ZeroAvia's Val Miftakhov makes a compelling case for hydrogen aviation

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...rogen-aviation

ZeroAvia's Val Miftakhov makes a compelling case for hydrogen
aviation
By Loz Blain
June 15, 2020

One of the two ZeroAvia prototype six-seater Piper Malibu airplanes
ZeroAvia
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...tion#gallery:1
View 2 Images

Everybody but the oil companies wants electric aviation to take off as
quickly as possible, if you'll pardon the pun. The aviation industry
is a huge polluter, and electric aircraft will not only be cleaner,
but significantly cheaper in terms of energy and maintenance. The
problem is batteries, whose terrible energy density is simply not up
to any practical aeronautical purpose at this stage, and there's no
guarantee that the vast amounts of research going on in the battery
sector will change that any time soon.

Many companies are now starting to view hydrogen as the answer.
Batteries are still a much better solution for 99 percent of car usage
https://newatlas.com/is-hydrogen-the...rt-needs/8236/
, but hydrogen's outstanding energy density makes it a much better
proposition for anything that flies, and you don't need to build a
massive distribution network to commence medium-range hydrogen
flights. Indeed, if you can get electricity to an airport, you can
generate your hydrogen right there on site.

We caught up with Val Miftakhov, founder and CEO of ZeroAvia, a
company that's betting heavy on hydrogen in the aviation space. Where
some are focused on the short-range eVTOL air taxi market
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/evtol-...arket-players/
, ZeroAvia is getting started on mid-range regional flights by
developing and retro-fitting fuel cell powertrains to small, 10-20
seat passenger planes. The company says it can reduce costs by as much
as 50 percent on this kind of operation.

If you're in doubt that hydrogen aviation is going to be a thing,
Miftakhov makes an excellent case for it in the lightly edited
transcript below. He's not competing with batteries, he's competing
with jet fuel, and the numbers look like they might really stack up in
the very near future. We'll let Miftakhov take it from here in his own
words.

New Atlas: Hi Val, where are you speaking to us from?

Miftakhov: I'm in Cranfield, UK, we have a location here at a small
airport belonging to Cranfield University, one of the best aerospace
schools in Europe. Cranfield Aerospace Solutions is one of the
partners for us and we're doing some of our testing here.

Can you sum up how ZeroAvia came to be and where you're at right now?

My background is in physics, management consulting, Google, Uber, then
I started my previous company in the electric vehicle space,
eMotorWerks – we became the largest vehicle-to-grid integration
company out there. That company was acquired two years ago and that's
when I started ZeroAvia.

I'm a pilot myself, a private pilot flying airplanes and helicopters,
so it's a personal passion for me. Having spent a number of years in
the zero-emissions transport space, it made a lot of sense to focus on
aviation, look at what sustainability in aviation might look like and
how we can bring it to the world.

We thought early on about how we can address the large existing
segments of aviation. There are a lot of companies focusing on urban
air mobility, flying cars and so forth. We thought that these are all
great projects, interesting technologically, but they wouldn't do
anything to our emissions footprint in the existing aviation segment.
If you're flying from Melbourne to Sydney, that's not going to be
helped by any of the flying car companies today.

That was the motivation: how we can start bringing those segments into
the zero emissions world. Once you do the math, and start trying to
understand what technologies you can use to get there, pretty quickly
you'll zoom in on hydrogen-fuel-cell-based powertrains. There's
nothing else that really works that well.

Batteries are too heavy, biofuels cannot scale, hybrids with turbine
engines don't really make sense – you're increasing the complexity of
the powertrain for relatively limited gain on longer trips.

What remains are hydrogen-based propulsion methods. One is
hydrogen-electric, and that's what we're doing with fuel cells.
Another is synthetic fuel, which uses the same turbines as you have in
aircraft today, but produces fuel from hydrogen into synthetic liquid
jet fuel. The latter is more expensive, requires more energy and still
has all the disadvantages of liquid fuel burning: particulate
emissions, nitrogen oxides, turbine engine maintenance and so forth.

We think that hydrogen-electric is going to be the dominant force over
time in clean aviation, and that's why we're doing it.

So where are you at with it?

We started at the end of 2017. In 2018, we put the initial team
together and started ground testing of our powertrain. It's a
California company, with a UK subsidiary. In February 2019, in the US,
we put the first version of our powertrain in an aircraft, a six-seat,
two-ton Piper Malibu M330.
ZeroAvia testing max speed and formation flight

We got initial FAA certification on that prototype, and got it up in
the air in the spring of last year. Started flight testing, learned a
lot. Earlier this year, we built the second prototype here in the UK.
The UK operation is supported partially by government grants here from
the Aerospace Technology Institute.

Now I'm here in Cranfield kicking off flight testing for the second
prototype.

Do you see any specific barriers to certification for
hydrogen-electric powertrains?

Well, the main barrier really is the lack of standards for these new
powertrains. If you build a new piston engine or a new turbine engine,
you have a testing book. You can show up to the certification
authorities and they'll pull out the book and say right, these are the
tests we need to run, this is how long we need to run your engine,
under these parameters, and everything is described. When you design
and test the engine before the certification, you'll know what to
expect.

From a technology and physics perspective, there are no physical
barriers.

Val Miftakhov

In the case of new engine types, and that includes battery-electric
and any others that aren't traditional engines, and definitely
hydrogen-electric, you don't have a book. So first and foremost, you
need to work with the regulators to write the book. That's what we're
doing now already with the FAA in the US and the CAA here in the UK,
so that in 12-18 months, we can show up with a system that we think
can be certified, and there will be a book against which it can be
tested.

So this is the main barrier. From a technology and physics
perspective, there are no physical barriers.

I was talking to the HyPoint turbo air-cooled fuel cell
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/hypoin...tric-aircraft/
guys a couple of weeks ago. There seems to be a perception out there
that a hydrogen powerplant is inherently dangerous in an aviation
context. Can you speak to that?

Yeah, the HyPoint guys are great. We're partnering with them on a
couple of things. But this is a frequently asked question for sure. A
lot of times people bring up the Hindenburg from 80 years ago. But
technology has moved on quite a bit.

Today, on the ground, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are a real thing.
Since about five years ago, Toyota started pushing hydrogen cars onto
the market to regular consumers, with fueling and everything. So
there's now maybe 15,000 hydrogen vehicles in circulation on the
ground worldwide, plus maybe 30-35,000 material-handling equipment.
Not in the air, but the technology, the storage and utilization of
hydrogen in those vehicles is similar to what you have in the air.
Fuel cell tech with compressed hydrogen storage that you produce
electricity out of.

