Just so you know, while H is the smallest atom in the periodic table, it is NOT the smallest molecule because it is diatomic. Helium is the smallest (and maybe the leakiest) because it is monoatomic.
Petter H is from Europe. So, he has a smile through out this video? On a serious note, I have a post graduate degree in Chemistry. Nearly 35 years in Aviation. I don’t see hydrogen powered engines developed out of current engines as a viable alternate. Redesigning is needed. That means - time, engineers and lots of cash. Till then, sitting back, relaxing and enjoying Mentour Pilot’s videos!
I love the engine technology videos; they really round out the channel as a source for not only the past and present of aviation, but the future as well!
The volume requirements for hydrogen are crazy. That's why on the Saturn V moon rocket, the first stage burned kerosene, and only the upper two stages burned hydrogen.
Hydrogen will almost certainly never be a major fuel source in aviation. Even assuming we figure out an energy efficient means of production someday (far from assured), hydrogen doesn't like to be stored. It REALLY doesn't like being stored. To carry a reasonable amount of fuel, cryogenics will be required.
We have decently efficient ways of producing it, the problem is that instead of digging energy out of the ground we have to generate it ourselves (just as with batteries).
Yeah. The engineers know about the challenges - they're not stupid. But they're doing it anyway - it's almost like they know more than you. Crazy right?
@@erikb6836 Do we really? Cheapest hydrogen is still produced from natural gas. The only way to make hydrogen economically viable is to ban/tax other fuels so much, that it's going to offset real world cost disadvantages of hydrogen. Given current poor economic situation of EU and even bleaker outlooks in the future, I don't think that's the right way to go.
@@JohnnyWednesday So you just assume he isn't an engineer or has some sort of experience, yeah I would work on just about anything too even if it had zero chance of going anywhere if I were getting paid extremely well to do it...
I used to work at several resteraunts, every one had a company that paid for the used oil (pennies on the gal), after talking to the driver that did the pickup he said the company converts it to heating oil and heavy fuel oil.
i dont see how hydrogen would work? its extremely difficult to store. the planes would have so much boil off/leaks and hydrogen is very flammable so seems like a huge safety concern as far as civil aviation goes
Hydrogen is weird stuff to handle. It does like to escape, but it also dissipates pretty easily compared to heavier gaseous fuels like methane and propane. There is always a risk of fire, but except for a narrow range of conditions*, I am more frightened of gasoline fires than gaseous fuels. Personally, I think the finicky nature of hydrogen handling and storage makes it a tough hill to climb, but not technically unfeasible. *foremost condition is that if a gasoline tank is on fire, run a 100 meters or so. If a pressurized fuel tank is on fire, run 1000 meters and then keep running.
The thing with hydrogen is that it's so light it can't linger around enough to make an explosive fuel-air mixture around the leak site. Worst case scenario you get a blow torch until it runs out of pressure.
Hydrogen definitely can be an issue in enclosed spaces (probably not relevant to aviation) but look at what happened at Fukushima with the hydrogen explosion that happened there.
If the hydrogen is produced on-site at airports, storage may not be that much of an issue. It's also important to remember that we don't need to have a singular solution. Hydrogen for short range flights and SAF for long haul flights would work just fine.
Im an aspiring 13 year old pilot . these vids are quality content worth watching..... thank you to petter and the team!☺Love both of your channels a lot
If you are already spending the energy to create the hydrogen, you may as well go a bit further and make it into Methane or even something heavier to get the fuel density up. At that point the energy efficiency of creating the fuel doesnt really matter as its all green anyways.
One problem with green hydrogen is the energy required to produce it. To produce one ton of hydrogen, approximately 50,000 kWh of energy is needed. If this is to be achieved using green technology, it quickly becomes apparent that this will involve enormous challenges.
An issue with electricity by wind/sun is often that it’s produced not when it’s required, but when the weather is there for it. Using the excess energy to produce hydrogen may be an elegant way to turn two disadvantages into a solution.
@@neodym5809the problem is storage and production. To store the amount of hydrogen in amounts of GWh of hydrogen you would need giant high pressure thanks. One solution could be making Methan Out of hydrogen and carbon because you could store it in existing gas infrastructure. But the second problem is that you need giant factorys to produce all that so you can't ramp up the production daily in the summer because there is a surplus of solar energy. It will be expensive to be emission zero 🫣
As I understand it there are financial concerns... as in, politicians taking money and then advice from companies developing hydrogen technology... they're not getting a full scientific/mathematic breakdown from an independent actor.
Thank you for these amazingly informative videos, Petter! They are teaching me a lot about the industry and things to understand once I get my pilot's license, and also how things will look in the future.
It's worth mentioning that making hydrogen is way too expensive right now to compete. As is the 2.5x as expensive other alternative fuel. Right now I don't see either of them being able to be the future.
I think if we do see hydrogen-powered aircraft, the right method is going to be fuel cells for maximum efficiency with high power density batteries for takeoff and landing. The density of even liquid hydrogen is so low and it needs so much insulation that the tankage is really heavy and finding somewhere to put it that doesn't split the cabin in half or add lots of regular or trim drag is really hard. That makes fuel efficiency even more exponential for hydrogen than it is for regular jet fuel, and therefore heavier but more efficient engines worthwhile. If you can stuff the batteries in the wing tips, the reduced root bending moment and flutter loads probably reduces the wing structure by most if not all of the battery's mass, especially since you definitely can't put fuel out there anymore. The other reason to go with fuel cells is that hydrogen piping is just as hard as hydrogen storage, if not harder, and having liquid hydrogen on board makes superconducting cables relatively easy. going with fuel cells means that the hydrogen piping can be really short compared to a hydrogen engine under the wing, and using liquid nitrogen superconductors to route power out to the wings with the hydrogen as the heat sink is going to be much lighter and lower maintenance than piping hydrogen all the way to the engines. Even better, once you're using super lightweight and efficient modern electric motors with superconducting power cables, it opens up a lot more aircraft configurations with significant potential efficiency gains from things like blown flaps (which could be operated off the batteries for landing if you run out of fuel), and various types of boundary layer ingestion. it also presents opportunities to reduce noise, because electric motors are so reliable even compared to gas turbines that do things like putting them above high wings to shield the noise from the ground and the passengers without causing nearly as much of a maintenance headache.
In the UK, we converted one of our power stations to run on woodchip pellets. It too, was supposed to only use waste products as opposed to cutting down trees specifically to produce these pellets. The latter scenario is what has come to pass. We import this "biofuel" all the way from Canada. The politicians and CEO$ laugh as they receive their green stars.
Fascinating video as always. I've been working in the economics of low-carbon hydrogen production the last year, and one thing that is now widely understood is that it is going to be WAY more expensive than what we thought a few years back. A lot of governments, private companies and other institutions hoped that hydrogen would play a big part in decarbonising a lot of industries where electrification is expensive or outright impossible, but with the most up to date cost estimates it is now uneconomical to do so, and aviation is certainly one of the industries that fall under this category unfortunately. Will be really interesting to see what happens though (and who pays the final bill)
Hydrogen as fuel is a really bad idea. It is being pushed by existing oil production companies because they can produce hydrogen relatively easily although their hydrogen is not green. H is very hard to store, it requires high pressures and low temperatures. Many materials exposed to hydrogen change their properties in an undesirable way. If we must use hydrogen then ammonia would seem to be a better method. It contains a lot of hydrogen, the nitrogen is plentiful in the atmosphere and it can be stored at relatively low pressures and ordinary temperatures. We already produce large quantities of ammonia although these mainly use fossil fuels but could use renewable or nuclear energy.
