3 ms·

Did you watch the video I posted? It specifically talks about converting a small aircraft and says you could get "about 20 minutes". Building an actually usefu

Did you watch the video I posted? It specifically talks about converting a small aircraft and says you could get "about 20 minutes". Building an actually useful commercial plane (i.e. something along the lines of 737 or A320) is an order of magnitude more difficult, in fact, basically impossible with current battery technology.

benhurmarcel 7y ago
For electric airliners, most promising research centers on hydrogen fuel cells, not batteries. It brings a lot of issues (mainly volume and cooling), but still it's being seriously considered.
- anovikov 7y ago
  Why not just liquid hydrogen, burned in a jet engine? Yes it has density about 12x lower then kerosene, but specific energy is about 3x higher so for the same fuel volume, we get 4x less range. In fact better than that, because of much lower weight and about 2/3 power ratio of fuel burn to aircraft weight and about 40% of weight of a typical plane being fuel, it being gradually burned during flight... it adds about 11% of range, so like 28% of the kerosene-powered range for the same fuel tank volume. So about 4500-5000km, with added benefit of fantastic takeoff performance (low weight). Enough for cross-USA travel, and non-Arctic cross-Atlantic flights (anywhere in CONUS->Bangor, Maine->Shannon, Ireland->Anywhere in EU)... solves the problem as i see it?
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    it solves the greenhouse gas issue, but burning hydrogen still produces NOx.
    - ed_balls 7y ago
      Is NOx an issue if it's far away from humans?
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        probably not, but the plane still has to takeoff and land sometimes. tbh, I'm not sure exactly how hydrogen combustion compares to hydrocarbon combustion in terms of environmental harm. I suspect it's still a lot cleaner overall. a lot of people think hydrogen combustion is totally clean and just creates water as exhaust, so I like to point this out.

benhurmarcel 7y ago

For electric airliners, most promising research centers on hydrogen fuel cells, not batteries. It brings a lot of issues (mainly volume and cooling), but still it's being seriously considered.

anovikov 7y ago
Why not just liquid hydrogen, burned in a jet engine? Yes it has density about 12x lower then kerosene, but specific energy is about 3x higher so for the same fuel volume, we get 4x less range. In fact better than that, because of much lower weight and about 2/3 power ratio of fuel burn to aircraft weight and about 40% of weight of a typical plane being fuel, it being gradually burned during flight... it adds about 11% of range, so like 28% of the kerosene-powered range for the same fuel tank volume. So about 4500-5000km, with added benefit of fantastic takeoff performance (low weight). Enough for cross-USA travel, and non-Arctic cross-Atlantic flights (anywhere in CONUS->Bangor, Maine->Shannon, Ireland->Anywhere in EU)... solves the problem as i see it?
- leetcrew 7y ago
  it solves the greenhouse gas issue, but burning hydrogen still produces NOx.
  - ed_balls 7y ago
    Is NOx an issue if it's far away from humans?
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      probably not, but the plane still has to takeoff and land sometimes. tbh, I'm not sure exactly how hydrogen combustion compares to hydrocarbon combustion in terms of environmental harm. I suspect it's still a lot cleaner overall. a lot of people think hydrogen combustion is totally clean and just creates water as exhaust, so I like to point this out.