‘Fortress USA’: How 9/11 produced a military industrial juggernaut

Since the September 11 terror attacks, there has been no hiding from the increased militarisation of the United States. Everyday life is suffused with policing and surveillance. This ranges from the inconvenient, such as removing shoes at the airport, to the dystopian, such as local police departments equipped with decommissioned tanks too big to use on regular roads.

This process of militarisation did not begin with 9/11. The American state has always relied on force combined with the de-personalisation of its victims.

The army, after all, dispossessed First Nations peoples of their land as settlers pushed westward. Expanding the American empire to places such as Cuba, the Philippines, and Haiti also relied on force, based on racist justifications.

The military also ensured American supremacy in the wake of the second world war. As historian Nikhil Pal Singh writes, about 8 million people were killed in US-led or -sponsored wars from 1945–2019 — and this is a conservative estimate.

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When Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican and former military general, left the presidency in 1961, he famously warned against the growing “military-industrial complex” in the US. His warning went unheeded and the protracted conflict in Vietnam was the result.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower addresses American paratroopers prior to D-Day in the second world war. Wikimedia Commons

The 9/11 attacks then intensified US militarisation, both at home and abroad. George W. Bush was elected in late 2000 after campaigning to reduce US foreign interventions. The new president discovered, however, that by adopting the persona of a tough, pro-military leader, he could sweep away lingering doubts about the legitimacy of his election.

Waging war on Afghanistan within a month of the twin towers falling, Bush’s popularity soared to 90%. War in Iraq, based on the dubious assertion of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction”, soon followed.
The military industrial juggernaut

Investment in the military state is immense. 9/11 ushered in the federal, cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, with an initial budget in 2001-02 of US$16 billion. Annual budgets for the agency peaked at US$74 billion in 2009-10 and is now around US$50 billion.

This super-department vacuumed up bureaucracies previously managed by a range of other agencies, including justice, transportation, energy, agriculture, and health and human services.

Read more: Why is it so difficult to fight domestic terrorism? 6 experts share their thoughts

Centralising services under the banner of security has enabled gross miscarriages of justice. These include the separation of tens of thousands of children from parents at the nation’s southern border, done in the guise of protecting the country from so-called illegal immigrants. More than 300 of the some 1,000 children taken from parents during the Trump administration have still not been reunited with family.

Detainees sleep in a holding cell where mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed at the US-Mexico border. Ross D. Franklin/AP

The post-9/11 Patriot Act also gave spying agencies paramilitary powers. The act reduced barriers between the CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA) to permit the acquiring and sharing of Americans’ private communications. These ranged from telephone records to web searches. All of this was justified in an atmosphere of near-hysterical and enduring anti-Muslim fervour.

Only in 2013 did most Americans realise the extent of this surveillance network. Edward Snowden, a contractor working at the NSA, leaked documents that revealed a secret US$52 billion budget for 16 spying agencies and over 100,000 employees.
Normalisation of the security state

Despite the long objections of civil liberties groups and disquiet among many private citizens, especially after Snowden’s leaks, it has proven difficult to wind back the industrialised security state.

This is for two reasons: the extent of the investment, and because its targets, both domestically and internationally, are usually not white and not powerful.

Read more: Calculating the costs of the Afghanistan War in lives, dollars and years

Domestically, the 2015 Freedom Act renewed almost all of the Patriot Act’s provisions. Legislation in 2020 that might have stemmed some of these powers stalled in Congress.

And recent reports suggest President Joe Biden’s election has done little to alter the detention of children at the border.

Militarisation is now so commonplace that local police departments and sheriff’s offices have received some US$7 billion worth of military gear (including grenade launchers and armoured vehicles) since 1997, underwritten by federal government programs.

Atlanta police line up in riot gear before a protest in 2014. Curtis Compton/AP

Militarised police kill civilians at a high rate — and the targets for all aspects of policing and incarceration are disproportionately people of colour. And yet, while the sight of excessively armed police forces during last year’s Black Lives Matter protests shocked many Americans, it will take a phenomenal effort to reverse this trend.

Read more: Police with lots of military gear kill civilians more often than less-militarized officers
The heavy cost of the war on terror

The juggernaut of the militarised state keeps the United States at war abroad, no matter if Republicans or Democrats are in power.

Since 9/11, the US “war on terror” has cost more than US$8 trillion and led to the loss of up to 929,000 lives.

The effects on countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have been devastating, and with the US involvement in Somalia, Libya, the Philippines, Mali, and Kenya included, these conflicts have resulted in the displacement of some 38 million people.



These wars have become self-perpetuating, spawning new terror threats such as the Islamic State and now perhaps ISIS-K.

Those who serve in the US forces have suffered greatly. Roughly 2.9 million living veterans served in post-9/11 conflicts abroad. Of the some 2 million deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps 36% are experiencing PTSD.

Training can be utterly brutal. The military may still offer opportunities, but the lives of those who serve remain expendable.

Sailor cleaning a fighter jet during aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf in 2010. Hasan Jamali/AP

Life must be precious

Towards the end of his life, Robert McNamara, the hard-nosed Ford Motor Company president and architect of the United States’ disastrous military efforts in Vietnam, came to regret deeply his part in the military-industrial juggernaut.

In his 1995 memoir, he judged his own conduct to be morally repugnant. He wrote,

We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong.

In interviews with the filmmaker Errol Morris, McNamara admitted, obliquely, to losing sight of the simple fact the victims of the militarised American state were, in fact, human beings.


As McNamara realised far too late, the solution to reversing American militarisation is straightforward. We must recognise, in the words of activist and scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore, that “life is precious”. That simple philosophy also underlies the call to acknowledge Black Lives Matter.

The best chance to reverse the militarisation of the US state is policy guided by the radical proposal that life — regardless of race, gender, status, sexuality, nationality, location or age — is indeed precious.

As we reflect on how the United States has changed since 9/11, it is clear the country has moved further away from this basic premise, not closer to it.

Author

Clare Corbould
Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University
Disclosure statement
Clare Corbould has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Greens.

Meet the ex-Googler who’s exposing the tech-military industrial complex

Formed by Jack Poulson and other Silicon Valley dissidents, Tech Inquiry uncovers the tech industry’s role in weaponry and surveillance.

Jack Poulson, cofounder of Tech Inquiry

 [Source images: Mark Sommerfeld; DeSa81/Pixabay]

Jack Poulson has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of how tech companies are evolving into military contractors. Tracking such intricate connections has become a full-time—though unpaid—job for the former Google research scientist as head of Tech Inquiry, a small nonprofit tackling the giant task of exposing ties between Silicon Valley and the U.S. military.