In our conversations with the FAA and CAA, hydrogen is something they
find to be more conceptually similar to the other chemical fuels,
compared to batteries. In the hydrogen-based powertrain, you have fuel
storage where fuel is kept separate from the oxidizer – the air – at
all times, except for a very small amount that flows in the fuel cell.
That's versus batteries; what makes people worry is that the fuel and
oxidizer are all in one package, impossible to separate if something
goes wrong. So you have these runaway effects in large-scale,
high-energy-density batteries that are very hard to contain. Once a
battery fire starts, for example, it's very difficult to stop.

So it's conceptually quite different and, if anything, the
certification authorities are unclear about how to deal with batteries
as opposed to chemical-based fuels like hydrogen.

Then you look at things like ignition temperature of hydrogen – much
higher than jet fuel. It's practically impossible to pool hydrogen in
one place, or maintain a concentration in the open air. It's very
lightweight, it escapes very quickly. Jet fuel and aviation gasoline
have vapors that are really heavy, and they concentrate around the
leaked fuel. Those can ignite much more easily.

So there are some fundamentals for hydrogen that are actually better
than jet fuel from a safety perspective. Of course, we'll need to do
the right amount of testing and so forth. But we're pretty optimistic.

So obviously, liquid hydrogen or compressed hydrogen can have a far
greater energy density than a lithium battery at this point. But how
does it compare, energy-density-wise, to something like jet fuel?

On the energy density per kilogram, it's very good. From a chemical
energy or primary energy perspective, hydrogen is about three times
better. Every kilogram of fuel contains three times more energy.

You get additional benefits from using it in a fuel cell, because
small internal combustion engines are not efficient. You have typical
efficiency of 25-30 percent for a piston engine or small turbine
engine. In a fuel cell, you can have a 60-percent efficiency, and the
entire powertrain can be about twice as efficient as compared to a
classic internal combustion engine.

So now you have a six times advantage in terms of the propulsion you
can derive from one kilogram of fuel.

The challenge with hydrogen is to store that fuel. A classic way to
store it is with compressed gas cylinders. The ones that we're using,
the tank technology allows us to achieve about 10-11 percent mass
fraction, mass fraction being what percentage of weight of your tank
system is actually fuel. So only 10 percent of our total tank weight
is fuel. In order to store one kilogram of fuel, we need 10 kilograms
of fuel system.

That's an immediate factor of 10 reduction to our energy density per
kilogram, so your six times advantage takes a 10 times disadvantage,
and it works out to about half the utility of the jet fuel for the
same mass of fuel system if you're using compressed hydrogen.

That highlights where the challenge really is at the system level with
hydrogen. It's a very energy-efficient, energy-dense fuel, but
containing it and storing it onboard is a real challenge.

That's why people think about various liquid hydrogen technologies
that allow you to get mass fractions above 30 percent, three times
better. Aerospace tanks used in rockets, for example, have mass
fractions of 70-90 percent, but would, shall we say, require some
modifications before you take them into the aircraft (laughs).

Even at a 30-percent mass fraction, which is relatively achievable in
liquid hydrogen storage, you'd have the utility of a hydrogen system
higher than a jet fuel system on a per-kilogram basis.

... there's significantly more hydrogen in one liter of water than
in one liter of liquid hydrogen.

Val Miftakhov

The only remaining challenge that you'll have at that stage is volume.
Hydrogen, even in liquid form, is not very dense in terms of how many
kilograms you can store in a unit of volume. Your tanks need to get
bigger.

The fun fact, I guess, that's sometimes amusing, is that there's
significantly more hydrogen in one liter of water than in one liter of
liquid hydrogen. It's so lightweight that even when you liquefy it,
it's just 80 grams per liter. Twelve times less density than a liter
of water, and about nine times less than jet fuel.

And if you introduce that factor, you've got to build a larger
airframe, which then adds to the weight again?

That's right. So the way we're approaching it initially is to say
we're just going to take a hit on the max range of the vehicle. All
the benefits of zero emissions and lower costs of fuel and maintenance
are great, and we're going to deliver them with about half of the max
range of a fossil fuel vehicle.

Our first targets in terms of aircraft are 10-20-seat aircraft, for
example Cessna Caravans, Twin Otters, single- or twin-engine aircraft
carrying 10-20 people. Those airframes are typically designed for
about 1,000-mile (1,609-km) endurance on jet fuel. We'll be able to
deliver a range of about 500 miles (805 km) in a 10-20 passenger
aircraft using compressed hydrogen storage.

And that, we think we can put into commercial utilization within about
three years. So yeah, the point is, there's a way to deliver a very
meaningful utility to the market with this type of powertrain in a
very short timeframe. That's what we're really excited about. And it
can scale beyond those initial aircraft and ranges through utilization
of liquid hydrogen and more efficient fuel cells.

OK. So your initial plan is to buy regular aircraft and retrofit them,
or will you design your own airframes?

We're an engine company, so we'll produce powertrains or engines that
could go into various types of aircraft. Initially probably into
existing aircraft on a retrofit basis.

And from the start, some will go to new aircraft, say as people build
new Cessna airplanes and send them to FedEx, for example – they're a
big customer for Textron or Cessna, and flies possibly the largest
fleet of small aircraft worldwide, for transporting packages into
remote locations. That's a great example where we could go and
re-power the fleet, so to speak, and as new aircraft get purchased, we
could also power them.

Over time, especially as we move into the larger airframes, we expect
the manufacturers to begin to optimize their airframes for this new
propulsion type, just as happened with jet engines mid-last century.
Initially it was applied to airframes that looked the same as the
propeller planes, but they soon began morphing the aircraft to
increase the advantages of that type of propulsion.

We're going to see the same thing here. We'll start to see higher
volume airframes, some manufacturers are already experimenting with
some things. Airbus MAVERIC
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/airbus...aft-singapore/
, if you've seen an announcement a couple of months ago, they're doing
some flight testing on a couple of small prototypes with a wing-body
design that has a lot of volume. Great for storage of a fuel like
this.

We're going to see more distributed propulsion, which is easy to do
with electric powertrains, since you can separate a large number of
motors around and not suffer the efficiency and complexity penalties
you have trying to do the same with turbine engines. Small turbines
are less efficient than big ones, so every time you break one large
engine down into two smaller ones, you lose efficiency, and you take a
double hit when you have to do twice the maintenance. That's one
reason why you're seeing the retirement of a lot of the four-engine
aircraft like the 747, in favor of planes with two large engines.

With electric, you don't have that problem, you can scale very easily
up and down, and aerodynamically distributed propulsion makes a lot of
sense. You can make a much more efficient aircraft by placing more
propulsive elements around the airframe.

So that's going to happen over time. But initially, you take the
existing types of aircraft in the installed base, and you start
re-powering them.

Initially propeller planes?

Initially, yes.

