Hydrogen jet fuel - is this the future of aviation?
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2024
- Green hydrogen is in the news more and more these days, and it certainly looks like being an important part of the 21st Century energy transition. Powering planes with hydrogen is a complicated business though, and most industry commentators predicted it would be 2050 before we saw a commercial hydrogen powered plane in service. But industry giant, Airbus, have just smashed that assumption with an announcement of three concept planes that they claim will lead to a 2035 commercial aircraft launch date. So, can they do it?
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There was an Australian study that found that airports would make one of the best locations for solar farms because they huge buildings with huge amounts of open roof space
And they usually have a lot of open land around the runways.
Same with surrounding industrial estates a lot. Plus I love the comment on them turning into hydrogen hubs . As trucking, moterways, hubs etc often nearby.
Best to just cover all the runways with a solar farm.
Just let commercial aviation die. It's a blight. It only exists due to vast subsidies and it's a huge wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.
And yeah, I'm a private pilot. When even pilots are able to recognise how awful the industry is, surely it's time to stop.
Pair this with free long term covered parking and charging for electric vehicles. This could allow for a vast battery bank to be available for grid stabilisation and demand spikes
But will it (solar panels) make the airport invisible to incoming aircraft?
Fingers crossed for the blended wing body. There'd be a lot more UFO reports but it'd be worth
Blended wings will never work for passenger aircraft. Putting people further out from the center of rotation would submit them to uncomfortable g forces during rolling maneuvers. You might be able to put fuel or cargo in the wing areas though, provided it's strapped down, or doesn't slosh too much.
@@ryanbrown982 it is slippy DUH
@@ryanbrown982 The other problem is varying the fuselage for higher or lower seat number models.
@@ryanbrown982 Ryanair would have absolutely no issue subjecting its customers to excess g force. In fact they'd probably charge for it.
From basic aerospace engineering you can see that increasing the cross section of the body will increase the drag (air resistance) and such design must fly with lower speeds than the traditional airplane design in order to be more efficient, and be beneficial of its higher wing surface area, which in term creates additional lift.
More lift and wider body would be perfect for cargo airplane.
"Always give way to trains" - I actually laughed out loud
It's much funnier when you consider the fact that you need merely increase the speed for the acceleration to counter the gravity and acceleration I refer to is the curvature of the Earth that's when the flying train consumes no energy whatsoever maintaining Lyft you got that right or do you still live on the flat world essentially. I DON'T.
@@electronicmusclebike with space elevator, a train ring around the planet will drop you literally anywhere
ruclips.net/video/sstRJcaFU9U/видео.html
I'm reminded of the one lane bridge shared by trains and cars... Tom Scott video
Airplanes should "give way to trains".
Problem Solved.
One of the first things they tell you in the emergency response driving course for fire trucks, even with lights and sirens on, you still gotta give way to trains! :)
"no commercial aircraft has any chance of getting off the ground until it's been through rigorous testing"
Boeing: "hold my beer"
LOL
They have no problem getting them off the ground, it's staying in the air that's the problem!
Well, every rule has it's exception. And Boeing is certainly 'exceptional'!! ;-)
@@JustHaveaThink "its"
Some Boeing planes are just scared of heights. So they want to get back down on the ground. It's understandable. I think heights are scary too.
@@grindupBaker Aviation is 14 times safer than the road, cos we are scared of heights. Yet we tend to be completely ignorant of the potential danger of the same impact velocity going horizontally. It goes way back to ancient times when the danger of falling off a cliff was more threatening than walking into stuff. The horizontal Impact simply wasn't such an issue until recently.
Now that’s the explanation, approach which will allow you to Continue feeding us The knowledge we need
You have been incredibly useful and I appreciate you. Thank you
Well done that man and well done Airbus and Mr Llewellyn. Brilliant session as ever, we certainly need more folks watching and learning.
Thank you for the top quality weekly vids. Some give me climate change anxiety, some (like this one) give me hope but all are so well documented and cristal clear. You are a true journalist, a non academic scientist and engineer blood flows in your brain. God bless you, sir !
Thank you. I really appreciate that :-)
@@JustHaveaThink I'm an aerospace engineer with a career in automation and control systems that includes electrical equipment for hazardous areas (EEHA). In my field hazardous areas are those with explosive (or potentially explosive) gas and dust mixes. And yes dust can be incredibly explosive, most notably sugar, flour and wheat dust. In EEHA Hydrogen is the boogey man because it requires a lot more attention than other gases because its so much easier to ignite and its more likely to explode instead of burn.
All potentially explosive gases have what we call upper (UEL) and lower (LEL) explosive limits. Outside these limits you can get combustion but not an explosion. *BUT* between these limits its expected to explode. Its easy to find this data for methane and hydrogen. Both have similar LELs (Hydrogen 4% methane 4.4%), but hydrogen has a far higher UEL (Hydrogen 75% methane 16.4%). What makes methane (including natural gas) reasonably safe is that it has a reasonably narrow explosive range its less likely to explode and more likely to just burn (or dissipate). Hydrogen is far more likely to explode and explode violently.
Hydrogen's other issue is that it takes a lot less energy to ignite. In the mid 2000s I worked on a bioconversion plant and in the bio-digestor (during a particular phase of the process) produced significant amounts of hydrogen. That forced a lot of the electrical design. We had to make sure all the electrical equipment was specially rated for *BOTH* potential sparks and temperature. People often miss that temperature alone can ignite and it doesn't take a lot of temperature to get hydrogen going.
The paper work's no fun as you have to make up a dossier that has all the design considerations and equipment certifications,.....etc.