“Google, and tech companies in general, transitioning into weapons development is something that should be paid close attention to,” says Poulson. “And certainly employees of the company should have a voice in whether that work is performed.”

By delving through government contracting information and lobbying disclosures, and filing FOIA requests, Tech Inquiry has produced a set of custom databases for activists, journalists, and other researchers to probe tech-government connections. Its research covers the U.S. government as well as close intelligence allies, such as the U.K. and Canada. The group has also put out three dense reports that have been the foundation for many news articles. And it’s collaborating with advocacy groups to research the complex dealings and structures of tech firms.

Tech Inquiry’s latest report reveals (among many other things) Microsoft’s substantial role in a military drone AI program called Project Maven. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because the same program caused a huge rift at Google in 2018 when thousands of employees objected to the “Don’t be evil” company contributing AI tech to a killer drone program. Google ultimately left Maven, but its peers in tech continued on, with little public notice.


FROM TEAM PLAYER TO DISSIDENT

It was another Google controversy that gave Poulson international status. In 2018, when he was an AI researcher at the company, he encountered source code for Project Dragonfly, a version of Google’s namesake search engine being developed for mainland China. It contained a blacklist of forbidden queries, including the term “human rights.” Google’s facilitation of Chinese government censorship was well known within the company, but Poulson made news by taking a stand against it in a public resignation.

Poulson’s resignation letter quickly made him a spokesperson for tech worker opposition, with appeal to both the left and the right. “It was a reasonably bipartisan issue—actually, if anything, Republicans cared more about it than Democrats,” he says. “I wasn’t criticizing the United States. From my perspective, I was criticizing Google. But I’m sure from a lot of people’s perspectives, they were onboard because it included a critique of China.”

Poulson’s advocacy extended beyond censorship to also opposing Google’s work on military contracts, such as Maven. And he found himself invited to confidential meetings between tech CEOs and senior officials from the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies, who looked to him as the voice of techies opposed to working on weapons systems. “I’m not quite so sure I had any significant impact on what their opinions were,” he says. “But I certainly learned a lot about what sorts of relationships existed and who attended those sorts of meetings.”

Tech Inquiry’s Procurement and Lobbying Explorer allows anyone to probe the connections between companies and several national and state governments–with more to come.

Exposing those relationships became the goal of Tech Inquiry, which Poulson formed in summer 2019 along with four other tech experts. They include fellow Google dissidents Irene Knapp and Laura Nolan, anti-surveillance advocate Liz O’Sullivan, and tech consultant Shauna Gordon-McKeon. “Both Liz and Laura have played very significant roles in the campaign to stop killer robots,” says Poulson. Knapp is also a privacy advocate. And Gordon-McKeon develops open-source software to help groups govern themselves online.

Unsurprisingly given its founders’ backgrounds, the organization employs a fair amount of technology. Working at Google, Poulson specialized in natural language processing and recommendation systems. While we mostly encounter recommendation engines in features, such as Netflix suggestions and TikTok feeds, the tech goes much further. Tech Inquiry sets it loose on data, such as federal procurement records, to understand connections between companies and the government. It also analyzes language on company websites to find similarities between them.

The result is a recommendation system that guides research by Tech Inquiry or anyone who uses its tools. “Maybe they know about [data analysis firm] Palantir, but they don’t know about, say, a Black Cape or a Fivecast or one of those companies,” says Poulson. “Having a recommendation system helps fill in some of those similarities.”

But there’s still plenty of manual labor. Tech Inquiry’s previous report, Death and Taxes, documented how technology and defense companies benefited from the Trump corporate tax cuts and how much they have been able to avoid in federal taxes. The report, which covered 57 publicly traded companies, required reading through and collating over 1,000 financial filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

UNTANGLING THE CONNECTIONS

Tech Inquiry’s latest report, Easy as PAI, reveals complex defense and law-enforcement programs that use publicly available information (PAI), such as social media postings, satellite imagery, and location data. Some of these deals are revealed for the first time. Others, such as Project Maven, are fleshed out in greater detail.

One trend is how consumer technologies have migrated into military applications. For example, a company called SmileML made an iOS game in which people win points by mimicking the look of emojis. That produced data to train an AI in recognizing facial expressions—tech that smileML supplies to companies to assess the performance of their salespeople. SmileML also sold the tech for $235,000 to the Special Operations Command, which oversees special ops by four branches of the U.S. military, for projects involving “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance,” per government documents.

Another case is X-Mode Social, which harvested location data from consumer mobile apps, such as a prayer app called Muslim Pro. The company later won a $200,000 contract to provide location data to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military intel wing of the Pentagon. (According to a report in Motherboard, it’s unclear what the military did with this data.)

Neither of these deals was publicized, nor was there a direct link between the Pentagon and the companies. Instead, SmileML was a subcontractor to a British defense firm called BAE Systems. And X-Mode Social, which later changed its name to Outlogic, contracted through a company called Systems & Technology Research.

I must confess that my eyes glazed over at times as I struggled through the obtuse structures and relationships detailed in Poulson’s report. The tech-military connections are dense, often involving little-known companies or subsidiaries, running through obscure middlemen, and linking to unfamiliar government agencies in order to fulfill vaguely described, acronym-laden objectives.

But Poulson enjoys the challenge of decrypting these corporate dealings. “If you’re interested in a company, of course you’re interested in who owns them and what’s under them,” he says. “Because if you don’t know those things, then you’re not actually knowing what that company is doing.”

Unraveling the Project Maven ball of yarn was one of the biggest components of Tech Inquiry’s new report. The issue gained prominence because of the Google connection, coming at a time when employee activism, on a number of issues at the company, was spiking. And when Google pulled out of Maven in 2019, the program faded from public view. But it continued under the radar, involving dozens of tech companies. “Press attention given to different companies is kind of wildly off the mark as to what their roles have been in military contracting,” says Poulson.

As usual, these ties were filtered through contractors: Booz Allen Hamilton (Edward Snowden’s former employer) and a tech provider called ECS Federal. The latter managed three contracts that involved 33 tech companies. Microsoft tops the list, receiving $31.6 million last year to supply AI for analyzing video and motion. Other name brands on the list include Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Peter Thiel’s Palantir. But the second-biggest contractor (receiving $25.2 million) was Clarifai, a boutique AI company that’s providing facial recognition tech to the Pentagon. (Unlike some companies, Clarifai has been very up front about its work with the military.)

CHALLENGING THE MEDIA

The press has been key to Poulson’s personal rise as a tech critic, as well as publicizing Tech Inquiry’s research. The New York Times, for instance, has covered Poulson’s Google advocacy, run an opinion piece he wrote, and quoted him in several articles, such as one about Intel and Nvidia’s ties to Chinese government oppression.