You are absolutely correct regarding the lead time for a hydrogen powered aircraft. It doesn't matter what the decision is regarding concepts. Firstly the stage where an engine design that is tested and certified has to be reached. Just the certification process will most likely take several years. Before that there will be a number of full scale test engines built. Once certification has been achieved and the engine builders can start looking into production there will need to be orders in the order book. Then once the green light has been given to start production and the production engineering phase is initiated it will take several years to create production methods that can certified. In many cases today production engineering is the limiting factor for more efficient gas turbine engines. The materials used to make the parts are so difficult to machine. It takes a long time to develop maching methods for these high temperature materials After that machine tools and other equipment has be sourced and commissioned In my opinion the time scale from where we are today to being able to mass produce hydrogen powered aircraft is at the earliest 30 years probably 50 years. 8 years is not long enough to even create working concepts that can be evaluated by the different areas of aircraft manufacturing. Maybe the scientists in the laboratories will be close to being able to present concepts that can be discussed within the industry. That will be about it.
Fun fact: The first jet engine ever operating had its first test runs on hydrogen since it was easier to get the combustion stable and Hans Papst von Ohain was on a tight schedule from his boss Ernst Heinkel to show a working engine.
Getting our old airliners to do the trick is the thing, i think we in the west are doing a lot running before we can walk, thorium nuclear reactors produce little nuclear waste, its an abundant energy resource, if we build build the reactors. We can can make synthetic fuels bonding carbon to hydrogen atoms, so we can use our old airliners guilt free. We have been fiddling with hydrogen for decades, it is terribly difficult resource to transport and from watching this space over my life time, the rules of nature do not change, Hydrogen is difficult. that jet fuel, the regular fuel in our cars, the heating fuel, it works great, if we want to replace it, it needs to be as good. Airbus sound like they have been spending billions on a box ticking exercise, instead of lobbying governments in to making better power generation, or even spend those lost billions in to thorium reactors.
Switching all aviation to hydrogen or battery power is going to make flying much more expensive. That will push consumers to alternatives such as electric trains except for crossing oceans, etc..
@@conveyor2 China is held up as the gold standard in high speed passenger rail yet a significant part of the country has no service or is undeserved. Since 2015, interest payments have exceeded operating profits. If they charged enough for HSR to break even it would loose even more. They have reported profits in 2024 but there is no reason to trust this figure. More likely a CCP mandated PR adjustment.
Unfortunately nobody asks the most important question which is why spend huge amounts of money on “green” fuels in areas where replacing them completely would take decades and bring only minor reduction in CO2 emissions. Just think about this : transportation is consuming about 20% of global energy. Cars account for about half of that 20%, with planes, trains and rail combined account for the other half. Heating, cooling and industrial processes is where the real potential for CO2 emissions reduction is, but very little effort is applied there.
My money is on battery density improvements that allow for more efficient electric propulsion. Whatever replaces the status quo will need to be economically better off than the status quo in order to be successful. Building reusable rockets is now a no-brainer because someone has actually done it. No-brainer because of the economics. Prior to the success of SpaceX the whole idea was laughable. Not a government solution (space shuttle) but a private entity with vision and commitment were able to produce a system with great operational and therefore economic success. Will be the same for aviation as long as governments do not impede the progress too much. It's government involvement that has a new aircraft pipeline, drawing board to in service, at about 7 to 8 years... Love your content!
Batteries are very unlikely to get close. Any other transportation application is a good fit for batteries, but aircraft is not. On a long haul aircraft 1/3 of the takeoff mass is fuel. Anything falling short of the specific energy of jet fuel dooms it as a fuel. Batteries are an order of magnitude worse, that's a hell of a gap to make up.
First of all, we should invest heavily in new nuclear reactors which will reduce the cost of producing hydrogen significantly. What we are doing at this moment is terrible, making everything run on electricity or hydrogen (which takes electricity to make) and meanwhile just increase the amount of coals burned and planting solar fields and windmills everywhere. Which on their own have terrible effects on the climate and environment, and also increasing the amount of raw materials that are being used.
In my opinion, the only way of seriously reducing the industry's emissions is mode shift away from aviation for short-haul journeys wherever possible. There is simply no getting around the fact that flying is one of the most carbon-intensive means of transport on earth.
Why not just exclude aviation from this artificial net zero date? I know it makes the tree huggers feel warm and fuzzy, but why pin yourself into a corner unnecessarily? Politicians have really screwed up with these arbitrary targets. It should be a 100+ year project, not multi decade.
Production of SAF currently involves plenty of emissions. Making the whole process zero emissions means more than just the fuel. The farming vehicles, fertilisers, transport & production energy sources need to be green as well. I can't see it working unless we switch to E fuels, which I understand start with hydrogen anyway. So I honestly don't see any option beyond hydrogen
I agree, the whole process needs to be looked at, but if we’re looking at the bigger picture, hydrogen is easier to make than synthetic fuels which first need hydrogen to be made... assuming we can make hydrogen at or near airports, so that its transportation isn't a factor. If we can't make it locally, then synthetic SAF starts to make more sense.
There seem to be a lot of comments saying it is "impossible" but I disagree. One day or the other kerosene has to be replaced and hydrogen is better in the long run compared to SAF, as SAF would put much more pressure on agricultural land and freshwater. Moreover the hydrogen supply chain is much easier in case of aviation than personal cars as it is much more concentrated and hydrogen can definitely be made on site at major airports to minimise losses. In the long run, the shipping industry is also trying to decarbonise and could likely be a big consumer of hydrogen, alongside steelmaking. For now, like said in the video, development of both is needed to see how the big equation will work out.
I think hydrogen powered aircraft is a dead end. It requires way too much weight on the aircraft and too much infrastructure. For ground transportation such as city buses and fleet delivery trucks, it makes far more sense.
Hydrogen is awesome ... as long as it's bound to carbon or nitrogen. Standalone it's just a major pain and unsuitable for anything but fusion in the stars. As things stands now, hydrogen is just a method of oil industry to slow down battery developments and electrification of aviation.
Hydrogen is more likely than bio fuel because of availability. And I agree with Airbus that hydrogen engines will only be viable if there's infrastructure. And infrastructure will only exist with nuclear energy. China is building a lot of nuclear energy power plants, unlike Europe and USA. Modern nuclear power reactors are safe (can't have Chernobyl style meltdowns).
Modern nuclear reactors are generally one thing: An incredibly expensive way to produce power. Even China's nuclear expansion is only a very small fraction of their energy expansion. Most is solar and wind. Nuclear is a technology chosen for national pride, military strategy and fall-cost fallacy, not because it is practical, fast or cost effective.
@@nanotyrannus5435 Most delays and cost of nuclear is just unnecessary red tape. The best build times and costs for nuclear readily compete with any other energy source, and a modern nuclear reactor will still be producing energy 60-100 years from now, when other sources will be being replaced in 20.
Only 5% of China's electricity is generated by nuclear power. For contrast, the USA generates 18%. The reactors currently under construction in China will increase their percentage to only 7% to 8%.
