Aviation makes up 3% of global emissions, but it's one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize. British-American company ZeroAvia is developing engines that run on hydrogen to generate electricity and power aircraft without emissions.About two hours away from the U.K.'s capital in the Cotswolds, ZeroAvia has a research and development facility where it's assembling and developing fuel cell systems, integrating hydrogen electric engines into aircraft and testing them in the air.
"ZeroAvia is solving the climate emission problem caused by aviation. We're developing engines that run on hydrogen to generate electricity and power aircraft without emissions," said James McMicking, chief strategy officer at ZeroAvia, in an interview with "CNBC Tech: The Edge." In addition to the facility in the British countryside, ZeroAvia has a fuel cell research lab in Kent, in southeast England. It is also developing applied technology and engineering in California, and it has a manufacturing facility in Washington state where it's retrofitting a 76-seat Alaska Airlines Dash 8 plane with a hydrogen-electric propulsion system.
"At the moment, ZeroAvia is going through a certification process with two regulators: the CAA in the U.K. and the FAA in the U.S. We're certifying the electric propulsion system with the FAA and the whole engine with the CAA," McMicking said.