But the Times now finds itself under Tech Inquiry’s microscope. Easy as PAI points out the paper’s collaboration with the nonprofit think tank Center for Advanced Defense Studies on an article about North Korean oil deliveries. That organization uses technology from controversial firm Palantir and has also contracted with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency to provide what the records call “bulk datasets.” The think tank has also collaborated with Buzzfeed News, including on a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of detention centers in China’s Xinjiang region.

Tech Inquiry also publicizes the links between military contractors and media organizations ProPublica, MIT Technology Review, and The Washington Post. The three are partners in an association called The Center for New Data. The Center also includes two location-tracking data brokers: Outlogic, which harvested data from the Muslim prayer app; and Veraset, a company with ties to Saudi intelligence.

In some cases, news outlets that expose the activities of data harvesting technologies are utilizing the same or similar technologies. “Why is it that journalists are off limits for pointing out their usage of surveillance technology?” says Poulson.

GOING GLOBAL

Critical as he may be, Poulson recognizes the media as a key constituency for Tech Inquiry’s research tool. “I definitely know there are journalists that use it,” he says.

The group also aims to serve advocacy organizations. Recently, it helped the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE) with a project called Big Tech Sells War. Opposed to the military and surveillance projects of the 20-year “War on Terror,” ACRE built a website to document the tech industry’s role in that war. It draws heavily on data collected by Tech Inquiry.

Poulson’s group is currently working on a project to map the global footprint of cloud-computing companies. That’s a paid gig for worker union UNI Global, funded by the German government’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and it will bring some much-needed income. Tech Inquiry is very picky about where it gets funding, and doesn’t solicit or accept money from corporations or from foundations linked to tech billionaires, such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative or the Gates Foundation. Its most common funding is from individuals sending in $50 per month.

As a result, the organization has been an all-volunteer effort till now. Poulson says that it now has enough money to fund a part-time position, likely his. “That’s exciting to not just be burning cash,” he says, with a laugh. Not that he’s likely to limit his hours to those he’s paid for. “[This is] the only thing I’ve done for the past year,” he says.

And he intends to do a lot more. Tech Inquiry started out providing insight into companies’ dealings with national governments. Now it’s digging into state governments, with information on Florida and New York State procurement and California lobbying filings, for instance. Each state has its own system for making information available, which requires a lot of tweaking to automate data collection

The group is also going international. It already has data on the so-called “Five Eyes” intel alliance of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Now it’s setting sights on the European Union and China. It’s developing a machine-translation system to render these countries’ complex documents into English, which likely requires training their own AI models to handle the task.

As Tech Inquiry has evolved, it’s had to evaluate the identity it projects. On a personal level, its members favor restrictions on military technologies and on the role of Silicon Valley in developing them. But it wants to be seen as an objective source of data, available to anyone.

“We started out [with] advocacy. And so I don’t think you can ever really fully shake that as an organization,” says Poulson. But he’s trying to strike a neutral tone in his reporting, letting the information speak for itself without commentary. “I find more and more that if you find something that’s actually interesting, you don’t have to really infer anything from it,” he says. “You can just state the facts, and that’s enough.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean Captain is a business, technology, and science journalist based in North Carolina. Follow him on Twitter @seancaptain.

It’s Time to Break Up the Military-Industrial Complex
Despite the end of two decades of war, a congressional committee just voted to increase the Pentagon’s budget by $24 billion.

By Katrina vanden Heuvel
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021


President Joe Biden speaks from the Treaty Room in the White House about the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. (RedhoodStudios / Shutterstock)

Two days after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, the House Armed Services Committee voted to set the Pentagon’s 2022 budget. Given that US officials claim to be winding down decades-long wars, even maintaining current levels of military spending would seem a mystifying choice. But the committee didn’t just vote to maintain current spending levels. It voted to increase them by a whopping $24 billion.

Which prompts the question: Are we spending this money because we need to, even though our military budget is already higher than those of the next 11 largest countries combined? Or are there other incentives at play?

Ties between the government and the private sector—what President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously called the “military-industrial complex”—form the foundations of our national defense. Since 9/11, between one-third and half of the nearly $14 trillion the Pentagon has spent went to for-profit defense contractors. Dozens of members of Congress and their spouses own millions of dollars’ worth of stock in those companies.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.


Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.

Venezuela or Europe: What kind of leftist is Chile's new president?

Chile's President-elect Gabriel Boric says he wants to create a welfare state "so that everyone has equal rights no matter how much money they have" (AFP/Javier TORRES)

Laurent Abadie and Alberto Pena
Mon, December 20, 2021,

Despite being branded a "communist" by his critics, Chile's left-wing president-elect Gabriel Boric has always pointed to Europe as the inspiration for the "social welfare" state he wants to create.

Chile is one of the world's most unequal countries, where the top one percent hold more than a quarter of the wealth, according to the ECLAC UN agency.

The incomes of the richest are 25 times those of the poorest, according to the OECD group of developed economies among which Chile is listed as the second-most unequal in terms of household disposable income.

The rich-poor gulf was one of the sparks for a violent uprising in 2019 that left dozens dead and rocked the economy and political establishment.

It is a situation Boric, who backed the protests, has vowed to correct.

He described his project as "something that in Europe would be quite obvious, which is to ensure a welfare state so that everyone has equal rights no matter how much money they have in their wallet."

Many Chileans, however -- among the richer classes but also in rural areas -- are distrustful of his Approve Dignity leftist alliance with the Communist Party.

Investors don't like his pledge to increase taxes.

And many Chileans have deep-seated fear of communist policies they blame for the demise of Venezuela, many of whose nationals it hosts as migrants.

- 'Chilezuela' -

"Boric is more left than the traditional parties" that have been in government, said Rodrigo Espinoza, a political scientist with the University Diego Portales.

But based on his policy agenda, Boric is more "related to European social democracy" than the left in Venezuela or Bolivia, he added.

Boric was the centrist option in the Approve Dignity's primary, beating out the Communist Party's Daniel Jadue.

Espinoza said Boric had been the victim of a fake news campaign portraying him as a kind of Hugo Chavez clamoring for a "Chilezuela," whereas there was nothing in his program about "breaking the free-market system."

His rival for the presidency, far-right, neoliberal lawyer Jose Antonio Kast, managed with some success to paint Boric as a "communist."

"The left only promotes poverty, the kind of poverty that has dragged down Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, where people flee from," Kast had said in his final campaign speech.

The message stuck with many.

