Hydrogen Powered Aircraft

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With pollution from Aircraft being a major contributor to global warming the possibilities of a clean aircraft taken there fist steps.

I do wonder though what is the ecological cost of producing hydrogen as an alternate fuel? i.e. how much power is needed to make Hydrogen


Cheers


Debaser

Google "Project Suntan". Its been tried before but perhaps not with todays technology.

This aircraft uses the hydrogen to power a fuel cell and then generate electrcity rather than as a combustable fuel. On a side note didn't SR71 run on liqued Methane?

Wait how will that work? Jet engine aircraft cant run without compressing air and igniting it with fuel, so how would a plane fly just with electricity?

Westpoint23 is kinda right.

I could see fuel cell technology replacing a combustion engine car or even a small piston engine aircraft like a cessna but how would you power an Airbus A380 with up to 800 passengers at nearly 600 mph simply on electricity? What type of electrical propulsion could do that? Hydrogen fuel cell aircraft of any major size are probably way, way off in the future.

fuel cell engines: the water you drink everyday can be converted into a high powered fuel. they separate the hyrogen from the water H2O. The hydrogen then is used as a fuel to power gas piston engines thru use of the fuel cell. fuel cell stations can be set up like gas stations where you get gas. this high powered fuel can run high powered generaters also for electricity purposses.

the fuel cell also would be able to fuel your home to heat it. there are many uses for this. unfortunately crude oil products are being used because we the world dont want to put everyone out of buisness to bankrupt ,( put us in a depression) over the fuel cell technology. how would this effect us. well if gas prices go up, the price of food or any other supplies for shipping goes up. in turn effects you because the buisnesses will charge you the consumer for the extra hike in gas prices. Imagine no gas. how would products get shipped, like food? Once the supermarkets run out of food how will you eat? How will you heat your home? who will ship us other products we use everyday. Its simple , simple chaos, without gas and they know it , so the gas prices will always go up.

If the powers just let be and slowly integrate the fuel cell there wont be any depressions if we use crude oil products and the new fuel cell technology, we can slowly integrate into a cleaner environment.

Where do you guys think all this hydrogen is going to come from? Separating hydrogen from water requires alot of electricity and most hydrogen right now is produced from natural gas. So its a zero sum game for the most part.

well if that were true. the engine i saw running would not exist, the mayor of chaska, mn would not exist . the newspaper article on the fact would not exist . chaska, MN, ENTEGRIS

Kaitus, no one disputes that you could run a car or TV or home furnace with hydrogen fuel cells, but the processes to produce the hydrogen is still very energy in-efficient in it's self.

Also, what electric propulsion system can match the performance of a modern pasenger jet's turbo fan engines?

Another possibility [also friendly to enviroment] is to burn hydrogen. In Russia, the hydrogen powered civil aircrafts are developing more than 25 years. For example see Tu-155.

Im pretty sure it uses electric motors and a prop. No where near as powerful as a modern engine. But it could be suitable for long haul cargo flights such as Fed Ex still get stuff there qucker than boat. The problem still remains though of creating useable Hydrogen efficiantly.

Cheers


Debaser

You would have to have a lot of hydrogen, and I'm not sure it would have enough power to be feasable right now. You would have to trade the envrionmentally friendly engine for cargo weight, and no airline, or cargo company would make that trade off.

unless oil runs out then the companies that didnt switch over to the new tech are left to mourn the past for there would be no future, thats when the companies that once got laughed at wave to the others.

The people who say that you cant do this or that are kinda like the same people that said "the car lol that wont ever replace the horse, not enough power or speed" or " lol a plane? you mean actually fly? what are you going to do flap your arms? LOL A man flying? What are you going to tell me next that in 1969 man will "fly" to the moon!?!?! LOLOL HAHA!"

It seems taht there is a rather large push to non oil based propulision systems, maybe in the near future all be riding on "Wilson" trains the largest producer of future trains thanks to some timing and a bit of luck, the Wilson Valley Systems was starting to tinker with an alterinitive feul source power for large truck when a vp suggested they research use for trains, a few years later they had a running prototype. The industry was laughing at the millions spent to create thier new toy but changed quickly when several reports about the worlds oil supply been only able to last another 3 years. The industry was rolling dumb founded by the news that thought knew would come but never thought it would be them to see it actually happen.

its sink or swim, not yet but soon.

I think it's more that the alternatives right now just aren't as efficient, or powerful as what's currently in use. If they had a hydrogen powered engine with the same, or similar power to a current jet engine then someone might be working on developing it. Right now, you'd be asking a company to sacrifice weight for power and that's going to run you right out of business against competetors using current jet, or even turboprop engines.

what about alcohol as a fuel instead of an oil based fuel. I believe Brazil runs a large number of its cars on "biohol" from distillling sugar cane.


Or would it be possible to use a diesal engine powering a prop but use vegatable oil as the fuel?

Originally posted by Debaser
what about alcohol as a fuel instead of an oil based fuel. I believe Brazil runs a large number of its cars on "biohol" from distillling sugar cane.


Or would it be possible to use a diesal engine powering a prop but use vegatable oil as the fuel?

Aircraft engines require a high grade of fuel, AvGas is a very high octane fuel used in general aviation aircraft. Jet fuel is even more highly refined. It's not practicle to power an aircraft with a diesel engine as the performance would suffer, the compression would be too low. The mixture of fuel and oil would be too rich and the aircraft couldn't operate at any reasonable altitude. You'd have much more luck with an electric powered engine than a diesel powered one. But the draw backs on electric engines have kept them out of general aviation aircraft. Even if you overcome the difficulties in reliable electric engines they could only power propeller driven aircraft. Props are very in-effecient and speeds of more then 500 kts are not usually possible. Jets come into play when speed and effeciency are factors.

Here is a couple links on how aircraft engines work, that might help some see why alternative fuels are far off in the distance for aircraft. The three types should be mentioned in these links, Jet, turbine, and piston.
www.geae.com...
www.aviation-museum.co.uk...
en.wikipedia.org...

A neat bit of info from Chevron believe it or not:
www.chevron.com...