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The problem isn't doing one plane. It's doing enough of them to make a difference. Jet fuel is ludicrously energy dense, to the extent that it's easy to under
by regularfry 3y ago
The problem isn't doing one plane. It's doing enough of them to make a difference.
Jet fuel is ludicrously energy dense, to the extent that it's easy to underestimate how much energy you need: at any reasonably-sized airport, if you want to replace the current fleet then you need to be talking about roughly a power station's worth of continuous energy delivery into aircraft fuel tanks. That's doable with jet fuel because you're not climbing out of an energy well just to get hold of the fuel. You just separate it out, and the problem becomes pure logistics.
With H2, the volume you need and the added storage complexity means the current logistics becomes a rounding error in comparison to how on earth you get the gigawatts to churn feedstock into gas.
You could do it, but you'd want nukes on-site to do it.