Though nearly a million more people voted for Boric on Sunday in a convincing victory, Kast still managed to amass more than 3.6 million of the 8.3 million ballots cast.

"Communism... touches everything we have as middle-class people," Kast voter Ricardo Sepulveda, a 75-year-old retired construction worker in Santiago, told AFP about his choice.

Another, business owner Sergio Adauy, 52, said he expected Boric would "change the rules of the game" and "not respect the agreements by which people invested capital" in Chile.

The Communist Party had been a part of previous leftist governing coalitions, including that of socialist Michelle Bachelet.

But Boric is perceived as much more left-wing.

- 'Protecting our macro-economy' -

"Boric is not a communist," economist Francisco Castaneda of Chile's Universidad Mayor told AFP.

"His political grouping is learning to understand that fiscal responsibility is important, and that reforms to close social gaps must be gradual, long-term," he added.

Standing his ground, Boric told AFP before the election "it is not possible to do business, or for a country to grow, when a society is tremendously fractured, as it is in Chile."

He has vowed to reduce the work week from 45 to 40 hours, to advance "green development" and to create 500,000 jobs for women.

He also wants to change Chile's system of private pensions, which was one of the key gripes of the 2019 protesters.

On Sunday, after his victory, Boric vowed again to "expand social rights" but said he would do so with "fiscal responsibility."

"We will do it protecting our macro-economy," he said.

- Market rejection -

Investors were seemingly not convinced, and the Santiago stock exchange fell 6.8 percent on Monday, while the Chilean peso fell to a record low against the US dollar.

Some analysts had expected the reaction to be bigger, said Castaneda, "but moderation towards the center (in Boric's program) attenuated the decline."

Even if he wanted to bring about radical changes to Chile's neoliberal economic model, the youthful president would find it difficult to convince a Congress just about equally split between left- and right-wing parties.

University of Chile political scientist Maria Cristina Escudero also rejected any comparison to Venezuela-style socialism.

"He is trying to form a broad coalition beyond Approve Dignity given the reality that... he won't be able to advance his government program without agreement in Congress," she said.

Boric "needs each and every vote from the traditional center-left in addition to the votes from his own coalition," meaning he cannot alienate anyone, said Escudero.

bur-mlr/to

Human cost of China's green energy rush ahead of Winter Olympics




China has vowed the upcoming Winter Olympics 2022 will be the first Games to be run entirely on wind and solar energy, and have built scores of facilities to increase capacity -- but activists warn ordinary people are being exploited

 Some families have so little income following the loss of their land to renewables projects that they are burning corn husks to stay warm this winter

(AFP/GREG BAKER)

Poornima WEERASEKARA
Mon, December 20, 2021

Beaten, forced off their land, cheated out of money, and even falsely imprisoned -- farmers in China say they are paying a heavy price as authorities rush to deliver on ambitious pledges to ramp up national green energy output.

China has vowed the upcoming Winter Olympics 2022 will be the first Games to be run entirely on wind and solar energy, and have built scores of facilities to increase capacity -- but activists warn ordinary people are being exploited by "land grabs" in the process.

In a hamlet near Beijing, the Long family -- who say they've lost more than half their agricultural land to a sprawling solar farm next door -- now have so little income they are burning corn husks and plastic bags to stay warm in winter.

"We were promised just 1,000 yuan per mu of land each year when the power company leased the land for 25 years," farmer Long from Huangjiao village said, using a Chinese unit of land equal to approximately 667 square metres.

"We can make more than double the amount by growing corn in the same area. Now without land, I eke out a living as a day labourer."

China is the world's biggest producer of wind turbines and solar panels, and the Winter Olympics is seen as an opportunity to showcase the country's green technologies as they seek global markets.

To ensure an uninterrupted power supply for the Games -- and clear the winter smog choking the Chinese capital -- Hebei province neighbouring Beijing has built a giant plant that takes in power from renewable projects in the province.

That one plant creates 14 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity every year, similar to the annual energy consumption of Slovenia.

But for farmers like Long and his neighbour Pi, the green energy boom has made their lives more dangerous and difficult.

Pi says villagers were forced to sign contracts -- seen by AFP -- leasing their land to the solar park built by State Power Investment Group (SPIC), one of the five biggest utility companies in the country.

Those who didn't agree were beaten by the police, he said, adding "some were hospitalised, some were detained."

Wind turbines in Desheng village in Zhangbei in Zhangjiakou, one of the host cities for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games (AFP/GREG BAKER)

- 'Suppressed and imprisoned' -

Pi was jailed for 40 days, while Long languished in prison for nine months for "illegally gathering and disturbing peace," after a public protest.

"The situation is similar to a mafia," Pi said. "If you complain, then you'll be suppressed, imprisoned and sentenced."

The average annual disposable rural income in Baoding is about 16,800 yuan ($2,600), a figure both Long and Pi said they can no longer make.

AFP could not confirm that electricity from the SPIC project near Huangjiao would be used to power the Olympic venues directly, because that information is not publicly available.

The company declined to confirm when asked by AFP.

But the Zhangjiakou government -- the city co-hosting the Games -- has said that since winning the Olympic bid in 2015, the area has "transformed itself from scratch (into) the largest non-hydro renewable energy base in China."

Government subsidies for wind and solar farms have also accelerated construction of such projects in other parts of Hebei, as China scrambles to cut air pollution before the Games.

In a statement, Amnesty International said "forced evictions, illegal land seizures, and loss of livelihoods related to the loss of land" were among the most frequent human rights concerns associated with the wind and solar energy sectors.

China wants 25 percent of its electricity to come from non-fossil fuels by 2030.

To achieve this, the country has to more than double its current wind and solar capacity -- but environmentalists warn land seizures will become more widespread as energy companies rush to produce renewables.

And although Beijing has set a series of ambitious targets around the Winter Olympics, green campaigners face heavy pressure in China if they challenge the official line.

Several told AFP they were not comfortable discussing Beijing's environmental targets for the Games for fear of reprisals.

China wants 25 percent of its electricity to come from non-fossil fuels by 2030 (AFP/GREG BAKER)

- 'We got nothing' -

In September, China announced strict rules for compensation when land is taken over for ecological projects, including the development of green energy.

"Our land zoning (rules) also clearly regulate what agricultural land can't be occupied, especially farmland," Li Dan, secretary general of the renewable energy professionals committee, which promotes green development.

"This is a red line."

If farmland is being used for renewable energy projects there should be a benefit sharing programme in place such as powering greenhouses, she said.

But several farmers AFP spoke to said companies were labelling agricultural fields as wasteland to skirt the rules.