What other options are there down the track apart from props and
ducted fans? You can only get up to a certain speed with a propeller,
yeah?

It's true. That's an interesting question. The semantics is a big
tricky, but maybe you can say you have three types of propulsive
element types. Propellers, where all thrust comes from a propeller.
Then you have jet engines of various types, where they thrust comes
mostly from the jet exhaust – those are not speed constrained, but not
very efficient.

Then there's turbofan engines, which are kind of a hybrid in between.
Part of the thrust coming from the jet exhaust, part of the thrust
coming from the rotating propulsor, which is structured as a fan to
work better in high speed environments. But still subsonic. That's
what exists today.

We probably won't see supersonic electrified any time soon.

Val Miftakhov

To go supersonic, you almost always need relatively low bypass
engines; you have high exhaust velocity, so a significant proportion
of the exhaust needs to be composed out of the jet exhaust high-speed
air. You can blend some of the low speed fan-pushed air, but not a
huge fraction.

For the initial time for sure, we're going to see similar approaches
in electric. We probably won't see supersonic electrified any time
soon.

Will this technology be able to go as fast as an airliner? They get
around at 900-plus km/h (559-plus mph), how fast can a hydrogen plane
be in comparison?

You can definitely mate the electric motors to a fan like you'd find
in a typical turbofan engine on a classic 737 or whatever. It's just a
matter of what propulsor you use, instead of a propeller you can use a
fan and rotate that.

With time, maybe within 10-15 years, we can get there. We, meaning
ZeroAvia as a company. We can get to a turbofan replacement engine
that can be fitted into something like a 737 and propel it to similar
speeds to what they do today.

From a physics perspective, the energy density is in a good place, the
storage is possible with liquid hydrogen, to match or exceed the
energy content of jet fuel. All those things are possible given enough
engineering time.

So definitely subsonic, but we see hydrogen matching the utility of
the jet-fuel aircraft over time. For smaller aircraft, it'll be
sooner, so the first product to production is three years out.
Probably five or six years, we'll see similar ranges to jet fuel in
small aircraft.

In 15 years, let's say, we're going to see similar ranges in larger
aircraft. These are all relatively small amounts of time in the
aviation world, where they typical lifespan of a vehicle is 30 years.
If you sell a brand new 737 today, it'll be just retiring in 2050. So
on that timeframe, within a generation, within that 30 years, you can
give all forms of air travel a hydrogen-electric option.

It's a matter of how quickly it gets adopted. That depends on
government policies, cost of technology, cost of fuel, prevalence of
fuel and all those things. But it's technologically possible over that
period of time to have solutions for all segments.

Do you have a sense, taking the FedEx model you raised earlier, of
what sort of cost savings an operator might enjoy based on the reduced
maintenance, cheaper fuel, all that sort of thing?

This is a bit of a moving target, as the cost of green hydrogen is
reducing quite quickly. The learning curve is just starting on green
hydrogen electrolysis, it's getting cheaper. Energy is already pretty
cheap from the renewable assets.

So already, three years out from our first commercial offering, we're
easily seeing hydrogen at equivalent jet fuel prices around US$1.50
per gallon. I talk in terms of equivalent prices, because when I talk
about it as $2.50 per kilogram, nobody has any reference. So we
convert it into the equivalent jet fuel price, meaning it gives the
same amount of mobility. Passenger kilometers. How much jet fuel you'd
burn, and that converts to the price of hydrogen.

So $1.50, which is lower than what we've seen over the last few years
for even large operators like FedEx and major airlines. Of course,
now, during COVID-19, with the oil prices a little on the low side,
the jet fuel will be a little bit cheaper.

But already it gives you an idea that hydrogen is quite competitive on
the fuel price even three years out. And when you talk about 10-15
years out, when electrolysis equipment and renewable energy is at
lower cost than today, you can see for smaller operators, easily a
50-70 percent advantage. For larger operators, maybe a 20-40 percent
advantage.

One of the interesting benefits on top of that is stability of
pricing. The volatility of jet fuel price is a big problem for the
aviation industry in general, and people have all kinds of hedging
schemes that cost money. With this, you won't have to do that. If
you're sourcing your fuel from electricity, then there's potentially
multiple sources, and renewable electricity is relatively reliable
over time. That's an interesting advantage there.

On the maintenance side, it's an electric powertrain – electric motors
and energy distribution – which is much more reliable in general than
internal combustion engines.

You see that in cars; what happens is you just stop going to the
mechanic if you have an EV. You can have it for three years and never
have to do anything with it. That's not a good look for internal
combustion. There are very few moving parts and everything just works,
and it's kind of similar for the aviation side of electric
powertrains.

We see at least a 30-50 percent improvement in the times to overhaul,
and even bigger improvements for smaller engines. The overhauls would
be cheaper than for today's jet engines, because the main thing you'd
be worrying about is the hydrogen fuel cell stack, which is only a
part of the powertrain, and can be made in a relatively modular way so
you can diagnose and replace it pretty easily when you need it, which
would again be over a longer timeframe.

What about the fueling side?

Obviously it's a new kind of fuel, so we need to build or orchestrate
the fueling infrastructure around it. There's a lot of comparison that
people make to the ground-based hydrogen fueling infrastructure for
cars, which had a lot of challenges being built out across the world.

It'll be a much easier situation here with aircraft. You have
relatively few locations you need to enable worldwide: the airports,
right? You know where they are, and the energy consumption is quite
concentrated. That's a very different situation compared to ground
transport, where everything is highly distributed. You need to place a
lot of low-volume stations, which kills your economics.

Here, in aviation, you can start with a limited number of locations,
work with initial operators, and scale from there. It's a much more
scalable way to introduce a new fuel, and it works quite well even at
low scale. So it's a very different proposition to ground mobility,
and I think it'll play to the advantage of hydrogen aviation.

Assuming some of these sites will be electrolyzing water into hydrogen
on site at an airport, how quick is that process? Would you need large
storage facilities on site, or could you almost electrolyze straight
into the aircraft's fuel tanks?

There's an optimal amount of storage, depending on your energy source.
Typically, you'd have at least a couple of days' worth of storage
on-site, or near-site, and you'd dispense from there. There are
economic reasons for that too; you ideally want to minimize the
electrolyzer size, as that's directly related to capital expense, so
you'd provide a 24/7 electricity source and have the electrolyzer
running near its max setting full time.