7:21 "only 10% of the fuel that we need" 'Need'? Naw. Jets are inefficient, but direct drive nose props combined with huge and 1/10rpm counter-rotating shrouded necklace fans at the fuselage's largest point (just behind the flight deck) are wildly efficient when combined with a segregated combustion piston engine with a Displacement Adjuster.
Well said on all fronts. I think the most interesting idea is the dual fuel engine, will it achieve the net zero goal, no, but baby steps. In my opinion technology's that can lower carbon output while zero emissions options are in development are key to our future.
Nh3 stores at much lower pressures than H2. In internal combustion engines it has been shown to work. Are there any projects looking at this for aviation? Large low speed ships engines are being converted to work on NH3.
I must commend you on an excellent video with regard to hydrogen and SAF in aviation. The mention of the “steam / condensed H2O injection” for turbine engines is an excellent addition. You should also further mention that this type of engine design “can significantly reduce contrails” in addition to increasing efficiency and significantly lowering NOx production. The biggest driver of transitioning to “clean fuels” is governmental regulations AND GOVERNMENTAL SUBSIDIES. California has been doing this for sometime now with their various subsidies programs that “effectively tax” conventional fuels and transfer this revenue to subsidize ev electricity, hydrogen and “some bio-fuels” (see LCFS Credits, etc … ) mostly without the the consumer recognizing what is happening. You mentioned the term “GREEN HYDROGEN” multiple times AND that the approach to “GREEN & RENEWABLE FUELS” seems to be different depending upon if it is the EU or the US. Since the economics of CLEAN FUELS is effectively driven by governmental subsidies, it is very important to contrast how the US hydrogen subsidies are written into the euphemistically named “US Inflation Reduction Act” and other subsidies that have an impact on CLEAN HYDROGEN PRODUCTION (NOT GREEN HYDROGEN). This topic has been covered extensively in the more focused “power industry & hydrogen production” sites. The upshot of this is that the details of the rules for the subsidies for the production of CLEAN HYDROGEN in the United States has been PURPOSELY written in away to STRONGLY INCENTIVIZE “CLEAN HYDROGEN” PRODUCTION OVER GREEN HYDROGEN PRODUCTION. Personally I would really like to understand how this SAUSAGE WAS MADE” at the governmental level. To get the subsidies for GREEN HYDROGEN (electrolyzed from water hydrogen) has some very significant stringent requirements for the sourcing of the “renewable electricity”!! While the subsidies for CLEAN HYDROGEN are very generous and economically advantageous. Now that the IRS has “mostly finalized” how the rules will be implemented in the tax code, it appears that various GREEN vs CLEAN groups have intensify “Lobbied” the US Congress to get and outcome that is ANTI GREEN HYDROGEN.
MSc Engineering Physics with a thesis in optimizing hydrogen generation and storage and a pilot study on wing integrated LH2 tanks here. Sooo excited to hopefully be part of this developing industry in the future! Intressant video, som alltid ✈️
"Hydrogen could be used by other vehicles" And therein lies the problem. The oil industry does not want to see alternative fueled vehicles. They are constantly publishing lies about EVs because they don't want this cutting into ICE vehicle productions. The oil industry has a large lobby in both the US and Canada which is trying to discourage alternative fuel.
I think the biggest problem is (and will be) from preventing hydrogen leaking everywhere. It's not just the risk of fires and explosions (like when the plane is in a hangar), you also have the potential of hydrogen embrittlement of metals. Boeing already has bits and bobs falling off their aircrafts, and it took NASA and Boeing multiple launch attemps with SLS to get those hydrogen lines sealed enough to fuel up the rocket.
That's a very bad example which has more to do with Boeing having a skill issue. Hydrogen powered rockets have been flying since the 70s (Saturn V). Yes it's not easy but it has been done.
Cyrogenic fuel is the other big issue imo. Like imagine dealing with wing icing when your wings contain liquid thats just a few degrees off absolute zero
Legendary Fokker Aircraft Company is reanimated. The Fokker Next Gen is a promising liquid hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and kerosene powered aircraft by the looks of it. Projected commercial entry into service is around 2035. It is a joined venture between Fokker and Dassault Systémes.
Hydrogen engines sound awesome... at least until a passenger airliner turns into a massive ball of flame (again.) Then it probably won't seem like quite as good an idea.
I did not know that aboot contrails! If contrails are part of climate change problem, could they also be partially causing this years hurricanes? This is bad year for hurricanes
If you need low temperature for liquid hydrogen, then pressure would be your enemy. Could bleed air be run through a more advanced heat exchange? If you use H in underl wing tanks as part of a combined fuel setup, then if something goes wrong with those tanks, could they be dropped? After all, the P-51 Mustang escorted bombers all the way to Berlin, then dropped fuel tanks while retaining sufficient fuel to escort the bombers all the way home. Now, I'm sure that the P-51 pilots didn't care who the drop tanks fell on, but a clever design might make hydrogen drop tanks pose no risk if dropped at sufficient altitudes. I'm no engineer, but thought I'd pose the question(s) as it's fascinating stuff. p.s. I signed up for the 737 type rating course. Only Petter could make a cold and dark start up so enthralling!! Best tip was to check you are actually in the correct aircraft before starting the myriad of checks and flows LOL
I work for the biggest technical gas companie in the world and they are putting billions into hydrogen and so are the competition 🙂 Hydrogen is the future 😎
@@MentourNow I'm pretty sure they will do the gas part and then sell it to SAF aso 🙂 Right now they are also trying to convert the metal and glass industry to hydrogen 👍🏻
I wonder if they could to a wet takeoff to increase thrust when necessary and take advantage of the high combustion temperatures. Though the cost would be carrying extra weight in the form of water
Instead of trying to make aviation propulsion greener, it would be a lot easier to switch to an inherently more energy efficient mode of transportation like train or ship.
For some travel, yes. But railway networks are difficult to re-organize/re-task with seasonal demands, etc. Cost (construction and maintenance) is a problem, too.
Trains are vastly more efficient than air. Ships are vastly less efficient than air. Ships are hands down the worst way to move people when rating on fuel use and emissions.
love the videos, thank you! one thing im curious about, I've heard an issue with hydrogen cars is the volatility and explosivity of hydrogen compared to gasoline. Is this a similar concern with hydrogen powered aviation?
Like so many things this is not at all simple. The more you look, the more complex it becomes. Food production currently needs oil to fuel the farm machinery. They would also need to run on biodiesel, requiring more production and land. Hydrogen is mainly being produced from fossil fuels. Making it from green electricity is old tech but known. The problem is storage and transport. It does not liquify at practical temperatures so it is transported in very heavy pressure vessels. Sublimation onto other matricees is possible but again the weight penalty.
All this 2035, 2050, 2060 goal stuff basically tells me that, no, humanity broadly has no grasp whatsoever on the severity, magnitude, and time horizons of climate change. Yesterday was already way too late.
I am highly sceptical that hydrogen is practical fuel for aviation. Not only as far as the design of the aircraft, but the creation of the hydrogen, the storage of it in quantity and the issues around refuelling in a safe manner seem problematic to me.
If hydrogen is going to work anywhere it will be on airplanes. But as long as they keep loosing 10% or more as leakage there may be no point in using it. Other than as a profit motive.
