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from the the-Hindenberg-steam-engine-crossbreed dept.
‘They said we were eccentrics’: the UK team developing clean aviation fuel:
“Anyone passing would have wondered why these people were staring at a pipe and whooping and laughing,” says Bobby Sethi, associate professor of gas turbine combustion at Cranfield University. “But we were almost certainly the only people in the world right then burning anything without producing CO2.”
[...] “We were able to demonstrate successful ignition and safe combustion of pure hydrogen and air at high temperature and pressure – producing no carbon emissions,” he says. Even if, he adds, the passing layperson would have only seen a pipe and some steam.
[...] Sethi recalls the scepticism of even five years ago, when he was pursuing funding for the hydrogen research project, known as Enable H2: “They said we were eccentrics. Now they’re queueing up to be on our advisory board.”
There are broadly three strands of work that the aviation industry is frantically investigating for an environmentally acceptable future. One is to create greener fuels for the large aircraft currently in service. A second is electric flight, which appears feasible for smaller aircraft and short-haul hops. And a third is hydrogen.
Two projects pioneered at Cranfield are using hydrogen in the form of fuel cells to power electric motors and propel planes: ZeroAvia flew a six-seater from here last September, and hopes to scale up the technology for commercial short-haul flights in the coming decades. Another, Project Fresson, is planning to use fuel cells for a green, short-hop passenger service around the Orkney islands as soon as 2023.
But the ambitions for direct combustion of hydrogen are on a bigger scale; whether a radically different plane and propulsion system could replace the modern, paraffin-fuelled passenger jet. Which is where Sethi’s research comes in.
Nothing yet in the sheds looks anything like a plane. The rig here is a unique facility, Sethi says, assembled to show that hydrogen can be clean, safe and efficient for aviation, and produce data showing the optimum temperature and pressure to minimise other harmful emissions such as nitrogen oxides or NOx, a family of highly poisonous gases.
Not the only scientists looking for controlled ignition of hydrogen. What's described still seems a long way away from something that produces thrust, which is the ultimate need. However, technology usually advances in small steps, and that's fine as long as there's an ultimately reachable goal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 21 2021, @06:33AM (1 child)
Even ignoring distribution costs, internal combustion engines are only around 20% efficient. Even including distribution costs, BEVs are about 40% efficient. Assuming that all hydrogen is produced by electrolysis the BEVs would only need half the increase in electricity production of hydrogen powered cars. That is more than a slight advantage.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:18PM
There's also fuel cells, which can be considerably more efficienct than ICEs. But yes, it seems like hydrogen is going to be less energy efficient than batteries unless some other major advance comes along.
*However* it's much greater potential energy density that could make it a better option is specific cases. Probably not for passenger cars, assuming enough batteries can be made. Different compromises for different use cases. Existing batteries are physically incapable of storing energy densely enough for long-haul aircraft, shipping, trucking, etc., so it makes no sense to compare against them in those applications.
Existing batteries also still require a whole lot of elements whose production is going to be a major bottleneck in dramatically expanding the EV and solar/wind energy storage markets. Hydrogen doesn't share those resource bottlenecks, and can still be a huge improvement over fossils fuels.