The other thing with Hydrogen I see few people mention is how hard it is to liquify. Methane (& natural gas) boils at around -161C and that makes all the equipment (valves, pumps & sensors) for LNG quite specialized. Hydrogen boils at -252.8C which means none of the existing LNG equipment will work with it. That or you have to keep it under immense pressure.
I have no doubt that Hydrogen will be a massive part of our energy future and most notably in aviation, *BUT* its simply not as easy to use as so many proponents claim. Its amazing how people have forgotten the Hindenburg.
I can easily state one thing about long haul flights and that is they will NEVER be battery powered unless we come up with a hyper-mega-super battery that can store gigawatts per kilo. Long haul jets cannot not immediately land for the simple reason that their maximum landing weight (MLW) is often much lower than their maximum take off weight (MTOW). I have a pilots license and this is something you learn very early on because some of the small light trainers have this issue that when they are fully weight loaded they can't land without a trip to the mechanic.
So with long haul flights the *OBVIOUS* issue with batteries is that there is *NO WEIGHT LOSS* during the flight. Whatever the weight you take off with you have to land with. For me personally the most exciting development is the Siemens Extra 300EL because I'm into aerobatics. ruclips.net/video/kcZCwSe3qZI/видео.html
If you want to talk about this stuff or do a vid on it let me know
@@tonywilson4713 Very educational and intetesting, thank you.
I completely agree. Many thanks to you, Dave, for your thoughtful and vital segments. So important today. I hope Boeing leadership is listening! As an American, I hope Boeing will emulate Airbus’s aspirations to use hydrogen or other effective solutions soon to cut all greenhouse gas emissions! We need to get down to zero for our kids…
OK, I'm sold. Based solely on advice contained in this episode, from here on in, I'm giving way to trains. EVERY time! No exceptions. That's just good advice. Who knew..?
Don't make me link to the videos of Americans who didn't have the advantage of the British Highway Code's wise advice.
@@francisboyle1739 Please don't, I have a delicate stomach.
Brilliant analysis as always Dave! :) hope you're having a good weekend!
Before thinking about these hydrogen planes, it would take the creation of a network of high speed trains in North America. For distances of 1000 km or less, a good network of high speed trains, as in Europe, would be more useful than hydrogen-powered planes. In addition, high speed train technology is mature. If I could do Montreal-Boston by fast train, I would. I think all the work of Airbus and Boeing should be focused on long-haul aircraft.
With his famed love of trains, hopefully this will be Biden's main legacy. He could do worse.
Bring back the A380 AIRBUS!!!!
Good points but short-haul flights may still be needed, in places like South East Asia where countries are separated by water.
Yea , high speed networks ALLWAYS a good idea. Perhaps they should be subsidised by a tax on similar plain routes. But a deadline for aviation I think is also appropriate wile we attemp to improve rail
I take a train over a plane any time. Sadly here in Europe (or at least where I live) plane fuel and plane tickets are both free of tax, while train tickets are taxed and thus, say, a train from The Netherlands to the south of France, is up to 3x - 5x more costly by train than by plane. This needs to be changed asap!
Always suprised and happy when I see one of your video's, as always very informative.
As usual - a very interesting and well-researched video!
The airline industry is a very special industry since we tend to think their services are merely a luxury service rather than part of a modern society's infrastructure. Flying is part of public transportation - and anyone who thinks different should remember the lock down of aviation in Europe during the last volcano eruptions in Iceland. In short - we need aviation.
Yet, despite the strict safety regulations, the industry still is pretty unregulated in terms of who flyes where at what time and charges what price...
There is no minimum charge and the race to the bottom is going on all the time.
This is where regulations must come in - as long as train tickets for Paris-London-Paris are more expensive than a similar flight ticket - the train won't win. There must be a minimum distance one has to fly or otherwise take the train as well as there has to be a minimum charge per km/pax. This can be done with airport taxes or federal taxes - the revenues then can and should be invested into new infrastructure and R&D.
As long airlines can fill their planes with just selling the cheapest possible tickets, there won't be any room for green adjustments and green R&D
Interesting that they've gone for 2 turbo prop engines. NASA found that for electric propulsion, several, small engines with a narrow wing were more efficient.
As always , a very interesting video, thanks.
Excellent as always. Thanks you.
Great video as always...
This is an amazing Chanel. Thank you so much.
This channel is among the very best produced, finest RUclips channels on any topic. I always learn so much. Thank you and keep up the great work.
Shameless apple polisher.
Omg I just researched this ... for a "translation" on the new Airlander/Airship/Zeppelin uses. Finally between cities in 150km/h, flying, without going to the airport. You should look into that, too (es. Airlander 50)
Love just have a think.............very thought provoking - Great work
Thank you Mark. Much appreciated :-)
Thank you very much
really nice video
Giving way to trains is a great idea for aviation.
For distances of 1500km or less, assuming competition with aeroplanes, or if we force people to use trains, it's only good 2800km unless you want to spend more than seven hours travelling. Let's say 4800km for twelve hours.
This is assuming the fastest non-maglev high-speed train, travelling at 400km/h.
Well, a maglev train is more likely to connect capitols from continent to continent, like London to Parid to Berlin to Baghdad.
Or giving way to Zoom/skype.
ruclips.net/video/qBj2_7bzqi4/видео.html
London to New York trains , very practical.
@@patdbean there is a plan for a hyperloop on that route.
I wonder if Ammonia is a better fuel option, as it is easier to store.