I do not understand an issue of Hydrogen production, because what you need for it is water an electricity, so potentially Airport should be able to spare some land to produce Hydrogen on site as they need to, as well as other vehicle users. What is needed for this is to make Hydrogen generators scalable and abandonly available, so if I got Hydrogen car, I should be able to purchase and install at home Hydrogen generator. As of storage the only way I see it is to standardize replaceable containers like our barbecue gas containers, so instead of waiting to fill in the container, we could just swap it with a new one, both for land transportation and aviation. Plus if SAF is coming from plants is actually a NET 0 because plane burns fuel emitting CO2 and then plant using sun and water convert this CO2 back onto the carbohydrates that could be used in planes again, so it would allow to capture excess carbon and hide it. Further more that could be used if scaled to decarbonize atmosphere,
"Hydrogen is the most abundant element in our universe". It is, and we can do it. But that argument wouldn't work with Helium, the second most abundant element in our universe, because it ain't abundant down here. :-)
Do contrails really have any contribution to the greenhouse effect? I highly doubt it, seems like a very negligible effect. But do you have any sources on this?
Petter, can I be candid for just a moment, please? I can't even CONCEIVE of enough "news stories" or "analyses" that would be enough to rid me of my admitted-pure-phobia of flying on a "21st-century Hindenburg" aircraft. No _ way....smh absolutely not.
So to point something out one of the easiest ways to produce hydrogen is off the back of a power plant and the us navy decided not to pursue hydrogen engines for its aircraft what does that say about it because it would absolutely increase capability if what was being said about hydrogen jets was 100% true
I would love to say hydrogen is the answer, but the main problem you got there for aviation is the cost of transportation, or the risk of leakage from say pipes running to an airport. but does seem to be more of an answer compared to electric engines. because batteries heat up as they get recharged, and the quicker you charge them between charges then the heat increases, and if in a confined space like a car battery pack then the batteries aren't able to cool down, so would mean aircraft being grounded for extended periods of time, whereas hydrogen doesn't have that floor, so I can see why they dropped the idea of making airplanes fly with electric engines, as aircraft sat on the ground are loosing money and 3 days for example waiting for the batteries to cool down means a lot of lost revenue for aircraft carriers, and don't think aircraft carriers would accept that as a viable option as would increase flight costs 4-5 times the current price.
There is a company doing excursion flight along the west coast of North America using either battery powered Beavers or Otters. The time to service and load the plane between flights is the same as when they were using the ICE engines. Small steps. Who know what battery technology we will have in 20 years As for waiting 3 days to cool a battery! Guess someone there never heard of modern BMS with battery heating and cooling. Run the battery heating and cooling off ground power which charging. Silly rabbits.
Hydrogen is after all only a storage system. Producing hydrogen without emissions or competing with food production will be extremely different. It is arguably just another SAF with the same issues. Fuel cells can be efficient but making the hydrogen requires huge amounts of energy and probably emissions. Then of course there are the huge issues of low density and high flammability. I'm not holding my breath for it to arrive.....
Too bad you didn't talk about battery electric powered planes. HarbourAir is planning service with their electric seaplanes in 2026 or 2027, once the planes are registered for flight. Of course the trips are 40 to 60 minutes but it has to start somewhere. Larger planes will be able to have larger battery packs and energy density is increasing all of the time. They will be great for routes between places not far apart, eventually a couple of hours, and don't have high speed rail between them.
I dont see either of those being good options. For SAF being biofuels theres no way they can grow enough to supply the enormous demand. Plus it needs more energy for fertilizer and processing which hurts its efficiency even more For hydrogen even NASA has difficulty dealing with it and even with the recent boom in private rocketry, i dont think any of the new companies chose to use it. Adding rocket science to things cant be good for the price. A better option might be synthetic petroleum gasses, which are only mild cryogenics. Butane condenses at only -1C, much nicer than the -253C of hydrogen. But until we reach net 0 theres not much point to it as the energy comes from fossil fuels anyway. They have time.
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Derwent is pronounced as it is written. No Vs!!
FYI, there is solid hydrogen.
It is freed from solid state via laser. The company is out of Phoenix Az. I think it was done back in 2017..
Debunked Tom, a long time ago.
Just so you know, while H is the smallest atom in the periodic table, it is NOT the smallest molecule because it is diatomic. Helium is the smallest (and maybe the leakiest) because it is monoatomic.
Petter H is from Europe. So, he has a smile through out this video?
On a serious note, I have a post graduate degree in Chemistry. Nearly 35 years in Aviation. I don’t see hydrogen powered engines developed out of current engines as a viable alternate. Redesigning is needed. That means - time, engineers and lots of cash.
Till then, sitting back, relaxing and enjoying Mentour Pilot’s videos!
I love the engine technology videos; they really round out the channel as a source for not only the past and present of aviation, but the future as well!
Thanks for watching and for the kind words! 💕 I love having you here
The volume requirements for hydrogen are crazy. That's why on the Saturn V moon rocket, the first stage burned kerosene, and only the upper two stages burned hydrogen.
Hydrogen will almost certainly never be a major fuel source in aviation. Even assuming we figure out an energy efficient means of production someday (far from assured), hydrogen doesn't like to be stored. It REALLY doesn't like being stored. To carry a reasonable amount of fuel, cryogenics will be required.
We have decently efficient ways of producing it, the problem is that instead of digging energy out of the ground we have to generate it ourselves (just as with batteries).
Yeah. The engineers know about the challenges - they're not stupid. But they're doing it anyway - it's almost like they know more than you. Crazy right?
@@erikb6836 Do we really? Cheapest hydrogen is still produced from natural gas. The only way to make hydrogen economically viable is to ban/tax other fuels so much, that it's going to offset real world cost disadvantages of hydrogen. Given current poor economic situation of EU and even bleaker outlooks in the future, I don't think that's the right way to go.
@@JohnnyWednesday So you just assume he isn't an engineer or has some sort of experience, yeah I would work on just about anything too even if it had zero chance of going anywhere if I were getting paid extremely well to do it...
ammonia would be a far more sensible fuel, with the same benefit of being carbon free
I used to work at several resteraunts, every one had a company that paid for the used oil (pennies on the gal), after talking to the driver that did the pickup he said the company converts it to heating oil and heavy fuel oil.
I remember that long ago, the restaurant had to pay THEM to take it away.
ok
i dont see how hydrogen would work? its extremely difficult to store. the planes would have so much boil off/leaks and hydrogen is very flammable so seems like a huge safety concern as far as civil aviation goes
wonder if methane could be an alternative? not as good as jet fuel or hydrogen, but could still maybe work?
@@brianhillier7052sure but Methene is 30x worse than Kerosine for contributions to Climate change
Don't tell Toyota
That's the point, the average joe can't create it at home as opposed to battery stored electricity
Aviation engineers are smarter than they look. Theyll find a way to make it work.
Hydrogen is weird stuff to handle. It does like to escape, but it also dissipates pretty easily compared to heavier gaseous fuels like methane and propane. There is always a risk of fire, but except for a narrow range of conditions*, I am more frightened of gasoline fires than gaseous fuels. Personally, I think the finicky nature of hydrogen handling and storage makes it a tough hill to climb, but not technically unfeasible.
*foremost condition is that if a gasoline tank is on fire, run a 100 meters or so. If a pressurized fuel tank is on fire, run 1000 meters and then keep running.
