Abstract Body

Climate-driven incentives to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions yield increased focus on international transport, which accounts for 16.2% of the emissions. While electrification of the world’s automobile industry is commencing, driven by government policies and industry, large-scale polluters that transport large amounts of people or cargo, are not yet sufficiently addressed. Trains, airplanes, and ships all are of sufficient scale to accommodate superconducting technologies.

Commercial aviation alone accounts for about 2.5% of global carbon emissions. The number of passengers traveling by air is increasing at a rate of more than 4% annually, leading to estimates that the overall annual consumption of jet fuel will be approximately 120 billion liters by 2040. These numbers are in stark contrast to goals for the aviation sector that foresee a 75% reduction in CO2, a 90% reduction in NOx, and 65% lower perceived noise emissions, compared with a typical new aircraft in the year 2000. This calls for disruptive technological solutions, such as hybrid-electric propulsion systems for aviation, to reduce emissions. The maritime transportation can also achieve significant improvements from superconductivity. Electric propulsion is inherently more efficient since it allows including energy storage-systems that decouple production and consumption, thus allowing to operate the motors and generators at their maximum performance. The use of superconducting materials could make it possible to achieve the high power- densities and power-to-weight ratios required for aviation and maritime transportation. This work addresses state-of-the-art and the challenges for the commercial introduction of superconducting technologies in these two applications.

References

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Acknowledgment

The members of the transport group of the Superconductivity Global Alliance are gratefully acknowledged.

Figure 1. Sketch of the aircraft of the Cheetah project in the United Stated of America, from https://newatlas.com/nasa-cheeta-funding-aircraft-fuel-cell/59725/.

Keywords: Superconductivity in transport, Superconducting ship, Superconducting train, Superconducting aircraft