Looks like it is being considered www.stationgossip.com/2020/08/zero-emissions-aeroplanes-that-use.html
NOx emissions will be huge for ammonia. Also there is no ammonia fuel cell which will limit the efficiency of this fuel, compared to hydrogen
Apart from the NOx issue there is the matter of ammonia being poisonous. It means that any large spill of fuel, whether due to an otherwise survivable crash or other mishap could easily kill everyone on board and anyone in the immediate vicinity on the ground. It's bad enough having to deal with the risk of fire, it would only be so much worse if the fuel can kill you without even catching fire.
There may eventually be ways to mitigate that issue but I don't see it being accepted any time in the foreseeable future.
@@listerdave1240 It is a problem. But we have been working with it for years so it would not be insurmountable. I think it is one of the options on the table for shipping.
@@paulharvey4403 Yes for shipping seems like it would be ideal. My concern is specifically for airplanes. Not just for the safety issue but also to a lesser extent the NOx issue.
Interesting as always. I note that Airbus appears to accommodate H2 storage with a significant rearward extension of (existing design) airframes. But as the 737Max debacle has illustrated, addressing centre-of-gravity (COG) issues can be very challenging, and clean-sheet designs may be the better option.
I agree.. I also think that Airbus is following liquid cryo storage regulations that were not designed for the airline industry, because the gravity energy storage for the tank+ fuel, weights the same than for normal fuels, which is 100% Stupid in my opinion if you use liquid hydrogen who does not really require to be pressurized and any boil off could be used to power the engines.
Liquid hydrogen tanks should have a gravity density 2 or 3 times better than Kerosene tanks for a 16000km range. Liquid hydrogen should be the CHAMP of long range... not fight for a spot in the 2000 miles range.
Not for nothing the skylon (or its airline version) were designed to use hydrogen, because there is no way you can achieve that level of performance with other fuels.
When you find out that you have the same energy for 3 times less weight, it means that the whole performance of the airplane improves a lot, from less powerful engines to take off, or smaller wings to provide less drag and weight, less over all weight over all the trip with generates less drag, all this also reduce the weight of the airplane (which with kerosene is half of the total weight), which also reduce the energy required to achieve that range, this mean you need half of the energy content which mean you need only 2 times the volume, this equal to just increse the tank diameter by 25%, which is nothing.
There is no need of heavy insulation designs if you just need to keep the hydrogen in liquid form for no more than 24 hours, even Dewar flasks could keep liquid hydrogen over 15 hours or more, when you include the factor of surface-volume ratio increasing scale, you see that you have way less surface (lost heat) by unit of volume, this mean at equal insulation a large tank can keep liquid hydrogen over several days.
@@AngelLestat2 Aviation want to be in the safety side. Maybe you can trim some more but the first steps going with the already certificates stuff is ideal. Also a plane tank will be under more cycles an hydrogen make metals brittle.
@@AngelLestat2 this video fails to address the two different energy densities of hydrogen depending upon whether you put it through a fuel cell or Burnet in the jet engine? Burning hydrogen is all General Motors right? We love to waste fuel and this video ignores that hydrides Hybrid corruption make the volume of hydrogen nothing like claimed in comparison with kerosene. Kerosene in a fuel cell is much more energy dense as well of course but remember hydrogen is more compact not lESS after you insert the ash from the fiber from a corn of cob. Imagine a d e w e r filled with liquid hydrogen when you dumped that corn Ash in it there is a thermal impact but mainly you get to then top off the tank putting significantly more hydrogen in it. To get the hydrogen out of the ash you just have to heat it and then you have incredible potential energy because the tank is too small and you're using nuclear energy to power the expansion the heat is the catalyst for the anti Fusion mechanical forces you produce which in the appliance that's been available for several years already has it being referred to as the hydrogen compressor
@@AngelLestat2 the prior video points out the problem isn't preventing it from boiling too fast but the necessity of adding the mass to the hydrogen before you can get the electricity out of it
@@MrJuanmarin99 the metals brittle thing is something that everyone repeats as it would be a big issue, a LOT of the most common metals and alloys does not have any issue with hydrogen embitterment, normal hydrogen tanks that works at 200 bar are just steel.
Embitterment is an issue if you work with high temperature hydrogen and high pressures over some alloys and very long time periods. But everyone mention them as a way to say (uh look, I know that extra property that can happen).
Even in the worst cases, you just need to coated the interior with paints or alloys that resist that.
About the cycles, the biggest issue is temperature change, that is a real issue that may cause fatigue if you dont have that into account, but not sure why that should increase the tank dry mass higher than its content.
From all the things I research on the topic, I can not really understand the Airbus approach, it seem like an excuse for a PR.
About certifications, you need to first built the "thing", then prove that it is safe, not trying to design something according to old regulations.
Cool idea about the airports becoming hydrogen hubs for their cities, with local production and use.
Except that hydrogen is unsuited to cities. At least for baseload applications. Hydrogen availability is good for remote stations, but it will never compete in the city. It is suitable for aircraft simply because of the technical limitations of the less expensive alternatives. I repeat, hydrogen is not for cities.
@@simpsonporter It will depend on the use case and application of hydrogen technologies. It looks like it might be suitable for shipping and aviation, and maybe long distance trucking. Since most of the worlds largest airports and ports are in cities, it might not be a bad idea to make the fuel locally. Airports and ports often have plenty of mixed use light industrial and warehouse land around them, suitable for solar and maybe with adjacent offshore wind generation.
These areas often currently have LNG and kerosine pipelines around them, all managed quite safely.