The thing with hydrogen is that it's so light it can't linger around enough to make an explosive fuel-air mixture around the leak site. Worst case scenario you get a blow torch until it runs out of pressure.
Hydrogen definitely can be an issue in enclosed spaces (probably not relevant to aviation) but look at what happened at Fukushima with the hydrogen explosion that happened there.
If the hydrogen is produced on-site at airports, storage may not be that much of an issue. It's also important to remember that we don't need to have a singular solution. Hydrogen for short range flights and SAF for long haul flights would work just fine.
Im an aspiring 13 year old pilot . these vids are quality content worth watching..... thank you to petter and the team!☺Love both of your channels a lot
That’s awesome! Glad you’re enjoying the content, keep working towards your pilot training!
Commercial aviation will likely never use hydrogen. The fuel density is far too low and dealing with cryogenic hydrogen is no small feat either.
I wouldn’t be so sure.. but it’s tricky, that’s for sure
Nuclear would be more likely, lol
@@MentourNow trick means expensive and unreliable
If you are already spending the energy to create the hydrogen, you may as well go a bit further and make it into Methane or even something heavier to get the fuel density up. At that point the energy efficiency of creating the fuel doesnt really matter as its all green anyways.
@@demondoggy1825 that would decrease the efficiency of the whole process (Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress)
One problem with green hydrogen is the energy required to produce it. To produce one ton of hydrogen, approximately 50,000 kWh of energy is needed. If this is to be achieved using green technology, it quickly becomes apparent that this will involve enormous challenges.
An issue with electricity by wind/sun is often that it’s produced not when it’s required, but when the weather is there for it. Using the excess energy to produce hydrogen may be an elegant way to turn two disadvantages into a solution.
Or just use nuclear power@@neodym5809
Nuclear
@@neodym5809the problem is storage and production.
To store the amount of hydrogen in amounts of GWh of hydrogen you would need giant high pressure thanks.
One solution could be making Methan Out of hydrogen and carbon because you could store it in existing gas infrastructure.
But the second problem is that you need giant factorys to produce all that so you can't ramp up the production daily in the summer because there is a surplus of solar energy. It will be expensive to be emission zero 🫣
As I understand it there are financial concerns... as in, politicians taking money and then advice from companies developing hydrogen technology... they're not getting a full scientific/mathematic breakdown from an independent actor.
Amazing time to be alive, techwise! Cant help wonder if the longterm answer/future will be horse, cart and sail in centuries to come
Well, I think at this point, Europe is falling behind Europe in Hydrogen.
Thank you for these amazingly informative videos, Petter! They are teaching me a lot about the industry and things to understand once I get my pilot's license, and also how things will look in the future.
That’s awesome! Keep working towards that license!
It's worth mentioning that making hydrogen is way too expensive right now to compete. As is the 2.5x as expensive other alternative fuel.
Right now I don't see either of them being able to be the future.
Thanks Captain 👨✈️
You're welcome!
I think if we do see hydrogen-powered aircraft, the right method is going to be fuel cells for maximum efficiency with high power density batteries for takeoff and landing.
The density of even liquid hydrogen is so low and it needs so much insulation that the tankage is really heavy and finding somewhere to put it that doesn't split the cabin in half or add lots of regular or trim drag is really hard. That makes fuel efficiency even more exponential for hydrogen than it is for regular jet fuel, and therefore heavier but more efficient engines worthwhile.
If you can stuff the batteries in the wing tips, the reduced root bending moment and flutter loads probably reduces the wing structure by most if not all of the battery's mass, especially since you definitely can't put fuel out there anymore.
The other reason to go with fuel cells is that hydrogen piping is just as hard as hydrogen storage, if not harder, and having liquid hydrogen on board makes superconducting cables relatively easy. going with fuel cells means that the hydrogen piping can be really short compared to a hydrogen engine under the wing, and using liquid nitrogen superconductors to route power out to the wings with the hydrogen as the heat sink is going to be much lighter and lower maintenance than piping hydrogen all the way to the engines.
Even better, once you're using super lightweight and efficient modern electric motors with superconducting power cables, it opens up a lot more aircraft configurations with significant potential efficiency gains from things like blown flaps (which could be operated off the batteries for landing if you run out of fuel), and various types of boundary layer ingestion. it also presents opportunities to reduce noise, because electric motors are so reliable even compared to gas turbines that do things like putting them above high wings to shield the noise from the ground and the passengers without causing nearly as much of a maintenance headache.
In the UK, we converted one of our power stations to run on woodchip pellets. It too, was supposed to only use waste products as opposed to cutting down trees specifically to produce these pellets. The latter scenario is what has come to pass. We import this "biofuel" all the way from Canada. The politicians and CEO$ laugh as they receive their green stars.
Fascinating video as always. I've been working in the economics of low-carbon hydrogen production the last year, and one thing that is now widely understood is that it is going to be WAY more expensive than what we thought a few years back. A lot of governments, private companies and other institutions hoped that hydrogen would play a big part in decarbonising a lot of industries where electrification is expensive or outright impossible, but with the most up to date cost estimates it is now uneconomical to do so, and aviation is certainly one of the industries that fall under this category unfortunately. Will be really interesting to see what happens though (and who pays the final bill)
Petter, a Hindenburg-zeppelin on either wing? Even compressed?
A lot of technical hurdles I think.
Interesting that Airbus wants to use their first hydrogen engine on an A380, while that aircraft is not even being built anymore ^^
It’s just a test bed.. and the fact that it’s so big works well with the hydrogen tanks
@@MentourNow Thanks!
"test bed" immediately was my first thought, too
Is a perfect test bench, 4 engines, massive, and a mtow of over 1.2 million pounds
Liquid hydrogen can work if they figure out how to keep the temperature for storing.
Vacuum insulated dewars
@@giantfrigginnerd Even then it is still a massive PITA. Hydrogen doesn't do evaporative cooling well, it likes to boil away very easily.
7:00 I think the graph isn't right, the green should be marked as conventional fuel instead of saf?
Great catch
Hydrogen as fuel is a really bad idea. It is being pushed by existing oil production companies because they can produce hydrogen relatively easily although their hydrogen is not green. H is very hard to store, it requires high pressures and low temperatures. Many materials exposed to hydrogen change their properties in an undesirable way.
If we must use hydrogen then ammonia would seem to be a better method. It contains a lot of hydrogen, the nitrogen is plentiful in the atmosphere and it can be stored at relatively low pressures and ordinary temperatures. We already produce large quantities of ammonia although these mainly use fossil fuels but could use renewable or nuclear energy.
I don't think they will rebuild aircraft already in service. Even with a "neo" they add them to newly manufactured aircraft, not old aircraft.
You are absolutely correct regarding the lead time for a hydrogen powered aircraft.
It doesn't matter what the decision is regarding concepts.
Firstly the stage where an engine design that is tested and certified has to be reached.
Just the certification process will most likely take several years.
Before that there will be a number of full scale test engines built.
Once certification has been achieved and the engine builders can start looking into production there will need to be orders in the order book.
Then once the green light has been given to start production and the production engineering phase is initiated it will take several years to create production methods that can certified.
In many cases today production engineering is the limiting factor for more efficient gas turbine engines.
The materials used to make the parts are so difficult to machine.
It takes a long time to develop maching methods for these high temperature materials
After that machine tools and other equipment has be sourced and commissioned
In my opinion the time scale from where we are today to being able to mass produce hydrogen powered aircraft is at the earliest 30 years probably 50 years.