Xu Wan, a farmer in Zhangjiakou, lost his land to a solar installation built during the run-up to the Games.

"The company told us this was non-usable land, but actually it's all very good agricultural land used by us farmers," Xu said.

"They said they would give us 3,000 yuan per mu of land. But in the end, we got nothing."

Zhangjiakou Yiyuan New Energy Development, which installed the solar project in Xu's village, did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

Jiang Yi, a Chinese Academy of Engineering researcher, told a state-run industry news site that in future China will need 30,000-40,000 square kilometres more land to meet the renewable energy needs.

"Where the land comes from has become the biggest issue restricting the development of the industry," he said.

- 'The corruption is intolerable' -

Renewable investments also made up over half the new projects under China's global infrastructure push -- the Belt and Road initiative -- last year.

Priyanka Mogul from The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, a UK-based non-profit that has studied the impact of Chinese renewable investments abroad, said some developers had also been accused of controversial practices when acquiring land overseas.

"The most prevalent issue was inadequate disclosure of environmental impact assessment (data)... followed by issues related to land rights and loss of livelihoods," she said.

To reduce conflicts when taking over village land, China has billed most solar farms as poverty alleviation projects, where villagers get free electricity from solar panels installed on their roofs.

According to 2014 state guidelines, utility companies should then buy back the extra electricity in a programme to lift two million families out of poverty by 2020.

The National Energy Administration said last year more than double that number benefited.

But in Huangjiao with over 300 households, only two roofs had solar panels, and villagers said there had been no programme to install solar panels.

"At a central level, the government has good policies for farmers," Pi from Huangjiao village said.

"But once it comes to the village level, things change. The corruption at the grassroots level is intolerable."

prw/rox/lto

European Parliament warns Serbia over violence against environmentalists

Photo: European Union 2021 - Source: EP / Philippe Stirnweiss


Published
December 16, 2021
Country
Serbia
Author
Igor Todorović


The European Parliament adopted a resolution with an overwhelming majority in which it highlighted “the violent behavior of hooligans towards peaceful demonstrators” in Serbia. Some lawmakers said Rio Tinto has a bad reputation and that its activities are devastating for the environment.

Members of the European Parliament condemned the “increasing violence by extremist and hooligan groups against peaceful environmental demonstrations” in Serbia. They expressed regret at the “amount of force used by the police” at the latest series of protests against lithium research and Rio Tinto’s mine and processing plant project.

The resolution was adopted by 586 votes in favor, 53 against and 44 abstentions.
Serbia reprimanded for corruption, lack of transparency in environmental protection

European lawmakers called on the Serbian authorities to publicly condemn the actions of the hooligans. Protesters have rallied to express opposition to “the rushed adoption” of two laws, where the Law on Expropriation was “seen as opening space for controversial foreign investment projects, such as the Rio Tinto mine, with a heavy impact on the environment,” according to the resolution.

“The police force allegedly overstepped its authority or failed to protect protesters from violence and protect their human right to peaceful assembly,” the document adds.

The members of the European Parliament pointed to “corruption and the rule of law in the environment area” and the lack of transparency over environmental and social impact assessments in infrastructure projects.

Within the resolution, the European Parliament also highlighted allegations about forced labor and human trafficking at Linglong’s controversial tire plant construction site in Zrenjanin.

No respect for labor, environmental rights

In the debate, some European lawmakers said Rio Tinto has a bad reputation and that its activities are devastating for the environment, N1 reported.

“It is nothing new that Serbia is a captured state with a very weak reform track record. The Serbian regime has widely opened its doors to Chinese investments that have no respect whatsoever for labor and environmental rights and human dignity above all,” Viola von Cramon-Taubadel from the European Green Party said before the vote. She added Rio Tinto and the Government of Serbia kept the details of their agreement secret.

The protests are not just about the environment or controversial laws but against “widespread corruption, the inaction of state institutions, lack of transparency and any progress on Serbia’s European path,” Von Cramon stated.

According to Klemen Grošelj from Slovenia, one of the authors of the resolution, it is not directed against Serbia or the people of Serbia, but a warning to the country’s authorities that the violation of fundamental rights like the ones at the Linglong plant construction site and during environmental protests are unacceptable. The Serbian government must secure the right to peaceful protest, he warned.

“During the peaceful protests, there was a series of incidents and provocations, sporadic violence, scuffles and fights caused by groups of provocateurs and government supporters, with a conspicuous absence of uniformed police,” Croatian MEP Tomislav Sokol said.

European periphery planned to be turned into landfill

Non-attached European lawmaker Ivan Vilibor Sinčić said there are plans for lithium mines at 20 locations. “The crucial place is the Jadar Valley, which has 18,000 inhabitants and distinguished agriculture, and it confirms the sad neocolonial reality of Europe and China. During Angela Merkel’s visit to her EPP [European People’s Party] colleague Vučić, he was a waiter and Serbia was a buffet,” he stated.

He was referring to the arrival of then-Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel in Belgrade in September, when she said her country is interested in lithium from Serbia.

“Why isn’t Europe interested in its own lithium, given that the biggest reserves are in Germany and Czechia? Why is the neoliberal concept being followed, where the gains and anything that’s worth goes to the center, and the pollution goes to the periphery? Imagine if lithium was found under the wine plantations around Bordeaux. Would the French be discussing the displacement of the people that live there? What if it was found in Tuscany? In the Rhine Valley? Of course they wouldn’t. It isn’t acceptable for peripheral countries, whether they are European members or not, to be a landfill so that someone could drive in electric cars,” Sinčić underscored.

On the same day, Rio Tinto called for dialogue and claimed it would continue with the implementation of its Jadar project in Serbia in line with the law. “We understand the interest of citizens in everything that happens in connection with the project, and we will continue to provide information on all aspects of the project for which we are responsible and in which we participate,” the company said.

Environmentalists protest against waste incinerator project in Sofia

Photo: Heat from waste is expensive and toxic (Za Zemiata)

Published
December 14, 2021
Country
Bulgaria
Author
Igor Todorović

Waste incineration results in emissions of mercury, dioxins and furans, environmentalist group Za Zemiata said as it protested against the project for such a facility in Sofia. The practice is incompatible with separate collection and recycling and Bulgaria will need to import waste for the plant to work at full capacity, activists claim.

Bulgarian environmentalist organization Za Zemiata projected slogans against waste incineration on the cooling towers of thermal power plant Sofia, within its campaign against the planned facility of the kind. The activists said it would exacerbate the issues in waste management and air quality with which Sofia is failing to cope, and demanded the introduction of a functional system for separate collection and recycling.