@@simon7790 They won’t be transporting LH2 across borders in pipelines: the economics simply don’t stack. Distributed h2 manufacturing largely from excess solar and wind is expected but liquefaction? Doubtful since the energy penalty is >35% .. this is all part of the hydrogen hype that the oil and gas majors love to divide us with. Hydrogen is niche as an energy carrier and the notion that base-load energy needs across the board are going to be satisfied by it defies science and economics. Aviation is a niche and hydrogen solves the energy density issue and at the same time avoids carbon and more importantly, nitrous oxide issues .. these are the bogey men in the room with no remedy for intercontinental flight. Hydrogen does fix it though it’s incredibly high flame speed of 3m/sec probably eclipses the flammability issues cited in earlier posts. No free lunches with this technology.
Great Video
Very informative.
It’s like ‘Curious Droid’ meets ‘Transport Evolved’.
That nice delta wing type aircraft was cool, like a design lifted straight from star trek.
It will be a lot lighter too as windows cause most of the weight in the fuselage. With lots of good cameras we don't really need them anymore.
I think banking/turning is more uncomfortable for passengers with this design
From basic aerospace engineering you can see that increasing the cross section of the body will increase the drag (air resistance) and such design must fly with lower speeds than the traditional airplane design in order to be more efficient, and be beneficial of its higher wing surface area, which in term creates additional lift.
More lift and wider body would be perfect for cargo airplane.
Hey, i wouldnt mind feeling a few gs if its punching thru the sound barrier.
We're heading back to try he days of airships. Do your quarantine as you travel at a slower pace? Futures so bright 😎
That's hopeful at least. Even 5 years ago people were saying there's no chance that the aviation industry can go green because batteries are simply too heavy.
The jet engine started with hydrogen, before the war, in Germany...because they were not able to get a steady flame with kerosene...
Llewellyn has a good point: transitioning airport transportation to hydrogen is a good place to start. Every passenger that arrives at an airport by air will leave the airport on wheels. All the vehicles operate with the airport as a hub, so the chicken-and-egg problem of hydrogen infrastructure does not apply. Also, airports have a culture of safety standards, into which safe handling of hydrogen will easily fit. If airlines actively participate, they can offset a good bit of their emissions until hydrogen-powered aircraft become available.
Great dreams.
Hope that the infrastructure for this project soon is on its way.
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀
I feel like there is so much I would not know if it wasn't for JHAT. Thanks mate 🙂
Yes, i was shouting safety at the screen at that exact moment. But I always shout safety at screens.
I really like the look of the turboprop hydrogen airliner. it's just nice for some reason
Best advice from any driver manual..Give way to trains. Love it.
Another well produced and informative video. We can make a big dent in our transportation carbon foot print by converting ground and water transportation systems, but air transportation will take some long range planning to accomplish and it is good to see that Airbus is really getting started in this effort.
You have to recall the Donald Trump negotiation over the new Air Force One and understand that these nationalized self colonizing monstrosity can be Unshackled we don't have to fly in the mini sausages and the pepperoni fantasies-- simply modernize raIl as discussed understanding that having the acceleration be less than or more than 10 feet per second as you travel at the Curve radius of the Earth completely obsolete and insane extravagance to tolerate. The world is a bi-directional traffic system we have advanced beyond the days of the Mayflower one way wrong way pioneering voyage and should act like it
@@electronicmusclebike it isn't common that you find someone who can say so little with so many meaningless words.
(Loving the humour as ever)... Very pleased to see that my own fevered imaginings of a plane look sim to the third plane. With good cheaper cameras, we don't need to have windows now, and no windows can massively reduce the weight.
Thank you!
Love the look of that new hybrid wing body model. It has a very The Future is Now vibe to it. 😁👽
And also a touch of sci fi in the sense of a fantasy we'll never see. ^^
Hello, you're right, I do work at an airport. Right now about 90% of the ground vehicles are battery powered, thy have been scaling up for the past 4 years. Though right now all of maintenance vehicles are still gas or diesel engines. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Yay, keep it coming!
i do prefer trains when traveling trough Europe, that said once those will be in air, maybe i would go through the pain of boarding control to fly in one of those.. thanks for the news :)
It's crazy to fly within places like Europe. Other large land masses (*cough, North America) should be improving their rail infrastructure. Hopefully Biden's famed love of trains will see that happen now.
@@snowstrobe crazier to fly high over water.
GROUND EFFECT PLUS ➕ CELLULAR YANKING RESPECTS PRIMARY INERTIAL LAW OF EXPONENTIAL RETURN AS TO SCALE-ING INERTIAL ENERGY STORABLE VERSUS RESISTIVE TURBULENT LOSSES OUNCE ALL PROPULSIVE LOSSES are eliminated then the Core Power is doubled as yanking on retrograde cargo oriented accomplishes versus wheeltek right?
[I.E. it's actually a really simple equation to determine whether putting the passing trains high enough up in the sky so that they are weightless@speed pays for the cost of having the yank cables floating up there- I wish we lived in such a perfect world but in Phase 1 the system operates on minimally ocean wave Clearing attitude completely decimating all airport infrastructure Investments with the power of the people ignoring the moaning and the begging of what Donald Trump called a quote good business]
I flew from London STN to Edinburgh with Ryanair and it cost me £30 return. A couple of years earlier I’d taken the train and it cost £115. Even with getting there an 1:30hrs before departure, the flight was roughly 3hrs. The train took 6hrs with a train change and 1hr wait between trains. Trains are too slow in the (UK) and expensive compared to low cost airlines.
@@snowstrobe they should do like France did TGV
More and more Europeans fly from what I see. Trains are wonderful in theory and for shorter trips, but if you're doing a business trip from e.g. Warsaw to Paris, your choice is to fly... or to fly. (I flew Lot Polish and it was actually very nice.)