The way you provide that 24/7 renewable power source is you have some
battery storage on site, so it might allow you to take your standard
five or six hours of solar per day and spread it out over a 24-hour
period, and do that every day. So there are some system optimization
algorithms we're working on with our fueling partners to minimize the
end cost of the fuel. That's how you get to the really good numbers
that compete with jet fuel.
ZeroAvia would put the entire hydrogen fueling system right there on
the grounds of the airport, placing solar panels in the empty fields
between runways, using a battery as a buffer, and running an
electrolyzing system full-time to generate hydrogen and store it in
tanks ready for fueling
ZeroAvia would put the entire hydrogen fueling system right there on
the grounds of the airport, placing solar panels in the empty fields
between runways, using a battery as a buffer, and running an
electrolyzing system full-time to generate hydrogen and store it in
tanks ready for fuelingZeroAvia

Solar on site at an airport? You'd need a lot of space.

We've done a few back-of-the-envelope calculations for a lot of
different airports, and we've found for the vast majority of the
south-western United States (and probably the same for Australia
actually), you can re-power all regional flights with the electrolysis
generated from solar energy from solar panels located only within
airport property.

There's a large amount of unused space at airports, and if you covered
it with solar panels, the energy would be sufficient to re-power all
regional flights out of those airports – regional meaning sub-500 mile
flights. So there's already an amount of space available. Now, will
you be able to put that large of a solar array on the airport
property, near the runways and all that? That's a question. But the
space is there.

I guess I always figured that space was there for a reason.

Well, you can't build anything tall there. It has to be on the ground.
No structures, pretty much, in that space. But solar panels lying on
the ground would clear the height requirements. Then you'd have things
like reflections off the solar panels that you'd need to deal with.
But from a height perspective, you wouldn't have a problem.

And you need to have access of course, to runways and taxi ways, so
you'd need to figure that out, but I think that's doable. But if
anything, solar panels are probably the easiest thing to place on the
ground at an airport.

Generally, the reason that airports have that much space on the ground
is that they typically have multiple runways, which are at angles to
one another due to the wind directions. Take SFO International, that
has four runways, two pairs at almost 90 degrees to one another,
because the wind direction changes. You always want to be taking off
or landing your aircraft into the wind, so they switch runways when
the wind changes.

So if the runways are two miles long, then you have a 2x2-mile
surface, give or take. That's the main reason why the surface
requirements are so high for large airports. And even smaller
airports, a lot of times, have multiple runways at angles, and they
have a lot of space.

The airport we're using for our flight testing in the US, Hollister,
has two runways at about a 70-degree angle, and even that small
airport takes up a lot of space. That space can be used, and probably
will be used over time, for some useful purpose. We hope it'll be
generating the electricity for hydrogen planes.

We thank Val Miftakhov for taking the time to speak to us.

Source: ZeroAvia https://www.zeroavia.com/
Tags
AircraftHydrogen-poweredHydrogen AviationZeroAviaInterviews