Bulgarian construction company Mix-Construction and its consortium partners Osal Energy and Dongfang Electric were selected in July to build a combined heat and power (CHP) plant that would use refuse-derived fuel or RDF. Za Zemiata noted that the Commission on Protection of Competition has annulled the decision in October over procedural mistakes.

The Bulgarian competition authority annulled the tender in which a consortium won the deal to build the CHP incinerator

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a EUR 67 million loan and the European Union earmarked funds from the Operational Program Environment 2014-2020. The capital city participates with EUR 10 million of its own funds in the EUR 179 million project.

However, Za Zemiata pointed to regular costs for staff and maintenance of EUR 91 million over the planned 26-year lifecycle of the plant, an estimated EUR 3.4 million per year in variable costs and planned incentives of EUR 59.5 million, all listed in the feasibility study.



Lack of information on health risks

“Health risks were greatly underestimated in the environmental assessment, and during the discussion, citizens disagreed with the proposal to take out a new loan. However, Sofia Municipality has moved forward with the implementation of the project. The decision was made in a very nontransparent way and despite the cases that were won, people still do not have access to full information about the pollution and financial performance of the proposed waste incineration plant,” says Desislava Stoyanova from Za Zemiata.

Za Zemiata: Incineration is incompatible with waste separation and recycling

The organization has been launching and supporting citizens’ lawsuits for years against the waste incineration plant and in other cases related to pollution.

Za Zemiata warned Sofia is in a valley with unfavorable air currents and that waste incineration results in emissions of mercury, dioxins and furans. The practice is incompatible with separate collection and recycling and Bulgaria will need to import waste for the plant to work at full capacity, activists claim.
Not enough RDF production capacity in Bulgaria

The organization said the incinerator in Sofia is expected to burn 180,000 tons of waste per year while that the country only produces one third of the volume of the RDF briquettes that are needed, implying waste would need to be imported. Plastics and paper are the most suitable for burning, and they are exactly the materials that should be recycled, activists point out.

A study conducted by the Sofia Municipality, also known as Stolichna Municipality, showed the incinerator would emits 20% more PM particles, 14% more sulfur dioxide and 10% more nitrogen oxides than the thermal power plant, the statement adds. Za Zemiata noted the European Commission didn’t include waste incineration on the list of technologies eligible for funding under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.

The organization pointed to good examples of recycling systems in the towns of Gabrovo and Svilengrad.

Citizens protesting against waste incineration projects throughout Balkans

In neighboring Serbia, officials have recently hinted at the idea to install incinerators in the cities of Niš and Kragujevac. There are already numerous controversies about the ongoing CHP project in Belgrade, at the Vinča landfill. In Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, citizens and activists have been protesting against plans for incinerators of medical and municipal waste.

A plasma waste incineration project won a strategic investment status in North Macedonia.

University of Texas to license carbon capture technology to Honeywell

By

 Kevin Clark -

12.16.2021

The University of Texas at Austin will sell its carbon capture technology to Honeywell.

School researchers say the technology could significantly reduce CO2 emissions from combustion flue gases at power plants.

Through the process, carbon dioxide is absorbed and then sent to a stripper, where the CO2 is separated from the solvent. It is then compressed for geological sequestration or used for other purposes. UT researchers say the technology can be retrofitted within existing plants or included as part of new installation.

The school says for a single power plant, applying the carbon capture technology would enable the capture of about 3.4 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to removing nearly 735,000 cars from the road each year.

Honeywell said it believes the technology will lower the cost of capturing carbon emissions. The company plans to commercialize the carbon capture technology created by the UT researchers, eventually scaling it for use around the world.

“As the world proactively seeks technology solutions that limit greenhouse gas emissions, we recognize that carbon capture technology is an important lever available today to reduce emissions in carbon-intensive industries that have few alternative options, such as steel plants and fossil fuel power plants,” said Ben Owens, Vice-President of Honeywell Sustainable Technology Solutions.

Honeywell aims to become carbon-neutral by 2035. The company says it already captures and uses 15 million tons of CO2 per year.

More on the Texas Carbon Management Program here.

World’s first giga-scale green hydrogen electrolyser set for Saudi mega-city after Thyssenkrpp deal

German industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp wins contract from Air Products for 2GW electrolysis plant at $500bn Neom future city showcase


A rendering of Neom.Photo: Recharge

Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers has won a deal to supply and install a 2GW-plus electrolysis plant for one of the world’s largest green hydrogen projects at Saudi Arabia’s future city Neom.

The contract with industrial gases firm Air Products is believed to be the world's first firm sale for electrolysers for a gigawatt-scale green hydrogen project.

While there are more than 250GW of renewable H2 projects in the global pipeline, none of their developers have publicly taken final investment decisions because they have not yet been able to guarantee that their hydrogen would find buyers.

Green H2 is generally more expensive than the highly polluting grey hydrogen that makes up 95-99% of the global supply, and there is a lack of government support to close the price gap, as well as few off-takers willing to pay a premium.

The unit of German industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp — which plans to expand its electrolyser factory to a world-beating 5GW annual production capacity — will engineer, procure and fabricate the Neom plant based on its 20MW alkaline water electrolysis module, with commissioning expected in 2026.

“As a world market leader in electrolysis we bring in two decisive factors to realise such gigawatt projects: With our large-scale standard module size and gigawatt cell manufacturing capacity per year together with our joint venture partner De Nora we are able to deliver large capacity projects today,” said Denis Krude, chief executive of Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers.

German steelmaker gets government backing for green hydrogen pilot in Saudi Arabia future city

“With this gigawatt project, we are committed to invest into ramping up our manufacturing capacities further.”

Germany’s government as one of the first projects to receive support under its national hydrogen strategy late last year had handed over a grant to Thyssenkrupp Uhde Chlorine Engineers for the development of a prototype of a 20MW alkaline electrolyser for the production of green hydrogen and ammonia in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is planning to build a $500bn city called Neom by the Red Sea that will be powered by up to 40GW of renewable energy.

The H2 project partners Neom, developer ACWA Power and Air Products (as Neom Green Hydrogen Company) will operate the 2GW facility upon commissioning. Air Products is slated to convert the H2 into carbon-free ammonia for export to global markets.

The $5bn plant will be powered by 4GW of wind, solar and storage, the consortium said last year.


Thysenkrupp kick-starts decarbonisation at world's largest ammonia plant

“This project milestone with ThyssenKrupp furthers our strong progress at Neom to deliver carbon-free hydrogen on a massive scale in the Kingdom and for the world,” said Air Products chief operating officer Samir Serhan.

“The development and execution of this innovative megaproject is one of many required to drive a successful energy transition, and we look forward to continuing to develop, build, own and operate facilities that help address the world’s significant energy and environmental challenges.