With the ability to actually make Hydrogen fuel just about anywhere, and the fact that airports often have large stretched of land that can hold the solar panels needed to collect the energy to do so, Airports could generate their own fuel for their planes. They could charge the airlines for this and receive a higher profit margin than having to purchase the fuel from another source. The energy collected through the solar panels could also be used to power the airport and even sold back to the city for profit. Sure, there is an upfront cost to that, but they just received a huge bailout and when covid restrictions have been lifted there will be a huge influx of passengers in their terminals. Wouldn't it make sense to take advantage of this lull in activity to do some of the infrastructure changes needed?
Generating that much hydrogen would be a major task.
Thank you once again for making a complex subject simple enough for us lesser mortals to comprehend. Fascinating as usual, thanks.
Speak only for yourself.
@@Forcix If you don't need David to explain why did you watch the video? 😁
@@markturner2379
"...making a complex subject simple enough for us lesser mortals to comprehend."
Speak for yourself and only for yourself.
@@Forcix it appears its not just me that appreciates David's videos judging by the 'likes'. There's no worse human character than a braggart. But as long as it makes you feel better Forcix... I worship your superior knowledge
@@markturner2379
"... for us lesser mortals to comprehend."
Your level of comprehension is astoundingly infantile.
Speak for yourself and to yourself.
Good riddance.
Clever and funny 🤣 thanks
A useful reference: F. Svensson, “Potential of Reducing the Environmental Impact of Civil Subsonic Aviation by using Liquid Hydrogen”, FOIL Swedish Defence Research Agency, Report, FOI-R-1636-SE, April 2005. There is significant reduction but not zero,
Thanks for another great video.
Itd be interesting to see a hybrid approach,
Jet engines with electric engines pairing. That tiny apu on the tail of an aircraft produces huge amounts of electricity.
I always like before watch the video.👍
Just saw most all of this and more on another channel but this is the part most people would want to know.
Man, someone needs to tell Boeing about these safety testing protocols
Boeing needs to go off-world.
And stay there.
Their hydrogen-fueled 737-CO2-0- super double MAXIMUS is the same aircraft but with 400 seats, tandem wings and twin fuselages. No type training required.
two interesting points. 1) blended wings major issue is nausea since more passengers are further away from the center of gravity. 2) unless engine producers GE/RR/PW have an engine to test in the next 4 years you can pretty much forget having a commercial engine option by 2035. Just look at the NGPF and LEAP engines.
I love the lifting body concept. Finally something new
It just clouds my mind how much darn water vapor keeps getting into the atmosphere!
Chill out and vape Man.
Before developing planes we must think more about using trains which make lesser pollution and we must also consider more remote working instead of commuting and traveling.
Dave is one of the smartest people and the best presenter on RUclips. That said, I am not sold on this one.
I think Airbus is the same company that gave us the A380, an aircraft that was going to solve so much and is being retired only 15 years after first flight. Altogether, about 6,000 perfectly good aircraft are parked around the world right now. Maybe we should be skeptical of companies whose mission is to generate profits by selling more airplanes while blowing PR smoke about green hydrogen.
What resources are consumed and what emissions are generated in the production of one new commercial airplane? Wouldn't continuing aircraft in service until airframe's designed cycle life (usually 30 years) not be cleaner? Average passenger fleet age worldwide is about 16 years and many of the parked aircraft are even younger.
If we are actually serious about cutting emissions in the shortest time possible and if green airplanes are actually feasible, the world would be best served by Airbus and Boeing stopping new production of traditional aircraft and focusing on developing those green airplanes while retrofitting the existing fleets to improve efficiencies and maximize life. Then, by the time the current fleet is ready to be retired, the green technology would be certified and ready for production. But this is not where the interests of Airbus and Boeing lie.
There are so many other problems with this Airbus PR. Safety of course, remember the Challenger and the Zeppelin. Where will the green hydrogen come from? Where should it be used first? Airplanes? How about energy storage and ground vehicles? At any rate, commercial aircraft do generate pollution but they are not the major source of it and the major sources need to be addressed first. It would be OK if all other sources are removed, leaving aviation as the last polluter. Also, there are many incremental efficiency improvements that can be done to traditional aircraft through retrofits like winglets, materials weight, ground control, engines and combustors, etc. Moreover, airport ground equipment is a perfect case for batteries, not hydrogen as Airbus claims.
Hydrogen Airbuses are not the critical development needed to prevent runaway warming. Airbus and the others just want to sell us more stuff.
New aircraft are more fuel efficient and, therefore, better for the environment than older aircraft.
I enjoy your channel. I am just wondering if you are planning to do a video on aluminum air batteries. I see there are some companies attempting to use them to extend the range of EVs, but I find that the tech might be better suited for grid storage, possibly shipping and maybe even airlines. At least in developed countries I think the ability to charge just about anywhere will make Li ion based EVs more attractive to most consumers than battery swapping, when looking at the other applications aluminum air batteris could fit into some of the niche areas quite well
That Blended wing design is real cool .... will it have a pub ?
New System,
For your consideration:
Catapults: airplanes are launched from carriers. 100% operational.
Just update it for commercial use.
Magnetic catapults with superconducting magnets.
You could use the same for landing, creating an energy regenerative braking system.
2 strips of magnets in the runway...
And there you go folks.
Launch and energy recovery for the next one.
Oh, and hydrogen looks good. But with catapults, batteries would be doable too.
(Boeing's management is the 🌎leader in aerospace blunders).
