Myron Keehn was at the Canadian Hydrogen Convention to talk about new fuels and what it could mean for aviation on Wednesday.
But as the president and CEO of the Edmonton International Airport addressed the delegates, there was no escaping the shadow cast by the crisis surrounding the traditional fuel source for today’s planes. As Keehn spoke, the price and supply crisis in jet fuel continued to claim flights and distort summer travel plans.
WestJet’s flight capacity cut will grow to six per cent by June, after the airline already announced cuts for April and May of one per cent and three per cent. The airline previously confirmed that some of those cuts would affect Edmonton routes.
Transat announced a six per cent cut to flights through the summer.
In the United States, Delta — a WestJet partner — has announced flight cuts. And, earlier Wednesday, German giant Lufthansa, a Star Alliance partner with Air Canada, announced the cancellation of 20,000 flights over the next six months.
Since the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, jet fuel prices have more than doubled around the world. And supplies in Europe and Asia or so tight that major airlines have said they may not be able to make it through the summer without major disruptions.
‘Bullish on the future’
But Keehn said Edmonton is well-positioned to ride out the instability in the global jet-fuel market. Its proximity to four refineries allows it to be insulated from the uncertainty that’s plaguing airports in Europe and in the Far East. And he said that airlines continue to be bullish on Edmonton and Alberta as a whole as a burgeoning destination.
“I’m bullish on the future,” Keehn said. “I mean, aviation typically is an indicator of the economy, and we’ll have some ups and downs of flight losses. But other flights will come back, and you’ll see other announcements of flights coming into the market as well.”
He referred to the crisis as a “short-term hiccup” in an industry that normally plans in 10-year cycles. And he said the airport was already dealing with the fact that Canadians simply aren’t as interested in flying to American destinations as they were before U.S. President Donald Trump launched his “51st state” rhetoric. The airport found that Canadians didn’t quit traveling, they just chose different places to go.
“We lost some flights going to the U.S., particularly because Canadians just aren’t prone to travel to the United States,” he said. “But that will come back as well. Right now, I understand why people have that feeling around traveling to the U.S. But a lot of people travel to other locations, right? Or other places in Canada. So there were a lot of people discovering the Maritimes for the first time. Canada, it’s such a diverse country. And I think unlike other countries, we have a lot of people that don’t want to use passports. Being able to discover own country for a while is not a bad thing.”
At the conference, Alejandro Block, the senior environmental officer for the United Nations’ Civil Aviation Organization, said the UN’s goal is to have twice as many aircraft in the skies by 2050, but also operate at net zero emissions. That would mean that five per cent of domestic and international air travel would travel on hydrogen-powered aircraft. That’s 10,000 hydrogren planes, requiring 20 million tonnes of fuel a year.
Keehn said airports in Villeneuve and Edmonton act as the collective “test bed” for alternate fuels. And the global push to get away from jet fuel has intensified over the last couple of months. He was just at a conference in Asia, and he said the major powers there are all “doubling down” their efforts to get away from their reliance on fuel from the politically volatile Middle East.
While we’re not close to a hydrogen-powered passenger plane, the airport is using a hydrogen-powered runway inspection vehicle, and has runway sweepers that run on both diesel and hydrogen power, with artificial intelligence helping to decide when to use one power source over the other. And, the airport has hydrogen powered vehicles which help passengers locate their vehicles in the expansive parking lots.
Keehn said this happens a lot more than one might think — a passenger goes away for a couple of weeks, then completely blanks on where the car was parked. That passenger can hitch a ride in a hydrogen-powered car and go on a search for the lost vehicle.
The idea is to gradually make passengers comfortable with the idea of hydrogen as a legitimate fuel source.
“No matter what way you look at it, it’s the future,” he said.
“There’s an awakening going on about not being able to rely on some of the supply chains,” said Keehn. “Asia particularly relies on the Middle East for a lot of energy, and they’re realizing Alberta and Canada can be a big player in that space.
“Hydrogen gives the ability to generate energy in a more democratized fashion. You don’t have to have a large energy player to make hydrogen. So you can electrolyze water. You can use natural gas to do it. You can different methodologies to make hydrogen. And so countries are looking at, how do I make sure my national security is propped up by my energy security? Energy security and food security and national security are all tied together.
“And while traditional jet fuel isn’t going away, our reliance on it will wane. And the conflict in Iran has only accelerated this sentiment. While the short-term impact is a spike in oil prices, the long-term effect is going to be a greater push to divorce ourselves from carbon as the top energy source.
“It’s not going to only be hydrogen, it’s not going to only be sustainable fuel. It’s not only going to be traditional fuels. It’s going to be all the above and solar and wind and other other energies around we don’t know about now. So it’s the toolbox. The percentages on the toolbox are going to change, but it’s really important to be able to utilize an airport as a way to trial and test these new technologies.”
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