Airbus kept a seat in the front row in the theater of climate virtue signaling for years. With Grand Fanfare and a high injection of 1.5 billion euros from French taxpayers during the rescue packages from the cowid era, the European aerospace titan promised an aircraft with hydrogen, zero emission aircraft by 2035. Well, like so many pipe dreams with green energy, imagination quickly disguised.
According to Benjamin Katz's article of Wall Street Journal, Airbus withdraws from his hydrogen ambitions – the project of the project by 25%, the staff rewind and initiated a new “development loop” after the discovery that the laws of physics still apply to aviation.
Let us step down to 2020. Flush with pandemic cash and climate passion unveiled Airbus concepts for three futuristic aircraft driven with hydrogen, one of which should fly over 2,000 nautical miles. As Faury Kühn announced, Airbus would “lead the most important transition that this industry has ever seen”.
But as many of us warned skeptics, this was always a bet against thermodynamics, no technological revolution. The project depended on to save liquid hydrogen at -423 ° F, to spend engines, to burn them, and the construction of a global hydrogen supply chain from scratch -of course, hydrogen does not occur in use in a naturally way.
Airbus soon discovered what was known outside of the climate policy Echo chamber: the technical challenges are monumental and the economy is worse. Even their “conservative” redesign a plane for only 100 passengers with half of the area could not avoid the problem of the mass for energy. Hydrogen fuel cells proved to be too heavy and their performance is too weak for commercial viability.
Why did Airbus press with something that is clearly incomprehensible?
For the same reason, so many companies have thrown themselves into the ESG farming: tax money and regulatory appeasement. The French government kept its around green promises, while the EU political decision -maker continues to drive decarbonization regardless of the feasibility of engineering.
As the WSJ states, Airbus' hydrogen project helped to take it to a fire brigade by state funds and green funds. It also attracted engineers and burned its ESG references, especially in Greta-Fied Europe, where the “flight shame” has become a secular penitence.
In short, it was not about innovation – it was about compliance and optics. Airbus collected green virtue and bought time to overcome real aircraft production.
“We don't believe that hydrogen is the answer”
Perhaps the most meaningful contrast comes from Boeing, the American rival of Airbus. The then CEO David Calhoun did not hack words in 2022: “We do not believe that hydrogen is the answer.” Instead of wasting billions of green monshots, Boeing focused on improving existing designs. This realism now looks forward.
Even oil giants such as BP and car manufacturers such as Porsche decrease their green ambitions. BP turns back into fossil fuels and Porsche doubles the combustion engines. Meanwhile, Airbus was forced into a rebranding retreat, which hype exchanged for “development loops” and compares its hydrogen level with the concorde – another technological miracle that is reversed by the economy.
The dissolution of Airbus's hydrogen fantasy underlines a tough truth that no amount of EU regulation or climate activism can cover up: physics exceeds politics and technical reality does not take care of carbon goals.
This is not an isolated incident. From offshore wind costs to the collapse of EV startups and the continued flops of Carbon Capture projects, green technologies do not consistently fail their promises. However, the governments continue to be ideological striving for net zero, without any affection, feasibility or collateral damage.
When Faury granted himself, it is wrong to be “really too early”. But the real problem is not early – it is completely wrong. The idea that hydrogen is the fuel of the future has always been a marketing campaign that was disguised as a strategy.
Airbus' retreat is not just a technical course correction. It is a story about the dangers of the politicalization of engineering and treatment of speculative technologies as defined solutions. It shows once again that green politics too often pursues headlines, not hard science, engineering or business.
The last record? 1.7 billion € went, schedules extended by a decade and the “historical moment” was closed.
Hydrogen is not the future of aviation. It is just another expensive detour on the long way of climate policy.
source:
Benjamin Katz, Airbus promised a green aircraft. This bet is now going on, the Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2025. Archived version here.
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