Aircraft technician here. Let's do some back of the envelope calculations here. The biggest problem seems to be the volume of the H2. It takes 4 cubic meters of H2 to yield the same energy as 1 cubic meter of kerosene (ballpark figure). An A330 can carry 139 cubic meters of fuel, mostly in the wings. The rest of the available volume is in the fuselage which is 50m long, 5.6 m wide with a volume of 880 cubic meters. To get the same range as a fully fuelled kerosene Airbus A330, but with hydrogen, you would need to use half of the fuselage to store liquid hydrogen. I see a problem of economics here unless the 100 year old basic design of planes does not change radically (fuselage dedicated to carrying and only creates drag, wing providing lift but no carrying capacity). So the lifting body or blended wing designs might just be the solution. Just. Maybe not.
The same volume of LH2 weighs 1/10th the same volume of Kerosene, which substantially reduces the energy and power requirements (hence, fuel requirements). When I ran the numbers a while back, I got around 40% of the range of a kerosene jet using the same volume of LH2, all else being equal, so a bit more than double initial volume seems reasonable.
It doesn't make sense to count the greenhouse effects of contrails together with those of CO2 emissions: their lifetimes are vastly different. The CO2 emitted over a plane's lifetime mostly adds up, while the contrails don't.
It's actually "champing at the bit", not "chomping", and it refers to a grinding of the teeth, not a big-mouthed bite. Horses would bring their teeth on the bit when anxious nor eager to race, and thus the term is synonymous with eagerness.
Grendel Beowulf !
Great video, looks like a promising hydrogen powered future
I think it’s the best way forward for the automobile industry too!
Only problem I see is how is the hydrogen going to be stored. It either has to be under pressure or as a liquid. Problem with the latter is the very low boiling point.
To store it as a liquid on a plane is going to be difficult needing double walled tanks with good insulation between the walls, the best being a vacuum.
I'm currently working on a thesis regarding alternative fuels for the airline industry (SAF and Hydrogen) and would love to share it with you once completed. It's a very complex yet such a fascinating topic!
I'm a huge fan of hydrogen for many of the worlds problems we are facing. I must say I wasn't shouting "Safety" at the screen. There seems to be so much negativity around the safety of hydrogen when there are many reasons it can be more safe than jet fuel. If you are dealing with a combustible liquid they all need special treatment to keep them safe. Great video thanks :)
Excellent review. There is always resistants to change. Everyone thought that Airbus and Tesla would fail. Personally I love these idea's.
They have failed but for the circuit breaker Karma coming soon enough we can pray LOL
I believe the phrase that's newly in vogue is "a lot of moving parts." There are a whole bunch of different options for meeting the needs that are addressed by aviation-including, but surely not limited to-
1. Pretty much the present course, with direct air capture to deal with the carbon footprint.
2. Biofuels, with direct air capture to deal with the carbon footprint.
3. Battery-powered electric aircraft for shorter ranges and smaller loads.
4. Hybrid aircraft: jet engines, driving electric generators to power electric motors for propulsion. (Net gain in efficiency for some situations.)
5. Hydrogen, driving combustion engines. (Probably not a good option for any likely situations.)
6. Hydrogen + fuel cells + electric propulsion. Possibly good for some situations, but much technology development needed. (I keep asking what the POWER density is for fuel cells, but no one seems to talk about that.)
7. Faster travel on land: maglev, Hyperloop, automated cars in tunnels, other related ideas.
8. Lighter alkanes, such as methane or propane. (Cleaner than gasoline or kerosene, easier to handle than hydrogen.) (Not sure why ethane and butane never seem to be choices. I'm sure there are good reasons.)
9. I'm sure other liquids are possible: methanol, maybe ammonia. But probably these have no niche at all for aviation.
10. Last but not least: Staying home, and doing your business virtually. This goes for cargo as well as people. I suspect a lot of long-distance shipping is the result of cheap labor in poor countries. That may be a declining incentive as time goes on, so more manufacturing may be closer to home, though also much more automated, so no one should get too excited about this as a job creator.
Biofuels + air capture may not be ideal, but for long distances, the particulates and NOx are far away from where most people are, and fairly short-duration, so it may be something we just end up living with, to a great extent, for quite a while.
As far as I know kerosene is preferred to gasoline because it's cheaper not because it has a better density, so if those cents per m3 are that critical, I am sceptical to say the least that h2 stands a chance
WRT safety, most crashes are on landing or take-off. Kerosene goes down and burns the plane. Hydrogen would go up, so would it not be safer?
If you look at this, you can see "only" 35 out of 97 people on board the Hindenburg died. As you say - hydrogen looks dramatic, but it goes upwards automatically. I'm sure if the bags had been filled with kerosene there would have been no survivors (I know you wouldn't fill the bags with kerosene but the fire up/fire down argument still holds. I really don't see hydrogen as any more dangerous than petroleum - in fact a lot less.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster
@@bibliotek42 In fact, most casualties were caused by people sustaining injuries from jumping too soon or from falling, burning petroleum, so you are correct.
Fascinating. Seems like a long way out though. I wonder if it will arrive in time to make a difference. Unrelatedly: have you considered doing a video looking at crosswind kite power? I've done some research and am confused as to why this technology hasn't completely taken over. It seems like a limitless source of cheep energy as it can be put almost anywhere (including deep water off shore installations, unlike traditional turbines), it requires relatively inexpensive materials (high tensile fabric, steal cables), and it uses high altitude wind that blows much stronger and more frequently. Is it just that the tech hasn't been sufficiently developed or is there some glaring hole in this approach? Thanks for doing this work!