8 years is not long enough to even create working concepts that can be evaluated by the different areas of aircraft manufacturing.
Maybe the scientists in the laboratories will be close to being able to present concepts that can be discussed within the industry.
That will be about it.
The industry and politics have to move rapidly forward. I want to fly again.
Fun fact: The first jet engine ever operating had its first test runs on hydrogen since it was easier to get the combustion stable and Hans Papst von Ohain was on a tight schedule from his boss Ernst Heinkel to show a working engine.
Another very complex subject explained very well thank you very much.
Thank you for the kind words!
Getting our old airliners to do the trick is the thing, i think we in the west are doing a lot running before we can walk, thorium nuclear reactors produce little nuclear waste, its an abundant energy resource, if we build build the reactors. We can can make synthetic fuels bonding carbon to hydrogen atoms, so we can use our old airliners guilt free. We have been fiddling with hydrogen for decades, it is terribly difficult resource to transport and from watching this space over my life time, the rules of nature do not change, Hydrogen is difficult. that jet fuel, the regular fuel in our cars, the heating fuel, it works great, if we want to replace it, it needs to be as good. Airbus sound like they have been spending billions on a box ticking exercise, instead of lobbying governments in to making better power generation, or even spend those lost billions in to thorium reactors.
Bring back Broasted Chicken and SAF worries are solved. Ban the Air Fryer!
"New revolution.
They mean: New higher prices.
Switching all aviation to hydrogen or battery power is going to make flying much more expensive. That will push consumers to alternatives such as electric trains except for crossing oceans, etc..
Yep, that’s likely
Next to zero passenger rail in the US, electric or not.
Which is why it won’t happen.
Depends on the oil price compared to the hydrogen price.
@@conveyor2 China is held up as the gold standard in high speed passenger rail yet a significant part of the country has no service or is undeserved. Since 2015, interest payments have exceeded operating profits. If they charged enough for HSR to break even it would loose even more. They have reported profits in 2024 but there is no reason to trust this figure. More likely a CCP mandated PR adjustment.
Unfortunately nobody asks the most important question which is why spend huge amounts of money on “green” fuels in areas where replacing them completely would take decades and bring only minor reduction in CO2 emissions.
Just think about this : transportation is consuming about 20% of global energy. Cars account for about half of that 20%, with planes, trains and rail combined account for the other half.
Heating, cooling and industrial processes is where the real potential for CO2 emissions reduction is, but very little effort is applied there.
My money is on battery density improvements that allow for more efficient electric propulsion. Whatever replaces the status quo will need to be economically better off than the status quo in order to be successful. Building reusable rockets is now a no-brainer because someone has actually done it. No-brainer because of the economics. Prior to the success of SpaceX the whole idea was laughable. Not a government solution (space shuttle) but a private entity with vision and commitment were able to produce a system with great operational and therefore economic success. Will be the same for aviation as long as governments do not impede the progress too much. It's government involvement that has a new aircraft pipeline, drawing board to in service, at about 7 to 8 years... Love your content!
Batteries are very unlikely to get close. Any other transportation application is a good fit for batteries, but aircraft is not. On a long haul aircraft 1/3 of the takeoff mass is fuel. Anything falling short of the specific energy of jet fuel dooms it as a fuel. Batteries are an order of magnitude worse, that's a hell of a gap to make up.
First of all, we should invest heavily in new nuclear reactors which will reduce the cost of producing hydrogen significantly. What we are doing at this moment is terrible, making everything run on electricity or hydrogen (which takes electricity to make) and meanwhile just increase the amount of coals burned and planting solar fields and windmills everywhere. Which on their own have terrible effects on the climate and environment, and also increasing the amount of raw materials that are being used.
Politically motivated vs the real World.
In my opinion, the only way of seriously reducing the industry's emissions is mode shift away from aviation for short-haul journeys wherever possible. There is simply no getting around the fact that flying is one of the most carbon-intensive means of transport on earth.
Why not just exclude aviation from this artificial net zero date?
I know it makes the tree huggers feel warm and fuzzy, but why pin yourself into a corner unnecessarily?
Politicians have really screwed up with these arbitrary targets. It should be a 100+ year project, not multi decade.
The date isn't real. It's just a goal. Before we hit 2050, we'll just set a new date further into the future and no one will care.
Same for the auto industry. Do so and they would miss 100 year targets.
These companies sit on their backsides then act like their dog ate their R&D.
Production of SAF currently involves plenty of emissions. Making the whole process zero emissions means more than just the fuel. The farming vehicles, fertilisers, transport & production energy sources need to be green as well. I can't see it working unless we switch to E fuels, which I understand start with hydrogen anyway. So I honestly don't see any option beyond hydrogen
Same as with booze fuel.
I agree, the whole process needs to be looked at, but if we’re looking at the bigger picture, hydrogen is easier to make than synthetic fuels which first need hydrogen to be made... assuming we can make hydrogen at or near airports, so that its transportation isn't a factor. If we can't make it locally, then synthetic SAF starts to make more sense.
There seem to be a lot of comments saying it is "impossible" but I disagree. One day or the other kerosene has to be replaced and hydrogen is better in the long run compared to SAF, as SAF would put much more pressure on agricultural land and freshwater. Moreover the hydrogen supply chain is much easier in case of aviation than personal cars as it is much more concentrated and hydrogen can definitely be made on site at major airports to minimise losses. In the long run, the shipping industry is also trying to decarbonise and could likely be a big consumer of hydrogen, alongside steelmaking.
For now, like said in the video, development of both is needed to see how the big equation will work out.
Dealing with hydrogen is very energy consuming, and so it's way too complicated and expensive.
I think hydrogen powered aircraft is a dead end. It requires way too much weight on the aircraft and too much infrastructure. For ground transportation such as city buses and fleet delivery trucks, it makes far more sense.
Hydrogen is awesome ... as long as it's bound to carbon or nitrogen. Standalone it's just a major pain and unsuitable for anything but fusion in the stars.
As things stands now, hydrogen is just a method of oil industry to slow down battery developments and electrification of aviation.
Hydrogen is more likely than bio fuel because of availability. And I agree with Airbus that hydrogen engines will only be viable if there's infrastructure.
And infrastructure will only exist with nuclear energy. China is building a lot of nuclear energy power plants, unlike Europe and USA. Modern nuclear power reactors are safe (can't have Chernobyl style meltdowns).
Modern nuclear reactors are generally one thing: An incredibly expensive way to produce power. Even China's nuclear expansion is only a very small fraction of their energy expansion. Most is solar and wind. Nuclear is a technology chosen for national pride, military strategy and fall-cost fallacy, not because it is practical, fast or cost effective.
@@nanotyrannus5435 Most delays and cost of nuclear is just unnecessary red tape. The best build times and costs for nuclear readily compete with any other energy source, and a modern nuclear reactor will still be producing energy 60-100 years from now, when other sources will be being replaced in 20.
@@iskierka8399 Communist China ain't worried about Red Tape~
lol - that sounds so bizzare as I type these words!
Only 5% of China's electricity is generated by nuclear power. For contrast, the USA generates 18%. The reactors currently under construction in China will increase their percentage to only 7% to 8%.