Loz Blain
Loz Blain
Loz has been one of our most versatile contributors since 2007.
Joining the team as a motorcycle specialist, he has since covered
everything from medical technology to aeronautics, music gear and
historical artefacts. Since 2010 he's branched out into photography,
video and audio production.
20 comments
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Towerman June 15, 2020 01:48 AM
Wow Loz ! You truly are bringing us the inside information with the
Man himself. What a Great read this is ! Well done Miftakhov, It
really opens one's understanding about where Hydrogen technology is
going, and it's Very Exciting to say the least ! ! Great interview
thanks Loz ! (pssst...Miftakhov need to go have a chat with Skai,
perhaps they can partner up, it would be perfect ! )
FB36 June 15, 2020 06:33 AM
IMHO Hydrogen should/must NEVER be used for any air/land/sea vehicles!
Why? Because it is no ordinary fuel! Hydrogen fuel tank leaks/raptures
(which would happen commonly/frequently if hydrogen fuel goes into
wide scale usage) does NOT cause fires (like other fuels do) but cause
explosions (like bombs)! "biofuels cannot scale": IMHO they can scale
enough, for sure, if they needed/used only for aircraft & ships (NOT
for land vehicles, which can run OK using only electricity)!
guzmanchinky June 15, 2020 07:42 AM
I agree with Towerman, but I also agree with FB36, I would have to see
how a highly pressurized Hydrogen tank does in a severe crash, as in
tanks ripped open in the presence of an ignition source. I know jet
fuel burns too, but Hydrogen under immense pressure seems far more
energy intensive over a much shorter time...
alexD June 15, 2020 07:58 AM
FB36... if people thought like you do, we would still be traveling by
horses and ox carts.... or was gasoline and all oil derivates an
ordinary fuel and someone said "oh, let's built combustion engines and
use all that ordinary fuel we have no use for"... "but hey, let's go
ahead and make turbines for that ordinary fuel too" - you forget that
everything has a start, a development and stabilizing phase. Hydrogen
is already quite widely used, but not in aviation. It will get there
eventually like gas engines did, but it needs to get into the segment
so the kinks can be worked out.
nick101 June 15, 2020 08:40 AM
Well, it still takes way more energy to compress hydrogen to a useful
level, than the energy you'd get out of it. Physics is funny that way.
Tris June 15, 2020 09:36 AM
@nick101 & fb36, Hydrogen is by far much safer than gasoline fossil
fuels plus it can come from the limitless solar energy including from
the rain, and wind while it cleaning recycles H2o, forever. Read the
research beyond fossil fuel's obvious reports in an effort to not die
too quickly.
mike03 June 15, 2020 10:23 AM
@ Tris, Pressurized hydrogen is far more dangerous than gasoline of
jet fuel. The speed at which the flame front in a hydrogen/air mixture
moves if far faster and the ignition energy needed to ignite it is far
lower. What that boils down to is that in the event of a significant
leak jet fuel needs a lot of heat to get ignited and then it will
still burn more slowly releasing it's energy over a longer time
period. Hydrogen needs only the slightest spark and will burn almost
instantaneously, i.e. explosion.
bwana4swahili June 15, 2020 10:40 AM
I like the idea of hydrogen fuel cells for future vehicle power;
however, pushing them as zero-emission is B.S. The hydrogen has to be
generated using power and all power generation has an environmental
impact regardless whether it is from fossil fuels, nuclear, solar,
wind, biomass, hydro, etc. The real question is whether the tech has
less environmental impact than other approaches!?
guzmanchinky June 15, 2020 11:25 AM
Tris, how do you know Hydrogen under immense pressure is safer than
gasoline? I'm a pilot and of course we fear post crash fires, but
unless I'm wrong, puncturing a PRESSURE vessel in the presence of an
ignition source would be FAR more explosive and violent. I do agree
that the H tank would probably be built much stronger, but doesn't
that add a lot of weight as well, and since it's under pressure all
the fittings need to be extra beefy as well, I would think. I fully
agree aviation will be electric someday, by the way...
paleochocolate June 15, 2020 02:32 PM
Hydrogen makes absolute sense for larger machines like Aircraft, ships
and heavy equipment.
Laszlo KRUPPA June 15, 2020 04:04 PM
Great article! Thank you. Hydrogen will solve some major problems of
electric aviation – this is very sure. One addition about the other
end of the powertrain. Fans and propellers. Today, compared to
batteries, much fewer is spoken about them. Still they (fans and
propellers) are another potential gamechanger for the future of the
electric aviation. Their new generation is going to make a huge double
impact. On the one hand there is a 30-50% (and above!) efficiency
reserve in our present fans and propellers that can be accessed and
turned into flight performance. On the other hand, today’s fans and
propellers are limiting the top cruising speed of the aircraft.
Classic propeller propulsion would work nicely up to 0.8 Mach. Still
you can hardly find any propeller driven planes in that category. It
is because the take-off and climb performance of such planes would be
so poor that nobody would buy them. Turboprops and turbofans have been
filling the gap between 5-600km/h and 1 Mach. Their efficiency tops in
the region of 80% but great parts of the flying cycle are done at an
efficiency level of 60% and below. (That is why “The aviation industry
is a huge polluter…” - is said in the beginning of the article.) A new
technology – called Stallfree technology - promises both a great
increase of efficiency and a massive improvement of the flight
envelope. Stallfree technology can be a great partner in the success
of the electric aviation! http://stallfreepropellers.com/
Towerman June 15, 2020 11:01 PM
It amazes me to see how many of the commenters did not fully read and
comprehend the article. Especially @FB36. Hydrogen does not pool like
jet fuel vapors, it escapes much quicker, that in itself is very
significant, and Miftakhov's approach is different, obviously he is
going to test his product before it gets certified, his approach is
taking the realization of Hydrogen Fuel into everyday life for
aviation as a power source many steps further, and i fully believe he
will pull this off ! Let the man build it, test it, and show all the
nay sayers WRONG ! I believe in it fully !
martinwinlow June 15, 2020 11:57 PM
"... batteries, whose terrible energy density is simply not up to any
practical aeronautical purpose at this stage". Utter coblers. Clearly
you have not heard of Pipestrel's Alpha Electro trainer let alone all
the drones there are out there. If you meant
*multi-passenger-carrying* aircraft, then why not say so? Just more
rubbish sloppy journalism bordering on fake news. And then there's the
emerging resurgence of lighter than air aircraft which are a next to
perfect mate for electric drive eg Hybrid Air Vehicles ' 'Flying Bum',
the Airlander 10/40.
martinwinlow June 16, 2020 12:04 AM
Oh, no! Here we go again!.. H2 - it hasn't even managed to get
anywhere on the ground, let alone in the air - despite 50 years and
billions being spent on it. Educate yourselves as to why:
http://planetforlife.com/h2/index.html
martinwinlow June 16, 2020 12:08 AM
(Further to my comment "... batteries, whose terrible energy density
is simply not up to any practical aeronautical purpose at this
stage.") There's even a story on another electric Pipistrel aircraft 2
down from this one regarding the 'Velis'!
Tris June 16, 2020 06:16 AM
@mike03, @guzmanchinky, First you need to separate the danger posed by
any compressed gas and the danger posed by the hydrogen itself. Oxygen
welding tanks have been known to take out the sides of buildings when
the valves have been knocked off. Any pressurized gas is dangerous.
But I was referring to the properties of hydrogen itself and did not
mention compressed hydrogen. But you are correct that hydrogen is far
easier to ignite than jet fuel. But that is only part of the story.
The flammability range of jet fuel is 1.4% to 7.6% while hydrogen is
4% to 75%. You are correct about the speed of the flame front in that
an explosive mixture is defined as a fuel mixture whose flame front
can produce a shock wave and jet fuel cannot. The explosive range for
hydrogen 19% to 59% so hydrogen explosions are definitely possible.
But in a confined space like a fuel tank jet fuel also explodes as we
have seen in countless movies.
Tris June 16, 2020 06:24 AM
@mike03, @guzmanchinky, The real reason why hydrogen is so much safer
than jet fuel or gasoline is because hydrogen is lighter than air and
burns upward causing less damage and injury to people. Jet fuel and
gasoline vapors are heavier than air and collect on the ground. While
Dennis Miller jokes about mini-Hindenburgs, according to Wikipedia
writing about the death toll in the Hindenburg disaster, "Despite the
sheer ferocity of the colossal fire, many of the crew members and
passengers survived, but the majority of them were severely burned. Of
the 36 passengers and 61 crewmen, 13 passengers and 22 aircrewmen[sic]
died." But it has also been reported that the majority of the burns
suffered by the victims were due to the diesel fuel used by the
Hindenburg's engines burning on the ground. Wikipedia ends its
discussion about the death toll of the Hindenburg explosion saying,
"Hydrogen fires are less destructive to immediate surroundings than
gasoline explosions because of the buoyancy of H2, which causes the
heat of combustion to be released upwards more than circumferentially
as the leaked mass ascends in the atmosphere; hydrogen fires are more
survivable than fires of gasoline or wood. The hydrogen in the
Hindenburg burned out within about 90 seconds."
Titus June 16, 2020 02:32 PM
What about MOF in the hydrogen tank, how does that influence the
explosion risk?
Gabriel DeVault June 17, 2020 09:28 AM
This does not have to be a contentious topic. Let's establish a few
facts. Hydrogen cars and other industry have been around for quite a
while with a good safety record. So please, no fear mongering here.
And anyone concerned about H2 safety should be even more concerned
about battery safety. Beyond the safety, batteries are fine for short
range, but don't yet have the energy density for anything beyond "air
taxis" an probably won't for the next decade, at least... H2 let's us
"bridge the gap" between battery electric and traditional Fossil
Fuels. Beyond the pure performance and emissions, there is a
significant upside to the economics as well. Current batteries are
only good for a few thousand cycles, which would necessitate
replacement more than once a year in a typical air taxi application.
Throwing away a battery every year is not cheap or good for the
environment. My mantra has been "Battery when you can, H2 when you
must"
Tris June 17, 2020 12:01 PM
@Titus, The problem with all hydrogen-absorbing materials is that they
are made up of much heavier molecules. A recent report was touting 14%
hydrogen storage by weight. If your aircraft has a 1,000-mile range on
liquid hydrogen it will have a 140-mile range using this MOF. It seems
like a dead-end to me. @Gabriel good observations and I will add
Hydrogen Fuel Cells will be the means to air travel post fossil fuels,
and will possibly only overtaken by Warm Fusion if that ever happens.