We have always had the potential to "fix" the climate thing, but now we will find out of the WILL exists to get it done. Thanks, Dave! FR
You should make a video on emissions from agricultural industry.
There is an alternative to carbon heavy steam reforming that is above ground. There is a new underground steam reforming method that produces zero CO2. There are also geothermal companies looking into using the heat from caped oil Wells to produce electricity. In turn we could also produce green hydrogen from geothermal energy.
super interesting
Hydrogen and flight -> "oh the humanity"
It’s going to be fine. Aircraft are no smoking this time around.
The Incredible Lightness of Being Aloft
Human and availability heuristic -> "oh the humanity"
@@Youbetternowatchthis " presently it takes so long to move the vegetables from China they get Frozen before they even packed to be sold at the 99.99 stores . 1 US dollar for 16 oz of Chinese frozen vegetables versus fresh vegetables picked hours earlier anywhere essentially for far less money.
That's what increasing the length and drastically increasing the speed while using phase-change materials to store the energy does for us so instead of 20 miles per hour for Frozen We Go thousands of miles per hour for fresh and of course high school kids get to take their summer break abroad because the cost of going around the world is comparable to a multi-hour bus ride as provided by the private sector not Transit by the public sector being far less expensive than that.
Let it go.
Here in Alberta, we have a company producing hydrogen by using oxygen injection into old oil wells. CO2 stays captured in the ground. Productions costs are very low.
Fun fact: There has actually been a real life hydrogen plane design already, the 1988 Soviet Tu-155 ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-155 ), it ran on hydrogen and later liquefied natural gas. The aircraft used cryogenics to store fuel and flew about 100 flights before it was decommission, I'm guessing it wasn't very good though...
There's a strong tendency to consider aviation as an end in itself, where instead it should be considered a means to an end, getting passengers from points A to B. In other words there is no need to transport passengers by air; other means such as maglev high speed rail or hyperloop could do just as well for most passenger miles.
Likewise, the objective is to eliminate GHGs from air travel. I saw no discussion about using ammonia for storing the hydrogen. Also, the LAVO system similar to a powerwall uses canisters to store hydrogen for long periods in highly concentrated form. This same storage system could be used for lighter aircraft.
Some of the air travel could instead be done using VR or AR videoconferencing. I think there may be more ways to make necessary changes to reduce GHGs. We really need to build a lot of carbon capture for making hydrocarbons to replace fossil fuels.
Thanks, Dave for the insightful video.
Oh my gosh finally! :D
Maybe long-haul flights should be accomplished with lighter-than-air ships that don't land but that are equipped with landing facilities for short-range electric air taxis to get passengers and freight to and from the ground.
Airships are way too slow for long-haul flights. They fly at about 100-150km/h, which would put an intercontinental flight from Europe to the US at upwards of 36 hours. Maybe, and that's a big maybe already, they could have a role in cargo transport. But for passenger flights, they will at best find a niche as a tourist attraction, or replace cruise ships on some routes.
long haul flight could be done with liquid hydrogen airplanes with no problem, I dont really know what Airbus is doing, I guess thery are following cryo storage regulations for earth tanks, hydrogen should be the CHAMP of long range, due its lower mass vs other fuels, this mean you require less energy to do the same range, this mean only 2 times more volume with equal to just 25% increase in tank diameter.
But I agree that for short range transport, it would be nice to have LTA hydrogen airships with solar panels using electric drones to load and unload passagers or cargo. I had that idea several years ago, before that amazon launch its LTA delivery patent, that day I was a bit happy and sad at the same time.
@@AngelLestat2 Why would anyone use an airship for short range transportation when you can have the same thing muuuch easier achieved with trains? As sad as it is that these gentle giants will never return to the skies as prominently as they were a hundred years ago, airships just don't really serve any large-scale purpose that isn't better suited for other forms of transport.
@@firnen_ I would love to see them as just some quirky adventure options in interesting places to see from above, like Norway or archipelagos, maybe with glass floors. As long as they can be 100% green.
@@snowstrobe Yeah, as I said, tourism/a replacement for the cruise industry is the one area where I can see them really having an application. In a sector where the journey itself is the destination. Because if you actually have a physical destination that you have to reach and don't care about the experience of getting there, then airships are simply too slow for long distances and too complex for short ones.
I have BEng Aerospace Engineering.
The biggest issue is fuel density. Would be Interesting to see at what pressure and temperature the hydrogen will be stored at during flight and the complications that is involved. I would assume it has to be used in liquid form to be feasible.
Thanks for the aerospace news :D
From what i heard is that they plan to use a magnesium compound
Very cool stuff. One major issue in what they laid out, the idea that ground units will ever be powered by hydrogen, let alone to help be profitable in the future. Personally I love hydrogen power, but I worked for a contractor, overseeing and repairing Alaska Airlines ground units. They, like nearly all airlines pay other companies to provide the labor force that day to day does the dirty work (baggage handling, lav crew, cleaning crew, food and bev restock crew, cargo loading, FUELING CREW, towing and taxi crew. Every single one of those workers starts at minimum wage, with nowhere near could you possibly work that job and live indoors. So, among the many people who get hired on, plenty gave no fucks about safety, driving safely, following safety protocalls or the cost of damaging equipment. Every morning, it was a rodeo of clusterfucks trying to find what was damaged, let alone who damaged what. One morning, I witnessed a beltloader, with its belt up, haulass backwards from its latest job and get wedged under the plane of the next gate over. The driver looked at the plane, shut off the machine, popped off his nametag and sprinted into the nearest bagwell.