7:21 "only 10% of the fuel that we need"
'Need'? Naw. Jets are inefficient, but direct drive nose props combined with huge and 1/10rpm counter-rotating shrouded necklace fans at the fuselage's largest point (just behind the flight deck) are wildly efficient when combined with a segregated combustion piston engine with a Displacement Adjuster.
Well said on all fronts. I think the most interesting idea is the dual fuel engine, will it achieve the net zero goal, no, but baby steps. In my opinion technology's that can lower carbon output while zero emissions options are in development are key to our future.
Yep, ideas that let us test the technology and its logistics are a key step, for sure
Can you please let me know what your setup is? Microphone, Lighting etc? Your videos are so perfect !
Nh3 stores at much lower pressures than H2. In internal combustion engines it has been shown to work. Are there any projects looking at this for aviation? Large low speed ships engines are being converted to work on NH3.
Europe demands 1% SAF added from 2025.😊
I think it’s a great way to have a fair competition and scale production.
That could be part of the solution, yes.
I must commend you on an excellent video with regard to hydrogen and SAF in aviation. The mention of the “steam / condensed H2O injection” for turbine engines is an excellent addition. You should also further mention that this type of engine design “can significantly reduce contrails” in addition to increasing efficiency and significantly lowering NOx production.
The biggest driver of transitioning to “clean fuels” is governmental regulations AND GOVERNMENTAL SUBSIDIES. California has been doing this for sometime now with their various subsidies programs that “effectively tax” conventional fuels and transfer this revenue to subsidize ev electricity, hydrogen and “some bio-fuels” (see LCFS Credits, etc … ) mostly without the the consumer recognizing what is happening.
You mentioned the term “GREEN HYDROGEN” multiple times AND that the approach to “GREEN & RENEWABLE FUELS” seems to be different depending upon if it is the EU or the US. Since the economics of CLEAN FUELS is effectively driven by governmental subsidies, it is very important to contrast how the US hydrogen subsidies are written into the euphemistically named “US Inflation Reduction Act” and other subsidies that have an impact on CLEAN HYDROGEN PRODUCTION (NOT GREEN HYDROGEN). This topic has been covered extensively in the more focused “power industry & hydrogen production” sites.
The upshot of this is that the details of the rules for the subsidies for the production of CLEAN HYDROGEN in the United States has been PURPOSELY written in away to STRONGLY INCENTIVIZE “CLEAN HYDROGEN” PRODUCTION OVER GREEN HYDROGEN PRODUCTION. Personally I would really like to understand how this SAUSAGE WAS MADE” at the governmental level.
To get the subsidies for GREEN HYDROGEN (electrolyzed from water hydrogen) has some very significant stringent requirements for the sourcing of the “renewable electricity”!! While the subsidies for CLEAN HYDROGEN are very generous and economically advantageous. Now that the IRS has “mostly finalized” how the rules will be implemented in the tax code, it appears that various GREEN vs CLEAN groups have intensify “Lobbied” the US Congress to get and outcome that is ANTI GREEN HYDROGEN.
MSc Engineering Physics with a thesis in optimizing hydrogen generation and storage and a pilot study on wing integrated LH2 tanks here. Sooo excited to hopefully be part of this developing industry in the future!
Intressant video, som alltid ✈️
Just build a jet turbine inside a hydrogen pulsejet. Take off by turbine, cruise by pulsejet.
6:58: graphic showing wrong legend.
US SAF usage vs. total fuel is the spoken word and contract. The graph shows US SAF vs overall SAF consumption
"Hydrogen could be used by other vehicles" And therein lies the problem. The oil industry does not want to see alternative fueled vehicles. They are constantly publishing lies about EVs because they don't want this cutting into ICE vehicle productions. The oil industry has a large lobby in both the US and Canada which is trying to discourage alternative fuel.
I think the biggest problem is (and will be) from preventing hydrogen leaking everywhere. It's not just the risk of fires and explosions (like when the plane is in a hangar), you also have the potential of hydrogen embrittlement of metals. Boeing already has bits and bobs falling off their aircrafts, and it took NASA and Boeing multiple launch attemps with SLS to get those hydrogen lines sealed enough to fuel up the rocket.
Worse hydrogen contributes to what we are trying to reduce. Green house warming .
That's a very bad example which has more to do with Boeing having a skill issue. Hydrogen powered rockets have been flying since the 70s (Saturn V). Yes it's not easy but it has been done.
Cyrogenic fuel is the other big issue imo. Like imagine dealing with wing icing when your wings contain liquid thats just a few degrees off absolute zero
Legendary Fokker Aircraft Company is reanimated. The Fokker Next Gen is a promising liquid hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and kerosene powered aircraft by the looks of it. Projected commercial entry into service is around 2035. It is a joined venture between Fokker and Dassault Systémes.
I think Airbus's estimate of their development schedule will be more reliable than mine. ;-)
Have they ever been late before?
Well… yeah, they have. And this is a VERY optimistic schedule
@@MentourNow hehe, I know, they're always late. Tongue was in cheek ;-)
Hydrogen engines sound awesome... at least until a passenger airliner turns into a massive ball of flame (again.) Then it probably won't seem like quite as good an idea.
I did not know that aboot contrails!
If contrails are part of climate change problem, could they also be partially causing this years hurricanes?
This is bad year for hurricanes
Piloting is my dream job but is it possible that in future there will be low pilots demands as airbus is working on auto aircraft
If you need low temperature for liquid hydrogen, then pressure would be your enemy. Could bleed air be run through a more advanced heat exchange? If you use H in underl
wing tanks as part of a combined fuel setup, then if something goes wrong with those tanks, could they be dropped? After all, the P-51 Mustang escorted bombers all the way to Berlin, then dropped fuel tanks while retaining sufficient fuel to escort the bombers all the way home. Now, I'm sure that the P-51 pilots didn't care who the drop tanks fell on, but a clever design might make hydrogen drop tanks pose no risk if dropped at sufficient altitudes.
I'm no engineer, but thought I'd pose the question(s) as it's fascinating stuff.
p.s. I signed up for the 737 type rating course. Only Petter could make a cold and dark start up so enthralling!! Best tip was to check you are actually in the correct aircraft before starting the myriad of checks and flows LOL
I work for the biggest technical gas companie in the world and they are putting billions into hydrogen and so are the competition 🙂
Hydrogen is the future 😎
Good to know! But can you tell us if they are working on making hydrogen as a fuel, or to make synthetic SAF?
@@MentourNow I'm pretty sure they will do the gas part and then sell it to SAF aso 🙂
Right now they are also trying to convert the metal and glass industry to hydrogen 👍🏻
I wonder if they could to a wet takeoff to increase thrust when necessary and take advantage of the high combustion temperatures. Though the cost would be carrying extra weight in the form of water
Surely this will be beyond near impossible to scale up?
I feel like the next motor breakthrough will come in the form of magnets and ionized mercury or some other liquid metal.
Too complicated, too expensive
Why not use super capacitors to store electricity
Yes, the US has fallen way behind in engine development and construction.
The Kuznetsov NK-144A is the greatest engine created.
12:00 Helium atoms have less volume, even though they have more mass. Also hydrogen tends to come in pairs.
But you can't burn helium.
Instead of trying to make aviation propulsion greener, it would be a lot easier to switch to an inherently more energy efficient mode of transportation like train or ship.
