According to a recent study by Transport and Environment, the price tag of transitioning aviation to hydrogen in the EU could be up to €300bn.

Too expensive? As one of the contributors to the study, Lukas Sens of the Technical University of Hamburg, notes, compare that to the €161bn net income of Saudi Aramco in 2022. And the same study estimates that up to 65% of intra-EU aviation could be fuelled by hydrogen by 2050. And that the cost per passenger flying on a hydrogen-fuelled plane might be only 7% more than using fossil kerosene.

On this episode of Hamburg Aviation Green, Lucas gives us a deep dive on the techno-economic issues surrounding hydrogen adoption in aviation. We talk about carbon pricing and trading, ticket prices on LH2-fuelled planes, sector coupling and energy sovereignty, to name just a few.

But what about the salt caverns? They could reduce the cost of green hydrogen by up to 50%. How? Listen in and find out.

This episode is the last in this season of Hamburg Aviation Green. Make sure to check out some of our recent episodes, including hydrogen at Hamburg Airport, accelerating innovation at ZAL, sustainable cabins, life cycle assessments and much more.

Get in touch with Lucas here:
Lucas Sens on LinkedIn

Find out more about sustainability projects in Hamburg's aviation cluster here:
Hamburg Aviation Green

Recent work and contributions by Lucas in his research on the hydrogen economy:
Analysing the Costs of Hydrogen Aircraft (PDF)
Green hydrogen supply for heavy duty-vehicles
Capital expenditure and levelized cost of electricity of photovoltaic plants and wind turbines

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H2 is on a roll: Hydrogen seems to be gaining traction as a fuel in aviation, at least in Europe. From successful test flights by ZeroAvia to recent updates to Germany's national hydrogen strategy - which doubled the production target for green H2 by 2030 - the pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together. More and more airports are collaborating on H2 infrastructure in the 2030s.

But what problems still need to be solved about refuelling passenger aircraft with liquid hydrogen, a cryogenic fuel, at a commercial airport?

During the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the City of Hamburg announced funding for the Hydrogen Aviation Lab, a real-world test facility that uses a decomissioned A320 to answer these questions.

With us to talk about the lab and the valuable data it will supply to enable H2 adoption in Hamburg is Hansi Aringhoff, Head of Corporate Innovation at Lufthansa Technik. Headquartered in Hamburg, the company is part of a consortium including DLR German Aerospace Center, ZAL Centre for Aeronautical Research and Hamburg Airport that us running the test bed until 2024.

More about Hydrogen Aviation Lab
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LinkedIn Profile Hansi Aringhoff
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What will be the single most important technology in decarbonising aviation over the next 20-30 years? Dr Ivan Terekhov, Director of Research Intelligence at Lufthansa Innovation Hub has the answer. In this podcast he talks - among many other fascinating topics - about his team's recent hype cycle analysis and what it reveals about technology readiness for decarbonising aviation.

A long-time Hamburg resident who has studied and worked in the city for many years including stints at German Aerospace Center and the Technical University of Hamburg, Dr Terekhov talked to us about the pitfalls of statistics in communicating about emissions, about realistic expectations, Greta Thunberg, offsets, Gen Z, grey water re-use, making statistics sexy and a whole lot of other interesting stuff.

Here's Ivan's leatest research on the Gartner hype cycle.
Find out more about tnmt here.
Dr Ivan Terekhov on LinkedIn

This podcast is produced by Hamburg Aviation, the industry network for Hamburg's aviation cluster.

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In February 2023, the Brazilian government sank a retired aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean. Scrapping the rusting hulk in the usual way had became difficult and prohibitively costly, the Brazilian government decided, in part because hazardous materials like asbestos used in the boat's construction had pushed up disposal costs.

The episode is an extreme example of a common problem: how can designers of large, complex machines take into account the overall environmental impact of construction, operation and disposal? Life Cycle Assessment is a research tool that's been common in other industries for years but is now enjoying a surge of interest in aviation.

As passengers and policymakers look ever more closely at the ecological impact of flying, frameworks such as LCA have great potential to reduce the long-term impact of aircraft. And that potential goes way beyond GHG emissions: all materials, components, processes and systems - and their interplay - are assessed.

LCAs allow aircraft designers and company planners to select the right components and systems, recommending solutions not only for economic but also environmental reasons. But they also rely on gathering and integrating enough reliable data, a challenging task even in an increasingly data-driven industry like aviation.

On this very enlightening episode of Hamburg Avation Green, we talked to Antonia Rahn, a researcher at German Aerospace Center (DLR)'s Institute for MRO. Antonia is a leading expert on Life Cycle Assessments and their use in the aviation industry. If you weren't aware of LCAs and their benefits to aviation, this is a great primer on how they can benefit industrial design of new aeroplanes, mainenance operations and recycling.

Find out more about DLR's ALICIA project here (German)

Thank you, Antonia, for the great conversation!

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Develop a truly sustainable cabin concept that saves weight, prioritises recycling and make passengers more comfortable: that's the ambitious brief for FairCraft, a radical new cabin concept that uses textiles and other easily recyclable materials to push the boundaries of cabin design. Designed to pursue all three of these goals at once, FairCraft is one of six projects funded by the city of Hamburg in 2022 via its GATE programme that supports innovation toward reducing the environmental footprint of aviation.

In this episode of Hamburg Aviation Green we talk to FairCraft project lead Christian Keun of Comprisetec GmbH about the FairCraft vision. How can we make aircraft cabins more recyclable? What does the passenger experience of the future look like? How much weight and emissions can we save by changing how we approach cabin design? And do we even need overhead bins on short-haul routes?

Join us for this exciting discussion!

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While the aviation industry aims to reach net zero by 2050, many of the technologies needed to get there are still years or even decades away. What role can start ups and start up culture play in accelerating the process and getting those crucial developments available faster? How can we actively harness the creativity of young businesspeople and researchers? Are start ups better at innovation than corporations? How can government create better conditions for start ups to flourish?

Answering these and many more questions on this episode is Mario Vesco, Venture Manager at Sustainable Aero Lab. This start up accelerator was launched in 2021 by the city of Hamburg for start ups trying to get their innovation to market. The aim: speed up innovation and R&D around decarbonization. The Lab has worked with 50+ start ups to date, with four mentoring sessions planned for 2023.

Find out more about Sustainable Aero Lab here.
Here's Mario's LinkedIn profile.
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How can changes in airport operations contribute to aviation's goal of reaching net zero? What role should offsets play? What can airports do to decarbonise? Has the COVID pandemic influenced the conversation around sustainable aviation?

These were among the many pressing questions we discussed on this episode with Michael Eggenschwiler, CEO at Hamburg Airport. With many years of experience in aviation both at airlines and at northern Germany's largest airport, Michael brings his own personal view to the wider conversation around sustainability.

Hamburg Aviation is a non-profit founded by the City of Hamburg and its member companies and organisations to support the aviation industry in the Hamburg metro region.

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Find out more about Hamburg Aviation here. 

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