Another early morning drive, I noticed an odd rain puddle along the tarmac. Since it wasn't raining I followed it almost 1/4 mile to its source. The fueler fell asleep while filling a 737 ETOPs, from the in ground fuel pipeline infrastructure (feed by a massive storage source). That was well over a 5000 gallons of jet a boo boo. Best part was watching every firetruck Seatac owned washing it down the drains.
So getting back to the point, unless people start holding publicly traded companies accountable for treating workers better over pumping profits into keeping stock prices up, using a really great fuel but not giving it the respect needed is going to end badly for every single person involved.
Perhaps Airlines will lead large transportation to a transition of green hydrogen. Insightful video, thanks!
My neighbor didn't give way to a train. He was driving a white panel van and had a bucket of red paint. Luckily the train always slowed down for the station, so he survived. But the rescuers were scared shitless with all the red paint splashed all over the truck, they thought several people were killed when they first drove up.
Nasty!!!
The problem with blended wing designs are probably too great for it to see any use on passenger planes. One big flaw is their lack of customisability and the maintenance challenges. If you take the C-series by Bombardier for instance, they have 2 variants of the aircraft which came at no significant added complexity based on one common platform for both (this is typical in the industry to cut costs for development by spreading them over many programs). You can't do this with blended wing aircrafts because changing it's size to accomodate more passengers significantly impacts everything on the aircraft compared to just adding more fuselage rings and putting sligthly bigger wings.
Thank you for your thoughts, brilliant as usual!😄
I’d like to ad a small comment on the present topic. Here in North America, most of the hydrogen is directly and indirectly produced from fossile fuel. If we do aeronautics based on hydrogen it is imperative that it be produced by clean sources such as hydroelectric plants.
Japan has gone from fission to the most global warming energy possible the tanker shipped Brown coal offshore Burns evil that makes what happened in Hawaii a walk in the park
See the April 15th Washington Post article
@@electronicmusclebike not even remotely relevant.
I agree 100%. Hydrogen from steam reformed methane is definitely not the answer. It absolutely has to come from electrolysis.
This is all fascinating and definitely encouraging. I wonder if you've already covered lighters than air blimps for passenger travel. Most blimp Technologies are looking toward cargo transport but I'm fascinated by the potential for passenger transport. Admittedly it would be slower than a plane but faster than an ocean liner. I often dreamed of being a blimp pilot when I was younger.
Now that you are older you can save up to live in a retirement community of one but the cost of maintaining altitude and having infinitely more vehicles if you're traveling at sub Hypersonic speeds cannot be justified unless the vehicle is the destination because it is the ultimate gated community with the best view right? I mean in the animated Ed Asner he enjoyed it a lot the time that his house was in the air in the clouds and there is no reason that has to end with euthanasia or that the unnatural preventable anything but inevitable we have suffered in the past of death needs to be considered other than dogmatic as argued to be essential now
search "turtle airships"
I am deeply sceptical of hydrogen as a fuel and even though I haven't fully made my mind up on hydrogen fuelled aviation this video didn't exactly do anything to sell me on the idea.
Mckinsey & Co are the ones who advised canadian grocers to fix bread prices.
Why is CO2 such a problem since it only makes up .04% of the atmosphere and only a small fraction of that is manmade? I'd like to see a video explaining why we're focusing so much effort on this.
do you think there's potential for using aluminum air batteries for flight instead of lithium ion, for commercial planes? there'd need to be support infrastructure for recycling the batteries, but in a context like commercial flight it seems to me like getting that would be more straightforward than it would be for say, private owned road vehicles
It’s not even sensible for private cars because the car without the battery is worth almost zero e.g one produces a lot of waste cars. Here locally Hyundai has already 150t of scrap cars and a equal amount of battery waste. There is the problem with the aluminum AIR batteries needing a lot of maintainance and aluminum.
I could see a liquid slurry AL air battery being used. The Slurry would be pumped out and replaced between flights. then electricity at night would convert the AL oxide back into AL for the next days use.
I'm just mentioning a phrase "energy currency". It's what some bloke I heard on CBC Radio several years ago was calling it. He was highly pro-hydrogen as the premier "energy currency" for the future. I'm just stating the phrase "energy currency" in case you like it. "Energy generation", "Energy storage", "Energy currency".
Ammonia may be a good way to store the hydrogen. Liquid ammonia can be stored at more favorable pressure and temperatures in addition to more hydrogen for the storage volume.
Love "Just have a think"! Another bit of good advice is "Always give way to pedestrians".
I've just had a think....
1. What happens to all the Oxygen given off when Hydrogen is prepared by electrolysis? Is it discarded? Could if be bottled up? Is it Green Oxygen?
2. How much water will be needed to produce the necessary quantities for a Green Hydrogen economy, and does it need to be pure (e.g. not salt water)?
Oxygen will just dissipate into the atmosphere and get taken up into the cycles (like hydrological cycle etc.). Green hydrogen does need a lot of water, but salt water electrolysis development is well under way.
Dave - please would give us your take on the Bright Green Lies book/documentary?
How about a link for us lazy people?
@@paulnoel9064 www.brightgreenlies.com/
Hi Joanna. You will probably be able to gauge my view by watching the video I made about Planet of the Humans last year. I won't be reviewing Bright Green Lies.
Very thought provoking as always.
I know that Hydrogen likes to adsorb in and on many things including metals because of its very small physical molecular size.
Can this not be used to our advantage aka the storage of acetylene gas in ether Acetone or DMF? 20 odd BaR (atmospheres) of pressure is far lower than the 300 to 700 bar required of hydrogen?