“This project is the kick-off to become a frontrunner in the green hydrogen economy.”

Air Products, ACWA and Neom in July 2020 had selected Thyssenkrupp as strategic partner for its plan for massive hydrogen-based ammonia production at the mega-city.

Read more: 'Like building the pyramids': the epic green energy plans for Saudi Arabia's $500bn Neom mega-city

AIRCRAFT
How Green Is Hydrogen Fuel?
The aviation industry is strongly considering the zero-emission alternative—but does it really help the environment?
By Thom Patterson

December 15, 2021


In 2020, Airbus unveiled three ZEROe concept airliner designs: a turbofan, a turboprop and a blended-wing body. Credit: Airbus

At least two major aircraft manufacturers are considering new concept designs for transport category airplanes powered by hydrogen, but as aviation tries to shift to sustainable, zero-emission fuels, skeptics have a few questions.

First, how likely are hydrogen-powered airliners in the near future?

Leaders at Boeing have said they’re not interested, for now. They say developing hydrogen-fueled transport aircraft won’t be feasible until at least 2050. However, both Embraer and Airbus are planning to develop hydrogen fuel demonstrator aircraft. Airbus is going further, already collaborating with hydrogen producers and expressing confidence about the fuel’s viability.

“2035 is our targeted entry into service date,” said Glenn Llewellyn, Airbus vice president of zero emission aircraft, during October’s Hydrogen Aviation Summit hosted by ZeroAvia. “Working backwards, it means we’re going to be flight testing propulsion systems around the 2025 timeframe.”

Llewellyn acknowledged that flight testing a hydrogen propulsion system within four years will be a huge challenge.

“We have a lot of work to converge on the aircraft configurations, which will be done in parallel to technology maturation and the flight demonstration, and also the ecosystem establishment.”

Testing plans at Airbus may already be under way. The OEM didn’t deny reports that it’s planning to test fly an existing CFM International engine converted for hydrogen propulsion.

“Airbus is in constant talks with all engine manufacturers in order to assess and identify the propulsion technologies that would support its decarbonisation roadmap and enable the company to be ready to launch its first zero-emission airliner in 2025,” an Airbus spokesperson told FLYING. “These talks we keep confidential.”

Although civil aviation only contributes about 2 percent of all worldwide carbon emissions, the industry is increasingly pushing toward reaching net-zero. Many of the world’s largest carriers have already committed to net-zero emissions by 2050, if not sooner, including Air France, American Airlines, British Airways, Delta Air Lines, Lufthansa, Southwest, and others.

In fact, United Airlines and Alaska Air Group have already invested significantly toward research and development of hydrogen-powered aircraft.

Developing the ecosystem and surrounding infrastructure to support wide-scale use of liquid hydrogen as an aviation fuel is a gigantic hurdle that experts point to as key to success. Production, storage, and delivery would all have to be scaled up. To transform the entire hydrogen fuel ecosystem to fully “green” would make this goal even more challenging.

‘Disruptively Different Propulsion’

In 2020, Airbus unveiled three ZEROe concept airliner designs: a turbofan, a turboprop, and a blended-wing body.

“It’s much more likely that we would have a turbofan or turboprop—a more classical tube and weight configuration in terms of aircraft concept—nonetheless with a disruptively different propulsion system,” Llewellyn said. “That propulsion system will be running on liquid hydrogen stored on board.”

Engineers are looking at multiple ways to use hydrogen fuel, including gas turbines that burn hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cells, and various hybrid combinations, Llewellyn said.

The Airbus concept aircraft would be designed to carry less than 200 passengers. Credit: Airbus


Hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity without combustion or emissions, similar to conventional batteries. However, unlike car batteries, they don’t run down or need to be recharged as long as they’re fed hydrogen and oxygen.

On a hydrogen-fuel-cell aircraft, electricity created by fuel cells drives thrust-producing engines. Compare that to hydrogen gas turbines, which power engines with internal combustion, similar to traditional combustion engines that burn jet-A. Unlike traditional combustion engines, hydrogen burns clean.

Both types of systems would require huge fuel tanks to carry the amount of liquid hydrogen needed for standard short- and medium-haul routes.

The reason is rooted in the nature of hydrogen itself. It packs more energy by weight than jet fuel, but it has lower energy by density. That’s because at room temperature hydrogen is a gas, making it difficult to store in large quantities unless it’s compressed by turning it into a liquid. To do that, you have to cool hydrogen to extremely low temperatures.

That means aircraft hydrogen fuel tanks are going to be more complex and heavier than comparable jet-A tanks—and more weight on an aircraft is a disadvantage.

However, the industry has tried creating a hydrogen-fueled airliner before. In the late 1980s, Soviet engineers developed the experimental Tupolev Tu-155, which completed about 100 test flights before the program was canceled during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Making Hydrogen ‘Green’

Transporting hydrogen fuel from production facilities to airports would be critical to widespread adoption.

“If we don’t have hydrogen at the aircraft, then there’s no point in providing a hydrogen aircraft,” Llewellyn said. “We believe that hydrogen can be used at airports already in the 2020s to start decarbonizing ground based activities.”

Airbus has already launched significant collaborations with Air Liquide, Vinci Airports, Groupe ADP, and Plug Power in the U.S.

This is when green hydrogen comes in. The fuel industry has created a color-coded system for hydrogen based on how environmentally friendly it is. Green hydrogen is the cleanest.

Remember, the goal of moving to hydrogen as an aviation fuel is to reduce carbon emissions. But currently, most hydrogen is manufactured by a process called steam-methane reforming. Basically hot steam is mixed with a methane source, like natural gas, which is a fossil fuel. The process releases carbon dioxide (CO2), which is why hydrogen from steam-methane reforming is not considered green. (In fact, the industry has designated hydrogen made this way as “blue” hydrogen.)

But, there is a way to make hydrogen from renewable sources without producing CO2: It’s a process called electrolysis.

As you may have learned in chemistry class, electrolysis uses massive amounts of electricity to separate water into its chemical elements, ripping the H (hydrogen) from H2O (water).

Hydrogen produced by electrolysis can only be designated “green” if the electricity used in the process comes from a zero-emission source, like wind turbines or solar energy farms or hydro-electric power plants. Currently, only about one percent of the world’s hydrogen is produced this way. But that number likely will increase as several companies are already working to build this production infrastructure.

For example, Plug Power is on track to produce green hydrogen in New York, Tennessee, Georgia, and California, where the company says it plans to build the “largest green hydrogen production facility on the U.S. West Coast.”