For some travel, yes. But railway networks are difficult to re-organize/re-task with seasonal demands, etc. Cost (construction and maintenance) is a problem, too.
Trains are vastly more efficient than air. Ships are vastly less efficient than air. Ships are hands down the worst way to move people when rating on fuel use and emissions.
Anything less than a fusion core is clearly chickening out… engage the hyper core and take off at Mach-10 :-)
love the videos, thank you! one thing im curious about, I've heard an issue with hydrogen cars is the volatility and explosivity of hydrogen compared to gasoline. Is this a similar concern with hydrogen powered aviation?
Like so many things this is not at all simple. The more you look, the more complex it becomes. Food production currently needs oil to fuel the farm machinery. They would also need to run on biodiesel, requiring more production and land. Hydrogen is mainly being produced from fossil fuels. Making it from green electricity is old tech but known. The problem is storage and transport. It does not liquify at practical temperatures so it is transported in very heavy pressure vessels. Sublimation onto other matricees is possible but again the weight penalty.
I believe the idea is to develop ways to produce hydrogen locally, at airports, to minimize transportation needs.
All this 2035, 2050, 2060 goal stuff basically tells me that, no, humanity broadly has no grasp whatsoever on the severity, magnitude, and time horizons of climate change. Yesterday was already way too late.
I agree. Too late with current thinking and ability. We will do better when it gets ugly. People will die. Then it will be a priority.
...until the pilot has a pod strike... 🤔😆😆😆
I see synthetic fuels carbon neutral being much more practical
As long as China isn't getting ahead on Jet engines
Nah, U make we copy. Just you wait…..
@@jsr8884 I love shanzhai culture, but jet engines have been their Achilles heel. That spy even got arrested for trying to steal the blade design
It will.
Scale! Up!
I am highly sceptical that hydrogen is practical fuel for aviation. Not only as far as the design of the aircraft, but the creation of the hydrogen, the storage of it in quantity and the issues around refuelling in a safe manner seem problematic to me.
Yeah, there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.
Thank you!
If hydrogen is going to work anywhere it will be on airplanes. But as long as they keep loosing 10% or more as leakage there may be no point in using it. Other than as a profit motive.
I do not understand an issue of Hydrogen production, because what you need for it is water an electricity, so potentially Airport should be able to spare some land to produce Hydrogen on site as they need to, as well as other vehicle users. What is needed for this is to make Hydrogen generators scalable and abandonly available, so if I got Hydrogen car, I should be able to purchase and install at home Hydrogen generator. As of storage the only way I see it is to standardize replaceable containers like our barbecue gas containers, so instead of waiting to fill in the container, we could just swap it with a new one, both for land transportation and aviation. Plus if SAF is coming from plants is actually a NET 0 because plane burns fuel emitting CO2 and then plant using sun and water convert this CO2 back onto the carbohydrates that could be used in planes again, so it would allow to capture excess carbon and hide it. Further more that could be used if scaled to decarbonize atmosphere,
Hydrogen leaks and makes the green house heating worse.
You can go twice as far on the same electricity if you don't use it to make hydrogen.
As long as they have to use actual cylinders for hydrogen storage it will be a very long time.
Easy. Pressurize the plane with hydrogen and provide oxygen masks for passengers. /s
"Hydrogen is the most abundant element in our universe".
It is, and we can do it. But that argument wouldn't work with Helium, the second most abundant element in our universe, because it ain't abundant down here. :-)
Helium also has the same energy density as a brick.
@@danharold3087E=MC2 ….😂 so yep. (I know that wasn’t your point)
Do contrails really have any contribution to the greenhouse effect? I highly doubt it, seems like a very negligible effect. But do you have any sources on this?
Petter, can I be candid for just a moment, please? I can't even CONCEIVE of enough "news stories" or "analyses" that would be enough to rid me of my admitted-pure-phobia of flying on a "21st-century Hindenburg" aircraft. No _ way....smh absolutely not.
Peter, iam watching your channel for 2½ years, u never disappoint us in entertaing and providing fantastic information.❤
Aww! I love to hear that! Thank you
So to point something out one of the easiest ways to produce hydrogen is off the back of a power plant and the us navy decided not to pursue hydrogen engines for its aircraft what does that say about it because it would absolutely increase capability if what was being said about hydrogen jets was 100% true
It’s interesting that the Navy decided against hydrogen, but perhaps they did it for reasons other than just the technology itself.
I would love to say hydrogen is the answer, but the main problem you got there for aviation is the cost of transportation, or the risk of leakage from say pipes running to an airport. but does seem to be more of an answer compared to electric engines. because batteries heat up as they get recharged, and the quicker you charge them between charges then the heat increases, and if in a confined space like a car battery pack then the batteries aren't able to cool down, so would mean aircraft being grounded for extended periods of time, whereas hydrogen doesn't have that floor, so I can see why they dropped the idea of making airplanes fly with electric engines, as aircraft sat on the ground are loosing money and 3 days for example waiting for the batteries to cool down means a lot of lost revenue for aircraft carriers, and don't think aircraft carriers would accept that as a viable option as would increase flight costs 4-5 times the current price.
There is a company doing excursion flight along the west coast of North America using either battery powered Beavers or Otters. The time to service and load the plane between flights is the same as when they were using the ICE engines. Small steps. Who know what battery technology we will have in 20 years
As for waiting 3 days to cool a battery! Guess someone there never heard of modern BMS with battery heating and cooling. Run the battery heating and cooling off ground power which charging. Silly rabbits.
Hydrogen is after all only a storage system. Producing hydrogen without emissions or competing with food production will be extremely different. It is arguably just another SAF with the same issues. Fuel cells can be efficient but making the hydrogen requires huge amounts of energy and probably emissions.
Then of course there are the huge issues of low density and high flammability.
I'm not holding my breath for it to arrive.....
When it comes to alternative fuels my hopes are with Porsche and its eFuel 🤞
They hijacked my green movement
U tuk mine?😂
Too bad you didn't talk about battery electric powered planes. HarbourAir is planning service with their electric seaplanes in 2026 or 2027, once the planes are registered for flight. Of course the trips are 40 to 60 minutes but it has to start somewhere. Larger planes will be able to have larger battery packs and energy density is increasing all of the time. They will be great for routes between places not far apart, eventually a couple of hours, and don't have high speed rail between them.
They should adopt dilitium like Star Trek ships... much more efficient!
Has anyone ever heard of the Hindenburg?
4:06 where do industrial levels of hydrogen come from?....... Fossil
How do we get it?..... More fossil
I think both options have an absolutely insane issues , I think we should use both methods 🤷♂️
Yes, because doing nothing won't be an option for long.
@@MentourNow I agree . In the US emissions with vehicles are a very hot topic as well. So this just adds on to that argument . Lol
I dont see either of those being good options.
For SAF being biofuels theres no way they can grow enough to supply the enormous demand. Plus it needs more energy for fertilizer and processing which hurts its efficiency even more
For hydrogen even NASA has difficulty dealing with it and even with the recent boom in private rocketry, i dont think any of the new companies chose to use it. Adding rocket science to things cant be good for the price.
A better option might be synthetic petroleum gasses, which are only mild cryogenics. Butane condenses at only -1C, much nicer than the -253C of hydrogen.
But until we reach net 0 theres not much point to it as the energy comes from fossil fuels anyway. They have time.
I need to learn to not check my phone when I hear that ding.