Larry Dighera writes:

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...rogen-aviation

ZeroAvia's Val Miftakhov makes a compelling case for hydrogen
aviation
By Loz Blain
June 15, 2020

One of the two ZeroAvia prototype six-seater Piper Malibu airplanes
ZeroAvia
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...tion#gallery:1
View 2 Images

Everybody but the oil companies wants electric aviation to take off as
quickly as possible, if you'll pardon the pun. The aviation industry
is a huge polluter, and electric aircraft will not only be cleaner,
but significantly cheaper in terms of energy and maintenance. The
problem is batteries, whose terrible energy density is simply not up
to any practical aeronautical purpose at this stage, and there's no
guarantee that the vast amounts of research going on in the battery
sector will change that any time soon.

If:

1. They create a hydrogen infrastructure that exists across the US at
most GA airports
2. They create high performance 300+ HP engines running on Hydrogen
3. 1 for 1 replacement of fuel tanks to IMPROVE the plane's performance
4. Conduct this upgrade at a cost similar to a replacement engine

Sign me up. At this point, hydrogen fuel cells in cars have failed
hard.

Meanwhile, electric powerplants on planes are in the infancy. My
bellanca super viking can take me comfortably 1000nm on full tanks.

--
Daniel

Visit me at: gopher://gcpp.world

On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:56:07 -0700, Daniel wrote:

Larry Dighera writes:

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...rogen-aviation

ZeroAvia's Val Miftakhov makes a compelling case for hydrogen
aviation
By Loz Blain
June 15, 2020

One of the two ZeroAvia prototype six-seater Piper Malibu airplanes
ZeroAvia
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...tion#gallery:1
View 2 Images

Everybody but the oil companies wants electric aviation to take off as
quickly as possible, if you'll pardon the pun. The aviation industry
is a huge polluter, and electric aircraft will not only be cleaner,
but significantly cheaper in terms of energy and maintenance. The
problem is batteries, whose terrible energy density is simply not up
to any practical aeronautical purpose at this stage, and there's no
guarantee that the vast amounts of research going on in the battery
sector will change that any time soon.

If:

1. They create a hydrogen infrastructure that exists across the US at
most GA airports
2. They create high performance 300+ HP engines running on Hydrogen
3. 1 for 1 replacement of fuel tanks to IMPROVE the plane's performance
4. Conduct this upgrade at a cost similar to a replacement engine

Sign me up. At this point, hydrogen fuel cells in cars have failed
hard.


That's because current fuel-cell automobiles use dirty gaseous H2 fuel
derived from petroleum. Liquid H2 liberated from water by hydrolysis
has the potential to power aircraft efficiently and cleanly either
burned in your (300-hp) Continental IO-520-K or (300-hp) Lycoming
IO-540-K1E5.

But there are is new fuel-cell technology on the horizon:
https://hypoint.us/


Meanwhile, electric powerplants on planes are in the infancy. My
bellanca super viking can take me comfortably 1000nm on full tanks.

Daniel,


Thank you for your comment. But, it would appear that you are doing
the equivalent of comparing a ability of a newborn baby to that of a
full grown adult. Consider this:

"Your analysis fails to consider liquid H2's ~3X better energy
density compared to gasoline. Further, cryo-coolers are able to
condense liquid H2 at atmospheric pressure with very modest power
requirements (~100W). Liquid H2 overcomes the high-pressure
storage requirement for H2 gas. So, a membrane hydrolyzer powered
from a photo-voltaic array employing a cryo-cooler
https://trc.nist.gov/cryogenics/cryocoolers.html could produce
"green" liquid H2 fuel for fuel-cell use rather inexpensively. To
wit, the US Navy flew a liquid H2 powered aircraft for three days:

https://www.nrl.navy.mil/lasr/sites/...31-4608%5D.pdf
And then there is this possible option at improving hydrolysis
efficiency:
http://rexresearch.com/microwavehydr...ehydrogen.html

If you object to liquid H2 storage, here's a novel technology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytg23mDd1a4
Former Area 51 employee Bob Lazar is interviewed by Visual Effects
Supervisor Jon Farhat. In this video, they discuss what H1
(hydrogen) is, how it is created and it’s potential in the
automotive sector. In addition, Bob show us he has his own
particle accelerator which he uses to create 6Li (lithium-6) H
(hydride) for H1 storage.

6Li is used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. It is also
one of the key components in making a thermal-nuclear weapon, but
by itself is not dangerous. Because of crony capitalism and
ignorant politicians, the US government has banned 6Li and the
buying and selling of it. However, the making of 6Li H yourself
with your own particle accelerator IS NOT!

Bob uses solar panels to power an H1 generator which produces H1
from H2O (water). For the safe and efficient storage of the
dangerous H1, 6Li H must be created with a particle accelerator
and used for H1 storage in high compression tanks. With the H1
generator, H1 is forced into the 6Li H tanks through the syringe
compression process. FYI, „hydrogen vehicles” are also known as
„fuel cell” vehicles.

Bob is the owner of United Nuclear Scientific and
Switch2Hydrogen. Jon is the owner of ODEMAX and director of this
video."

All that said, I envy you buzzing around in your luxuriant Viking even
if it is made of wood. Have fun, and inspect for dry-rot. :-)

Best regards,
Larry Dighera

Larry Dighera wrote:

snip

That's because current fuel-cell automobiles use dirty gaseous H2 fuel
derived from petroleum. Liquid H2 liberated from water by hydrolysis
has the potential to power aircraft efficiently and cleanly either
burned in your (300-hp) Continental IO-520-K or (300-hp) Lycoming
IO-540-K1E5.

Hydrogen is hydrogen.

About 90% of hydrogen production comes from steam reforming of natural gas,
which involves the removal of hydrogen from hydrocarbons at very high
temperatures.

Burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine produces huge
amounts of oxides of nitrogen, i.e. smog, far in execess of
anybodys pollution laws, assuming the engine can withstand
the much higher flame temperature of hydrogen.

snip

"Your analysis fails to consider liquid H2's ~3X better energy
density compared to gasoline. Further, cryo-coolers are able to
condense liquid H2 at atmospheric pressure with very modest power
requirements (~100W). Liquid H2 overcomes the high-pressure
storage requirement for H2 gas.

Most airports don't even offer MOGAS and you think they are going
to install huge solar arrays and cryo-coolers to produce liquid
hydrogen?


snip

6Li is used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. It is also
one of the key components in making a thermal-nuclear weapon, but
by itself is not dangerous. Because of crony capitalism and
ignorant politicians, the US government has banned 6Li and the
buying and selling of it. However, the making of 6Li H yourself
with your own particle accelerator IS NOT!

Right, airports that won't sell MOGAS are going to install particle
accelerators to produce a key component for nuclear weapons?

Utter fantasy.

snip remaining

--
Jim Pennino

Dear Jim,

I was hoping you might have some input on this.

