WHY Won’t US Aviation Agree to THIS!?

34 thoughts on “WHY Won’t US Aviation Agree to THIS!?”

1. Remove your personal information from the web at https://joindeleteme.com/MENTOURNOW. Use code MENTOURNOW for 20% off.

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2. Does Airbus really need to choose?

   I mean, they could do both, as in Hydrogen propulsion on jets and fuel cells on turboprops for instance

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3. One issue with fuel cells is their main 'waste' product is water. Which is not a big deal at room temperature but is at low temperatures, like cruising altitudes it freezes. It's a solvable problem (take some of the electricity produced and use it to heat the areas where water exists) but that lowers the overall efficiency. The other problem, as mentioned, is the small size of hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen leaks have been an ongoing problem in the space industry (witness the problems Nasa's SLS had a couple of years back and several shuttle launch delays). That's part of the reason SpaceX is using liquid methane for Starship, methane molecules are bigger and are easier to contain. Using hydrogen to produce SAF makes sense because you can put the H2 generating plant at the same facility that's producing the liquid fuel. The distances involved for transporting the H2 are trivial compared to getting it to and on board aircraft directly. Seems like there's fewer problems to solve with SAF than direct hydrogen. And then there's the fueling time for H2, a problem Toyota found when experimenting with their hydrogen powered cars in CA. It took much longer to fill up an H2 tank than the energy equivalent in gasoline.

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4. I doubt the need for wing mounted cylindrical tanks. We add cylinders to existing plane fuselages all the time. Airbus and Boeing have multiple models that have been made by adding length to the fuselage, so why not add length that takes the form of a hydrogen tank?

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5. Having governments attempt to force private industry to develop new technologies is always an iffy idea…..and when there is so much room to just grift government money by using the right buzzwords it seems like a terrible idea.

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6. They should scale down aviation for trips over land and create other alternatives like direct railway connections.

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7. "Hydrogen is the most abundant element in our universe"
   Really, this is a dumb argument.
   Are you going to take your spaceship to get some H2 from an interstellar cloud million light-years from here ?
   Most of the time in earth, hydrogen is strongly bound to oxygen. It takes a lot of energy to separate those folks.
   Please, a little bit of sense and engineering here would be appreciated.

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8. We can connect via Zurich or London and Airbus Airplanes wont fly to US anymore.

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9. The airlines all operate on a razor thin profit margin. How realistic are these alternative concepts considering there isn't a real need to do this?

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10. Hydrogen as a fuel is kind of like fusion power….. it is just a few years away and has been for years. There have been engines that can run on hydrogen around for years…. we went to the moon using it after all. notice however, that the space flight industry around the world seems to have taken a big step back from hydrogen and is moving wholesale to methane (those that are not sticking with rp1 which is refined jet A) . There are some reasons for this: Almost all hydrogen in production today is NOT zero carbon, rather creates more carbon than just using kerosene in the first place. Problem two is storage…. yes very cold, yes very large and generally very heavy too. All of these things are anti-aircraft. Even though the fuel does have some weight which will reduce through the flight, the fuel vessel is heavy enough to almost take this reduction out of the equation. This means every landing is pretty much at max gross weight. Kinda makes electric look better all the time.

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11. The US fossil fuel lobby may have something to do with this. Also MAGA isolationism.

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12. Even if we only go from 0.1% to 1% in 20 years, it's better than no advancement at all. The efficiency of a Model T compared to a modern combustion engine car began with small but gradual increases.

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13. One of my hobbies is studying how society worked in past periods. In particular I have studied thousands of pages of early 20th century censuses. One big industry back then was converting used cooking oil into lighting oil for kerosene/coal oil lamps.

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14. H2O is the obvious answer.

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15. The ONLY reason that Airbus and Boeing are even looking at hydrogen is because the scientific ILLITERATES who get elected to government lack the good sense to understand that hydrogen power simply does not make sense from an engineer8ng point 9f view.

