Path Analysis of Using Hydrogen Energy to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Global Aviation

The rapid growth of global aviation emissions has significantly impacted the environment, leading to an urgent need to use carbon reduction methods. This paper analyzes global aviation’s carbon dioxide (CO2), N2O, and CH4 emission changes under different hydrogen energy application paths. The global warming potential over a 100-year period (GWP100) method is used to convert the emissions of N2O and CH4 into CO2-equivalent. Here, we report the results: if the global aviation industry begins using hydrogen turbine engines by 2040, it could reduce cumulative CO2-equivalent emissions by 2.217E+10 tons by 2080, which is 2.12% higher than starting hydrogen fuel cell engines in 2045. However, adopting hydrogen fuel cell engines 10 years earlier shows greater reduction capabilities than hydrogen turbine engines, achieving an accumulated reduction of 3.006E+10 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions. Therefore, the timing of adoption notably affects hydrogen fuel cell engines more than hydrogen turbine engines. Delaying adoption makes hydrogen fuel cell engines’ performance lag hydrogen turbine engines.