My comments in-line below:


On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 17:37:38 -0000, wrote:

Larry Dighera wrote:

snip

That's because current fuel-cell automobiles use dirty gaseous H2 fuel
derived from petroleum. Liquid H2 liberated from water by hydrolysis
has the potential to power aircraft efficiently and cleanly either
burned in your (300-hp) Continental IO-520-K or (300-hp) Lycoming
IO-540-K1E5.

Hydrogen is hydrogen.


It's difficult to argue with that sagacious logic. However,
electrolysis produces hydrogen from water without producing CO2 or
other pollutants.


About 90% of hydrogen production comes from steam reforming of natural gas,
which involves the removal of hydrogen from hydrocarbons at very high
temperatures.


https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b06197
"Conventional hydrogen production via steam methane reforming (SMR) is
energy intensive, coproduces carbon dioxide, and emits air
pollutants."

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcell...-gas-reforming
https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcell...ologies-office
"Hydrogen can be produced using a number of different processes.
Thermochemical processes use heat and chemical reactions to release
hydrogen from organic materials such as fossil fuels and biomass.
Water (H2O) can be split into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) using
electrolysis or solar energy. Microorganisms such as bacteria and
algae can produce hydrogen through biological processes."

https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcell...-gas-reforming
"Today, 95% of the hydrogen produced in the United States is made by
natural gas reforming in large central plants."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming
"Steam methane reforming is a method for producing syngas (hydrogen
and carbon monoxide) by reaction of hydrocarbons with water. Commonly
natural gas is the feedstock.

For every tonne of hydrogen produced this way, 9 tonnes of CO2 are
also produced." [Source:
https://ing.dk/artikel/vinder-videns...gifraas-230864
https://translate.google.com/transla...gifraas-230864
] (Since Trump's attack on the EPA has removed publicly available
pollution data, it was necessary to seek pollution information from a
foreign source.)

So loosely speaking, the steam methane reforming process produces
"dirty" H2 that pollutes our environment. Of course it's the process
that's dirty, not the H2. (Actually, the H2 from electrolysis is
about as chemically pure as it is possible to produce) I apologize
for my less than accurate statement, but the damage to the environment
caused by reforming is still the same.


Burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine produces huge
amounts of oxides of nitrogen, i.e. smog, far in execess of
anybodys pollution laws, assuming the engine can withstand
the much higher flame temperature of hydrogen.


Yeah, I wasn't really serious about burning H2 in IC engines. I put a
:-) in my statement, but apparently it was lost during editing.


snip

"Your analysis fails to consider liquid H2's ~3X better energy
density compared to gasoline. Further, cryo-coolers are able to
condense liquid H2 at atmospheric pressure with very modest power
requirements (~100W). Liquid H2 overcomes the high-pressure
storage requirement for H2 gas.

Most airports don't even offer MOGAS and you think they are going
to install huge solar arrays and cryo-coolers to produce liquid
hydrogen?


Perhaps.

To be totally candid, I envision photo-voltaic powered liquid H2
production through electrolysis employing cryo-cooling technology for
use in fuel-cell electric generation to power electric motors, be they
attached to wheels on the road, or propellers in the air. I'm
certainly no engineer, but the limited research I've done appears to
support this being feasible, with the possibility of 6Li use for
longer term H2 storage.


snip

6Li is used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. It is also
one of the key components in making a thermal-nuclear weapon, but
by itself is not dangerous. Because of crony capitalism and
ignorant politicians, the US government has banned 6Li and the
buying and selling of it. However, the making of 6Li H yourself
with your own particle accelerator IS NOT!

Right, airports that won't sell MOGAS are going to install particle
accelerators to produce a key component for nuclear weapons?


If you had watched the video, you'd be aware that it is the legal
system that necessitates the use of a particle accelerator to produce
6Li, as its sale is currently prohibited because it can be a
constituent of fission technology. If that law were to be rescinded,
an on-site accelerator wouldn't be necessary to create 6Li.


Utter fantasy.


Agreed, it's a fantastic idea. I would have said the same of Musk's
chances of success at making electric automobiles wildly popular
worldwide, or his putting men in space at a cost far below the
historical price, or the chances of millions of people throughout the
world simultaneously protesting against police killing, instead of
protecting, the citizens they have sworn to protect and serve.

So, I'm firmly on the side of the dreamers to lead us into the future.

I would dearly love to see your engineering analysis of the vision I
candidly provided above, with references to the sources of your
supporting data and the underling mathematics. I realize this would
be a lot of pro-bono labor, but you appear to poses the requisite
interest. (And you're of the same nationality of Galileo who once
nearly lost his life during the inquisition for publicly espousing the
truths he had discovered.)


snip remaining

Larry Dighera wrote:

Dear Jim,

I was hoping you might have some input on this.

My comments in-line below:


On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 17:37:38 -0000, wrote:

Larry Dighera wrote:

snip

That's because current fuel-cell automobiles use dirty gaseous H2 fuel
derived from petroleum. Liquid H2 liberated from water by hydrolysis
has the potential to power aircraft efficiently and cleanly either
burned in your (300-hp) Continental IO-520-K or (300-hp) Lycoming
IO-540-K1E5.

Hydrogen is hydrogen.


It's difficult to argue with that sagacious logic. However,
electrolysis produces hydrogen from water without producing CO2 or
other pollutants.

By saying "dirty gaseous H2" you were trying to say H2 produced
without other emissions or byproducts.

Why didn't you just say that instead of the silly "dirty gaseous H2"?

snip long ass quote

Burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine produces huge
amounts of oxides of nitrogen, i.e. smog, far in execess of
anybodys pollution laws, assuming the engine can withstand
the much higher flame temperature of hydrogen.


Yeah, I wasn't really serious about burning H2 in IC engines. I put a
:-) in my statement, but apparently it was lost during editing.

Yeah, sure.


snip

"Your analysis fails to consider liquid H2's ~3X better energy
density compared to gasoline. Further, cryo-coolers are able to
condense liquid H2 at atmospheric pressure with very modest power
requirements (~100W). Liquid H2 overcomes the high-pressure
storage requirement for H2 gas.

Most airports don't even offer MOGAS and you think they are going
to install huge solar arrays and cryo-coolers to produce liquid
hydrogen?


Perhaps.

Yeah, sure, when hell freezes over and hippopotamus fly.

To be totally candid, I envision photo-voltaic powered liquid H2
production through electrolysis employing cryo-cooling technology for
use in fuel-cell electric generation to power electric motors, be they
attached to wheels on the road, or propellers in the air. I'm
certainly no engineer, but the limited research I've done appears to
support this being feasible, with the possibility of 6Li use for
longer term H2 storage.

As a real engineer, I call this an utter pipe dream.

Lots of things are "feasible", but that does not mean they are
economic, practical or even legal.

