The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
FIANNA Fáil spokesperson on Aviation Cathal Crowe is calling for strong consideration to be given to the establishment of a hydrogen fuel farm within the Shannon Airport complex.
He said this would see the airport establish itself as a world leader in terms of sustainable aviation, at a time of significant change in the sector.
The Clare TD said he had written to the Shannon Estuary Economic Taskforce, outlining his proposal to plan for a hydrogen fuel farm at Shannon Airport.
“The Green Atlantic Windfarm planned off of the coast of Clare provides for a €50 million Synchronous Compensator, will convert electricity generated via the wind turbine infrastructure to storable hydrogen fuel. All of this will happen on site at Moneypoint, just 65km west of Shannon Airport.
“Meanwhile, a fuel farm was developed at Shannon Airport in the 1970s and has the capacity to store 33,000 metric tonnes of aviation fuel.
“It would make perfect sense for the hydrogen generated at Moneypoint to be brought up the estuary to the large storage vats at Shannon Airport for usage by an array of aircraft companies and airliners.”
The Fianna Fáil TD said that hydrogen is the fuel of the future.
“Right now, the large aircraft manufacturers of the world, including Boeing and Airbus, are at advanced stages of trialling hydrogen-powered jet engines, which have the potential to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
“Whilst we’re still a number of years away from a wide-scale conversion of aircraft to this new fuel, most with knowledge of the sector believe it to be inevitable and the next decade will be defining in this regard.
“Shannon Airport, therefore, has a unique opportunity to position itself as a world centre of excellence insofar as sustainable aviation is concerned.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Shannon and I hope that the task force’s strategy will position Shannon ahead of other airports and regions of Europe, in terms of being able to harness the potential of hydrogen.”
He said that Shannon’s location could help it in the early stages after the conversion to hydrogen, as transatlantic aircraft would need to make a stoppage, much as they did in the early days of commercial transatlantic flights.
“When global aviation makes the initial conversion to hydrogen fuels, it is expected that long-distance capacity of the aircraft will, at first, be in some way reduced meaning long haul flights such as transatlantic routes will need to touch down to refuel.
“As Europe’s most westerly airport, it makes so much sense that Shannon would be the stop-off point for aircraft going both eastbound and westbound.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