Near Cologne, Germany, the largest electrolysis plant of its kind in Europe began producing green hydrogen earlier this year, thanks to funding from the European Union. This Shell facility is on track to pump out 1,300 tons of green hydrogen per year.

Plug Power plans to build the “largest green hydrogen production facility on the U.S. West Coast.” Credit: Plug Power

How Much Do We Need?

According to a 2020 European Union study, producing enough liquid hydrogen to fuel the entire aviation industry worldwide could require between 500 and 1,500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, depending on the scenario. That works out to between 20 and 60 percent of total renewable energy capacity available today.

Currently, the world produces nearly 90 million metric tons of hydrogen per year. That number is expected to more than double to 200 million metric tons in 2030. According to the International Energy Agency, by 2050, global hydrogen production could reach 528 million metric tons per year—more than three-quarters of it green.

The global aviation demand for liquid hydrogen could total more than 9 million metric tons per year by 2040, which would be just 5 percent of total demand, according to the EU study.

If larger hub airports decided to switch just 5 percent of their fuel infrastructure to hydrogen, the EU study estimated it would require about 40,000 tons of liquid hydrogen per year, or about 100 tons per day.

Regional airports wishing to convert 10 percent of their fuel infrastructure would need about 5,000 tons of liquid hydrogen per year, equal to around 10 tons each day.

The study suggests that hydrogen production facilities—including solar or wind power plants—could be built near airports. For delivering fuel the final mile to airport ramps, hydrogen could be pumped to nearby airports via pipelines. Existing natural gas pipelines could be utilized for this purpose, experts say.
Paying for It

Producing liquid hydrogen is one thing. Paying for it is another. Skeptics have expressed concern that the cost of producing clean, renewable electricity for green hydrogen will force hydrogen prices to skyrocket.

Currently, green hydrogen costs about $5 per kilogram, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Keeping in mind that hydrogen contains three times more energy than jet-A—green hydrogen now costs more than twice as much as jet fuel.

But hydrogen companies say their fuel will be at cost parity with jet-A starting in 2025, with costs decreasing exponentially. That idea is getting support from the U.S. government. In June, the Department of Energy launched an initiative aimed at slashing green hydrogen prices by 80 percent to $1 per kilogram in the next decade.

Airbus said it was less likely that its ZEROe blended wing design concept would come to fruition. Credit: Airbus

Helping Airports and Airlines Shift to Hydrogen

Airbus has launched a program to help airports transition to hydrogen. It’s promoting the idea of creating hydrogen fuel hubs: turning airports into hydrogen distribution centers not only for aircraft, but for hydrogen powered ground vehicles and other uses.

The company has also partnered with carriers such as SAS Airlines and easyJet to assess what kind of infrastructure would be necessary to fuel hydrogen and hydrogen-hybrid aircraft.

“For hydrogen to meet its full potential, the entire airport ecosystem—airport authorities, energy suppliers, regulatory authorities—needs to come together to collaborate,” Airbus said in a statement.

Airbus has suggested turning airports into hydrogen distribution hubs. 

Credit: Airbus
Can It Work?

Experts say all the pieces to make the transition are there, but the challenge is in how to encourage effective and efficient collaboration among industry players.

The biggest hurdles will include creating affordable large-scale production of green hydrogen and adopting new technology for aviation, specifically along the development and certification tracks, says David Maniaci, an aerospace engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Currently focusing on wind energy aerodynamics, Maniaci conducted his master’s research at Pennsylvania State University on the feasibility and performance of hydrogen-fueled commercial aircraft.

“I think technically it’s very feasible,” Maniaci said. “It’s a question of anything we put our focus on and come together on is possible. But there are a lot of changes and investments that would be needed.”

Historically, military and government investments have driven many of aviation’s big technological leaps forward, Maniaci said, paving the way for private industry to follow. “There’s probably something similar needed to really get things going in a large way.”
What’s Happening Now

Much of the real-world hydrogen development going on now in aviation surrounds the retrofitting of existing platforms.

ZeroAvia, based in the U.S. and U.K., has teamed up with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Regional Jet Aviation to develop and retrofit regional jets for hydrogen-electric propulsion. Currently they’re working to convert a 19-seat Dornier 220 turboprop. The plan is to certify the conversion and enter service by 2024.

Alaska Air Group is also working with ZeroAvia to convert a 76-seat de Havilland Canada Dash-8 to hydrogen-electric, aiming for a range of 500 nm.

And just this week, United Airlines announced a significant investment in ZeroAvia, including an agreement to purchase as many as 100 hydrogen-powered engines that could be retrofitted on existing United Express regional jets as soon as 2028. United singled out Mitsubishi’s 50-seat CRJ-550 as a potential platform for ZeroAvia’s hydrogen engines. The deal makes United the “largest airline to commit to hydrogen-electric aviation,” the carrier said.

Alaska Air Group is working with ZeroAvia to convert a 76-seat De Havilland Canada Dash-8 to hydrogen-electric – aiming for a range of 500 nm (575 miles). 

Credit: Alaska Air Group

California-based Universal Hydrogen wants to build a green hydrogen supply business for the aviation industry. Universal has developed kits to convert existing Dash-8s and ATR 72s for powertrains driven by hydrogen fuel cells. The kits are expected to be certified and enter service by 2025. The company also has developed a refueling system based on a proprietary, modular, hydrogen fuel capsule designed to easily be loaded onto aircraft.

What about the emerging electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) industry? As this sector begins to take shape, most prototypes are powered by lithium-ion batteries. However, California-based HyPoint has developed a hydrogen fuel cell targeting the eVTOL market. It has announced deals with eVTOL developers Urban Aeronautics and Piasecki Aircraft Corporation.
Big Leaps

A truly green ecosystem supporting hydrogen aviation fuel would likely be expensive and logistically challenging. Making it work would require successful collaboration between airports, airlines, and manufacturers in the coming decades.

“If hydrogen-powered aircraft are deployed in segments where they are the most cost-efficient means of decarbonization, they could account for 40 percent of all aircraft by 2050,” the EU study said.

As an expert watching it all from the sidelines, Maniaci is optimistic that the shift can happen, albeit slowly.

“It’ll be incremental but there will probably be some big leaps,” he says. “Some of those leaps will be through technology and some will be through groups making big investments and pushing technology forward.”

Thom Patterson
Thom is a staff reporter for FLYING and Modern FLYING. Previously, his freelance reporting appeared in aviation industry magazines. Thom also spent three decades as a TV and digital journalist at CNN’s bureaus in Washington and Atlanta, eventually specializing in aviation. He has reported from air shows in Oshkosh, Farnborough and Paris.