Image credit: Airbus
Nonsensical climate virtue signalling takes to the skies. Hydrogen production is expensive, and operating two fuelling systems at airports also sounds costly. ‘Zero emission’ only applies if hydrogen is produced without burning any fuels – as the EU recently told the Netherlands – so the burden on renewables to power entire countries, plus all their vehicles, will have to extend to aircraft as well? Pie in the sky springs to mind.
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Aerospace giant Airbus has announced plans to build zero-emission aircraft using hydrogen power technology.
On Monday (21 September), the firm revealed three concept designs that are on the table and is targeting a 2035 entry-into-service, reports Euractiv.
Airbus is working on three designs for aircraft that could be zero-emission, which range from a conventional turbofan jet with space for 200 passengers to a ‘blended wing’ concept that is a significant departure from the current generation of planes.
“These concepts will help us explore and mature the design and layout of the world’s first climate-neutral, zero-emission commercial aircraft, which we aim to put into service by 2035,” said CEO Guillaume Faury.
“The transition to hydrogen, as the primary power source for these concept planes, will require decisive action from the entire aviation ecosystem. Together with the support from government and industrial partners we can rise up to this challenge to scale-up renewable energy and hydrogen for the sustainable future of the aviation industry,” said Faury.
The turbofan design would have a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles – roughly the same as London-Tel Aviv – using hydrogen stored in tanks incorporated into the design of the plane.
Airbus will also look into a propeller-powered plane capable of carrying 100 passengers and with half the range of the turbofan, making it “a perfect option for short-haul trips”, the company said in a statement.
The most radical departure though will be a blended wing design, which would substantially increase the amount of space available for fuel storage and offer different passenger layouts.
“The exceptionally wide fuselage opens up multiple options for hydrogen storage and distribution, and for cabin layout,” Airbus explained.
Full report here.
I cannot understand the logic in this.
Burning hydrogen produces water vapour – a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.
Therefore, let’s change our engines to produce an even greater greenhouse effect.
Dumb and Dumber!
Climate models that try to incorporate supposed greenhouse gas effects invariably predict too much warming, i.e. more than anything that actually occurs.
Yet more centralized, group-think, nonsense.
Why not make them all green, sustainable and recyclable e.g. Planes that are made of knitted hemp held together with plant based adhesives, with window reformed from recycled cellophane, innovative waste wood and rock semi-automatic clockwork avionics, wired up with ‘green copper’, etc., etc.
The only real low ‘carbon’ aircraft that came out of Europe also has ‘blended wings’ …
I suppose they had to do it just to show the Soros backed EU rulers how ‘green’ they are and so keep the money rolling.
This has to be another crackpot pie in the sky, literally, idea. So they want to pump water vapour, an excellent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere at high altitude without considering what it will do to weather patterns – it might even see the start of the next ice age with all the sunlight being reflected back into space.
Why is it that non of these people with these stupid ideas ever considers the total consequences of their ideas. It is almost as if they can’t see anything beyond their noses and nothing that is outside their groupthink group.
Tom – so the question is: do flying pigs get their power from hydrogen, or batteries? 😎
Batteries are heavy and hydrogen is light — so let’s go with hydrogen.
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Ivan – re. groupthink, it’s probably the ‘nobody gets fired for buying IBM’ thing — except that IBM computers could be made to do useful things, unlike greenhouse gas theories and the policies they’ve led to.
Aye, dumb n dummer etc . … and what happened to the A380, then? another job creation scheme gone nowhere…. Maybe like the electric cars – plenty made but found there was no take-up( runway size etc ) In other words sounds great but not thought through – ‘cos they didn’t have the EXPERIENCE
saighdear says: … and what happened to the A380, then?
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They forgot to ask Ryanair if they wanted it 😎
Thanks for posting these hydrogen ideas, Tallbloke. Some of them may be worth pursuing.
How to add even more CO2 to the atmosphere, add 20% to the price of the fuel, lessen the efficiency of your engines and add water to the atmosphere as well.
You couldn’t make it up, but they did.
Can someone bring back some real Engineers?
Pigs have jet exhaust take-off assist
Pigs can fly with hydrogen – suspended from an H2 filled balloon, and might come down cooked ready to serve.
But seriously, the H2 atom gives 14 times the heat of Carbon; the flame is very hot. It is interesting to know how the turbine is made to handle that. It is a big issue with kerosene for the hot parts. Temp control is a big issue. (and with whom is airbus working?)
Properties of hydrogen aircraft
The larger fuselage size causes more skin friction drag and wave drag. On the other hand, hydrogen is about one-third of the weight of kerosene jet-fuel for the same amount of energy. This means that for the same range and performance (ignoring the effect of volume), the hydrogen aircraft would have about one-third of the fuel weight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-powered_aircraft#Properties_of_hydrogen_aircraft
Meanwhile an electric vehicle financial ‘bubble’ is building up, or so it seems…
Throw a briefcase full of cash in Silicon Valley today and you will hit an EV company, many racing towards an early public float.
http://www.thegwpf.com/electric-car-fraud-allegations-rocks-green-lobby/
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As we looked at recently with Nikola and its truck ‘in motion’ … downhill only …
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2020/09/15/is-zero-emission-truck-maker-nikola-the-new-tesla-or-just-hot-air/
Investors are getting nervous, if they weren’t so already. Did General Motors just drop $2 bn on its Nikola bet?
oldbrew:
It’s downhill all the way with electric trucks (saves on electricity AND no CO2).
Perhaps the same idea would ‘work’ with electric planes? A big elastic catapult to get it into the air, then a short flight downwards.
A big elastic catapult to get it into the air, then a short flight downwards.
Ah, a glider. The electric part must be the catapult 😆
By my reckoning, feeding a long haul flight with hydrogen for TRUE zero emissions would require access to a nuclear hydrogen generating plant at each destination. Is this really a sensible way forward? Wind/solar/biomass would require too great an area of land use to be practical.
Hmm – first some physics – hydrogen is a colourless, odorless, low energy-density gas that is highly inflammable, burns with an (almost) invisible flame and can be ignited over a wide range of gas/air mixtures by an electrical discharge (spark) energy of less than 20 micro Joules (about as low as it gets on the hazardous gases chart). Aircraft are full of electrically powered devices (including several transmitters) which could generate such a spark. Hydrogen molecules are so small that they migrate through almost every material, especially under pressure. Hydrogen has to be compressed to about 10,000 psi at very low temperatures (-252 Celsius) to liquefy it to reduce its volume for workable transport and storage, at which which temperature metal pipes used to transport it become brittle.
Whereas, jet fuel (kerosene) is stored at ambient temperature and has none of the above disadvantages, as well as being far less expensive (for the foreseeable future) and having about 3 times the energy density of liquid hydrogen.
All things considered, I think that we will be waiting many years before hydrogen-powered passenger aircraft will even have been designed, let alone are flying.