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16. SAF based on biomass will never solve the ploblem for aviation. That is just an unreliable dream. The ability to source sustainable biomass globally is just to limited. And the competition for that biomass is just to big. Note among others that the global shipping industry has exactly the same goal as global aviation, and their demand from shipping is even bigger than the global airline industry. Pure e-fuels such as hydrogen, ammonia, e-methanol or e-diesel or e-kerosene is the only real way forward. And the cost for these fuel will be significantely more expensive than present fuels. And e-diesel/e-kerosene is the most costly e-fuel.

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17. Was anyone else’s immediate thought “Hindenburg” or just me

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18. I think a compatible engine to the latest 2035 body aircraft will be the first step. It will be as an engine option. I assume the Hydrogen tank will be a standard cargo item or two. They will continue both the electric and normal engines.
    If in the future we solve the battery issue (even if with something like the 2035 Rolls-Royce SMR) they can drop the Hydrogen part otherwise they can keep the electric version to short flights with quick recharging possibilities. The hydrogen burner version will be needed to the military, so they cannot stop it.

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19. much better to replace as many short haul flights with High Speed Rail

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20. Besides being bulky and leaky, hydrogen suffers from "hydrogen embrittlement". The hydrogen gets into the walls of their storage tanks and will make the metal brittle. The aviation industry will need to budget in frequently replacing the hydrogen tanks and lines on aircraft.

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21. it is also worth remembering that in the EU the percentage of SAF use may be higher, because the overall fuel consumption is much lower, because there are MUCH fewer short flights for just a dozen or so passengers popular in the US

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22. I'd like to know, how big a difference will the CO2 free flying make, compared to a carbon based electric power plant. Some countries build them still, so would the change in aviation fuel really make a difference?

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23. Why does the Hindenburg pop into my mind when an air vehicle contains hydrogen?

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24. That's hard to believe it's even possible but I don't doubt they got a ton of money and time to do crazy research if it works on sure they be the ones to know

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25. We hope Ursula and Biden will be the test pilots.

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26. Which is why, as sad of a plain nerd this can make me, degrowth of air traffic will be necessary.

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27. Saving the planet from a fake problem that is not happening. How do you know when you're done?

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28. All fuel choices throughout history are based on three criteria:
    Availability
    Portability
    Energy Density

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29. Why mess with aircraft fuel types? Major changes like this will almost certainly have some problems, maybe introducing accidents. Focus on the #1 sources of greenhouse gases vs a politically charged issue.

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30. I'm kinda a simple person. SAF is much like "bio diesel". Still has carbon, still makes CO2. Bio diesel is great if you have to assume the intrinsic cost of production is born by the fried foods. Thus the cost of bio fuel is the methanol and lye needed to convert it to trans-esterfied oil (bio diesel) . If you have to pay for the intrinsic cost of production eg: Fuel used to grow, harvest and modify the feed stock the costs in money and total energy embodied make most not a true saving in either environmental or money.

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31. I am SOOOO tired of reporters like you talking about what COULD happen. Same as todays reporters headlining questions. (What if this?) Pettr. Report back when it is OP. Also. Hydrogen. Seriously. Hindenburgh materielle. DUH. NO one ever hear of Helium? Don't ask. REPORT. I have unsubscribed until you smarten up.

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32. Summary: Everyone involved wants someone else to invest their money first before they commit. Subtext: Everyone knows that China and India will continue to increase their emissions by more than the entire aviation industry every year, so we are all wasting our time and resources, and neither passengers nor shareholders nor taxpayers are willing to pay the enormous costs.

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33. If the goal is less CO2, how is the hydrogen created at scale? I.E. does it use less resources overall and not consolidated to a small number of providers for industry providers for security.

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34. Hydrogen has been a promising fuel/engine alternative for… 20 years now? Probably longer, really.

    The price of an engine powered by hydrogen fuel cells has decreased rather dramatically in the past 20 years, but it's still pretty insanely high when compared to a standard internal combustion engine with the same power output. We're still a long way from it being fully viable in my (non-expert) opinion.

    Is hydrogen the next fuel source? I don't know. It would certainly require a hell of a lot more investments and subsidies than I think any governments are willing to put into it – particularly as many are still pretending that electric vehicles are a viable replacement for the internal combustion engine. Hell, governments are still subsidizing fossil fuels when we're long past the point of that industry needing such subsidies!

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