Val Miftakhov, Founder, ZeroAvia
When the pandemic grounded air travel in 2019, it also brought grounding of a different kind: a chance to reflect on the aviation addiction which now constitutes nearly 3 percent of all global carbon emissions. Far from settling into the flight-shaming craze, however, cleantech entrepreneur Val Miftakhov decided to find a solution. His company, ZeroAvia, is working to enable safe, zero-emission aviation by replacing conventional fuel engines with hydrogen-electric powertrains ? and now counts Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and British Airways among its investors. Here, Miftakhov speaks to LUX about how decarbonising aviation poses both a challenge and an opportunity, and why Elon Musk is missing out
LUX: What has your cleantech journey looked like so far"
Val Miftakhov: My first company, eMotorWerks, was in the EV charging space. We developed the world?s leading platform for EV battery aggregation to provide grid services, and the company was acquired in 2017. I then started looking at the next big opportunity for electrification, which was aviation. It fascinated me because I am a pilot myself, but also because I am a passionate believer in the enormous societal, cultural and economic benefit that aviation has brought to the world over the last century.
The aviation industry contributes less than 3 percent of global carbon emissions, but due to non-carbon climate forcing mechanisms (particulate emissions, nitrogen and sulphur oxides, and wate...