It is feasible to make a motor from a birthday candle, a permanet
magnet, and a Zippo lighter flint, but you will not find such
motors powering anything other than a physics class demonstration.


snip

6Li is used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. It is also
one of the key components in making a thermal-nuclear weapon, but
by itself is not dangerous. Because of crony capitalism and
ignorant politicians, the US government has banned 6Li and the
buying and selling of it. However, the making of 6Li H yourself
with your own particle accelerator IS NOT!

Right, airports that won't sell MOGAS are going to install particle
accelerators to produce a key component for nuclear weapons?


If you had watched the video, you'd be aware that it is the legal
system that necessitates the use of a particle accelerator to produce
6Li, as its sale is currently prohibited because it can be a
constituent of fission technology. If that law were to be rescinded,
an on-site accelerator wouldn't be necessary to create 6Li.

You are mixing apples and oranges.

ALL the methods of producing 6Li are complex and expensive but
the main point is that 6Li is a key compenent to make nuclear
weapons and all the major powers are opposed to it's production.

Utter fantasy.


Agreed, it's a fantastic idea.

Fantastic as in pixie dust, flying bull frogs, unicorns,
and pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

snip

So, I'm firmly on the side of the dreamers to lead us into the future.

I'm sure that is going to happen, all while riding unicorns.

I would dearly love to see your engineering analysis

My detailed engineering analysis can be had for $150/hr.

My back of the envelope analysis is that there are far too many
engineering, safety, economic, and international political issues
over making thermonuclear bomb components for this to EVER happen.

--
Jim Pennino

Larry Dighera wrote:

snip

6Li is used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently.

If you really think lithium hydride is safe and efficient,
you need to read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydride

snip remaining


--
Jim Pennino

Larry Dighera wrote:

snip

Former Area 51 employee Bob Lazar is interviewed by Visual Effects

Bob Lazar is a kook with criminal convictions for felony pandering
and violating the Federal Hazardous Substances Act for shipping
restricted chemicals across state lines.

His supposed employment at a Nellis Air Force Base subsidiary has also
been discredited by skeptics, as well as by the United States Air Force
itself.

Universities from which he claims to hold degrees show no record of him,
and supposed former workplaces have disavowed him.

He is also a conspiracy theorist.

There is mo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar

snip remaining

--
Jim Pennino

Larry Dighera writes:

On Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:56:07 -0700, Daniel wrote:

Larry Dighera writes:

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...rogen-aviation

ZeroAvia's Val Miftakhov makes a compelling case for hydrogen
aviation
By Loz Blain
June 15, 2020

One of the two ZeroAvia prototype six-seater Piper Malibu airplanes
ZeroAvia
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interv...tion#gallery:1
View 2 Images

Everybody but the oil companies wants electric aviation to take off as
quickly as possible, if you'll pardon the pun. The aviation industry
is a huge polluter, and electric aircraft will not only be cleaner,
but significantly cheaper in terms of energy and maintenance. The
problem is batteries, whose terrible energy density is simply not up
to any practical aeronautical purpose at this stage, and there's no
guarantee that the vast amounts of research going on in the battery
sector will change that any time soon.

If:

1. They create a hydrogen infrastructure that exists across the US at
most GA airports
2. They create high performance 300+ HP engines running on Hydrogen
3. 1 for 1 replacement of fuel tanks to IMPROVE the plane's performance
4. Conduct this upgrade at a cost similar to a replacement engine

Sign me up. At this point, hydrogen fuel cells in cars have failed
hard.


That's because current fuel-cell automobiles use dirty gaseous H2 fuel
derived from petroleum. Liquid H2 liberated from water by hydrolysis
has the potential to power aircraft efficiently and cleanly either
burned in your (300-hp) Continental IO-520-K or (300-hp) Lycoming
IO-540-K1E5.

But there are is new fuel-cell technology on the horizon:
https://hypoint.us/


Meanwhile, electric powerplants on planes are in the infancy. My
bellanca super viking can take me comfortably 1000nm on full tanks.

Daniel,


Thank you for your comment. But, it would appear that you are doing
the equivalent of comparing a ability of a newborn baby to that of a
full grown adult. Consider this:

I wasn't really comparing that tech to the engine on my plane or any
other plane. The tech is a far cry, distant cry, from replacing anything
equivalent on an airplane with a tried and true engine. It's my way of
saying "I'll keep what I have thank you." Just in the last few years
there's been a push to install diesel engines so that we could go to jet
fuel. Now hydrogen? I just don't see it happening anytime soon.

"Your analysis fails to consider liquid H2's ~3X better energy
density compared to gasoline. Further, cryo-coolers are able to
condense liquid H2 at atmospheric pressure with very modest power
requirements (~100W). Liquid H2 overcomes the high-pressure
storage requirement for H2 gas. So, a membrane hydrolyzer powered
from a photo-voltaic array employing a cryo-cooler
https://trc.nist.gov/cryogenics/cryocoolers.html could produce
"green" liquid H2 fuel for fuel-cell use rather inexpensively. To
wit, the US Navy flew a liquid H2 powered aircraft for three days:

I made no analysis. Just giving my opinion. I'm glad someone's
optimistic about all of this.


https://www.nrl.navy.mil/lasr/sites/...31-4608%5D.pdf
And then there is this possible option at improving hydrolysis
efficiency:
http://rexresearch.com/microwavehydr...ehydrogen.html

If you object to liquid H2 storage, here's a novel technology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytg23mDd1a4
Former Area 51 employee Bob Lazar is interviewed by Visual Effects
Supervisor Jon Farhat. In this video, they discuss what H1
(hydrogen) is, how it is created and it’s potential in the
automotive sector. In addition, Bob show us he has his own
particle accelerator which he uses to create 6Li (lithium-6) H
(hydride) for H1 storage.

6Li is used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. It is also
one of the key components in making a thermal-nuclear weapon, but
by itself is not dangerous. Because of crony capitalism and
ignorant politicians, the US government has banned 6Li and the
buying and selling of it. However, the making of 6Li H yourself
with your own particle accelerator IS NOT!

Bob uses solar panels to power an H1 generator which produces H1
from H2O (water). For the safe and efficient storage of the
dangerous H1, 6Li H must be created with a particle accelerator
and used for H1 storage in high compression tanks. With the H1
generator, H1 is forced into the 6Li H tanks through the syringe
compression process. FYI, „hydrogen vehicles� are also known as
„fuel cell� vehicles.

Bob is the owner of United Nuclear Scientific and
Switch2Hydrogen. Jon is the owner of ODEMAX and director of this
video."

All that said, I envy you buzzing around in your luxuriant Viking even
if it is made of wood. Have fun, and inspect for dry-rot. :-)

Best regards,
Larry Dighera

--
Daniel

Visit me at: gopher://gcpp.world