The Heaven Project makes a lot more sense if you look at the whole picture. The context is the European Green Deal, the EU’s plan to transform its economy into something sustainable.
Let’s sum it up: the European Green Deal provides an action plan to:
- boost the efficient use of resources by moving to a clean, circular economy.
- restore biodiversity and cut pollution.
The EU aims to be climate neutral in 2050. Reaching this target will require action by all sectors of our economy, including rolling out cleaner, cheaper and healthier forms of private and public transport. Yes, Heaven’s goal is to propose a cryogenized hydrogen powered airplane that can later be marketed by large aeronautical companies.
Diving deeper into sustainable mobility, the deal seeks a 90% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in transport by 2050. Part of the solution goes in the direction of being digital (smart traffic, automated cars, mobility as a service), but a set of measures is also on the table in order to drastically improve the transport industry, for example, by ending subsidies for fossil-fuel, extending emissions trading to the maritime sector, applying effective road pricing in the EU and reducing free allowances to airlines under emissions trading. In the next couple of decades, Europe needs stricter standards on pollution by cars, to reduce pollution in EU ports and to improve air quality near airports.
According to the European Commission, the amount of fuel burned per passenger dropped by 24% between 2005 and 2017. However, these environmental benefits have been outpaced by a sustained growth in air traffic, with passengers in 2017 flying on average 60% further than in 2005. In the EU in 2017, direct emissions from aviation accounted for 3.8% of total CO2 emissions. The aviation sector creates 13.9% of the emissions from transport, making it the second biggest source of transport GHG emissions after road transport. Before the COVID-19 crisis, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) forecasted that by 2050 international aviation emissions could triple compared with 2015.
But the board has changed precisely because of the impact of the global pandemic. The green objectives of the European Union seem now more necessary than ever, and in this choral game the Heaven project works to do its part as soon and accurately as possible.
Image: https://ec.europa.eu/