Rolls-Royce calls off bets on electric planes, says low-carbon fuel is the future
Just as the wheels touched down on Virgin Atlantic’s historic flight from London to New York yesterday, powered by a low-carbon fuel engine made by Rolls-Royce, the company has announced a new shift. Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgiç says it’s time to sell off its electric jet engine unit and focus on other strategies – namely sustainable aviation fuels, or SAF.
Rolls-Royce, a flagship company in Britain, makes jet engines and systems on planes such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787. It was among many companies hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic when air travel was grounded, and Rolls-Royce cut 9,000 jobs as a result.
Earlier this year, the “axeman” Erginbilgiç took the helm, bringing an aggressive rethink to the company to save it while slashing divisions such as R2 Factory, an in-house artificial intelligence software unit, and a direct air carbon capture project. Last month Rolls-Royce said it would cut 2,500 management and administration jobs.
The next head to roll is its electrical business, which develops propulsion systems for flying taxis and other aircraft. In an announcement yesterday, Erginbilgiç said the company needed to make “choices on resource allocation” and that the electric business would offer “better value to a third party.”
It is all part of a sweeping effort to raise profits, and to shift gears to reach its sustainability goals. Rolls-Royce has raised its target to bring in operating profits of between £2.5 billion and £2.8 billion a year, compared with £837 million in 2022. “Rolls-Royce is at a pivotal point in its history,” Erginbilgiç said on Tuesday. “We are creating a high-performing, competitive, resilient, and growing Rolls-Royce that will have the financial strength to control and shape its own destiny.”
The company intends to move away from developing electric engines for air taxis and smaller aircraft to “double down” on its jet-fuel-burning engines for passenger planes to keep the business in good position, reports The Guardian. Future hopes of decarbonizing its products will be dependent on sustainable aviation fuels, or SAF.
While the company is also working on hydrogen technology with EasyJet, Erginbilgiç says he believes that hydrogen is a long way off from being a viable solution for long-haul flights and that sustainable aviation fuels will be the way forward for aviation to achieve net-zero climate goals. Airbus, however, is working toward having hydrogen-powered planes in service by 2035.
Rolls-Royce said it will invest the money it gains from selling the electric unit and other businesses into its next-gen UltraFan engine, an enormous aviation engine technology demonstrator designed to burn less fuel.
The company says it is working to become the first jet engine manufacturer to confirm that all of its in-production engines for long-haul aircraft and business jets are compatible with 100% SAF. Rolls-Royce aims to become net-zero by 2050.
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Climate XChange’s 9th Annual EV Raffle is your chance to win the electric car of your dreams – from Rivian to Tesla to Porsche and more!
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China just connected its largest single-capacity solar farm built on a former coal mining area, which is in the Gobi Desert, to the grid.
The Mengxi Blue Ocean Photovoltaic Power Station, located in Otog Front Banner, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, came online on November 5. With a massive installed capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW) and over 5.9 million solar panels, the plant will generate around 5.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually – enough to power 2 million households.
This huge project will save about 1.71 million tons of standard coal each year and cut carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 4.7 million tons, which is equivalent to planting 62,700 hectares (around 155,000 acres) of trees.
Built on coal mining subsidence land, Mengxi Blue Ocean is part of China’s national West-East Electricity Transfer Project, which brings investment and development to western China west while supplying the growing need for electricity in the eastern provinces.
The solar farm includes the country’s first large-scale outdoor solar testing base in the Gobi Desert climate, demonstrating the potential for large solar installations in challenging environments.
The power station makes use of new rare earth alloy grounding materials, cutting costs by 40%. It also replaces traditional concrete foundations with steel to minimize impact on the local grassland ecosystem.
Chuang Xihong, deputy director of the Engineering Construction Department of Guodian Power Group, CHN Energy’s parent company, explained that Mengxi Blue Ocean is an agrivoltaic project as well [via PV Tech]:
Fine forage and sand-fixing plants are planted under the PV modules, providing grazing for Australian White Sheep and chickens. A composite ecological development model will be established where PV power generation and breeding will go hand in hand.
Read more: China powers up the world’s largest open-sea offshore solar farm
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