Is this the FUTURE of Aviation?!

[@whitemailprivilege2830]

The Boeing 737 Max is the first Zero emissions aircraft.

[@hawkeye-vv4kb]

ha ha ... true

[@fitzbournejack9283]

I know I shouldn't laugh😅. But hey, hahaha

[@marcusholmes7942]

it has been the last 18 months - hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[@5Komma5]

Pure gold, sir. Pure gold!

[@yanshuoli69]

ouch

[@Mallyhubz]

You know he's excited when he tells us to put our comments in the description.

[@markusisaksson6023]

🤣🤣🤣

[@piusokwu3560]

😂

[@gunnarkaestle]

@@markusisaksson6023 This is absolutely fantastic. I like this guy.

[@michaelosgood9876]

For years the aviation fraternity have been talking about 'blended wing' concept. I think the idea has merit & will be great to see Airbus press ahead with the idea. One of your most interesting topics.

[@leifhall2289]

Hydrogen is the smallest molecule in the universe! It is used in industry for leak-detection just because it is so difficult to contain. In order to get a perspective on the technical challenges to just be able to contain hydrogen, you should talk to people that have actual experience from working with hydrogen. The combination of these issues and hydrogens ignition properties makes me doubt the feasibility in this concept from Airbus. When we to this add the fact that there is destructive forces to consider such as terrorism and also wars it appears as the costs to mitigate all risks in the entire distribution system will be very very high. This kind of issues is almost always overlooked by scientists and researchers and certainly by finance- and marketing-people in big companies as f.ex. Airbus. Making synthetic jet fuel from renewable energy-sources and running it in the present engine-technology is a much much lower hanging fruit. Remember that the energy source is always the sun, the fuel is merely an energy carrier. Why not use an energy carrier that is easy to handle as well as CO2-neutral?

[@gmbeahan]

Hydrogen leaks in the stratosphere would destroy the ozone layer.

[@rrice1705]

Good point Leif Hall. Then adding to the "normal" problems of working with hydrogen, you are trying to make it work in a vehicle subject to all the various stresses of an airliner. Then add to that the problem of it being less energy dense than kerosene (jet fuel), assuming you're not turning the hydrogen into a liquid.

[@Dfpijgyt564s65sgt]

There’s are already hydrogen powered aircraft today

[@leifhall2289]

@@Dfpijgyt564s65sgt So what? There's no commercial airliners flying with hydrogen! The discussion here is whether it is feasible in the future.

[@kaikart123]

They want to repeat the Hindenburg but with faster aircraft. "Why not use an energy carrier that is easy to handle as well as CO2-neutral?" There is actually, but people will get scared of it for some reason.

[@feliciaxedine9402]

Hydrogen isn't a clean power source. Most of our hydrogen comes from natural gas reforming ("steam methane reforming"). It actually can pollute a lot more. Electrolysis and other "Clean" ways of making H2 doesn't have the throughput needed for something like the aviation industry, and in fact can be 4x more expensive. Well, probably 8x now, seeing the current natural gas prices. Most of that production and usage is heavily biased towards the petroleum industry (Main consumer of H2 is actually the Oil and Gas industry for cracking crude oil) and en-masse that industry uses petroleum sources for Hydrogen, because it's just that economical. Hydrogen production is responsible for 4% of global greenhouse emissions by some estimates. What is not an estimate, and is in Praxair's (one of the largest producers of hydrogen) statistics on what it takes to make 1 metric ton of Hydrogen, is the simple fact that to produce 1 kg of hydrogen, 9.3 kg of CO2 is produced by the heating, waste, and other processes. For comparison: burning gasoline produces 9.1 kg of CO2. But wait... Gasoline is 2.2 times more "energy per kg" denser than H2! That means for the equivalent energy, you're outputting about 2.3 times the CO2. The only way to make this work is to improve our electrolysis technology. And that requires rethinking the electrical grid. I've actually worked on this in industry, and we actually have a MASSIVE amount of "free" energy being wasted: the "Duck curve" with solar power. But the problem is getting that power to places safely, as our electrical grids are not made for distributed network energy transport and production. This leaves most industrial areas and electrolysis sites dependent on high throughput high voltage industrial power taps. And most of those are nuclear or coal based in a lot of places, as they're easily scalable. Electricity isn't free, especially in places more open to this technology. It might be viable in a place like Norway with an excess of Hydropower, but as a global fuel source for airplanes? Hydrogen cannot only be produced in one area. That's the key about hydrogen production: you need on-site or near-site production of hydrogen, and that's a lot of infrastructure costs and upkeep. Even hydrogen cars are not viable per mile without heavy tax credits at this point. I wouldn't worry about long term storage/transport that much, as H2 can repurpose existing Natural Gas/Methane pipelines, but that's again only for near-site transport (i.e. within a hundred to two hundred KM). It's the "on site production storage/ballast" that needs a lot of room and rethinking. Hydrogen producing plants will need to be very large in footprint or a bit more complicated when laid out due to the necessary components and consumables for high-throughput electrolysis. Industries don't implement what is right. They implement what is cheap. Any sort of "good will" or "altruism" on the behalf of a corporate entity always has an ulterior motive or a developed market reason, as otherwise, they wouldn't be Corporations. They'd instead be "Entities drowned by and dissolved because of Lawsuits from shareholders because they violated the laws that define what a corporation is (fiduciary responsibility) " This is why industres only react when it's either very late or governments get involved.

[@derekinbritishcolumbia1449]

Good points. We're still needing ideas and solutions that move us closer to zero emission. Technologies considered too expensive today will become tomorrow's reality, so I'm remaining optimistic. Nuclear development on land harnessed for hydrogen generation?

[@pj61114]

Felicia Xedine Thank you for your contribution!

[@ReflectedMiles]

Agreed, but the energy density issue is the first thing I thought of, even if they can get onboard storage figured out that is sufficiently inert in a worst-case scenario. Hydrogen has a lot of energy by weight, but its volumetric energy density at 700 bar (over 10,000 psi) is 5.6 MJ/L and Jet-A is around 37 MJ/L, so how to bridge that kind of gap in a relatively small available storage space seems like a daunting challenge at best. I hope this doesn't turn into another A380 great-idea/massive-loss debacle.

[@SupernovaeTech]

Hydrogen production, like electricity, can be done with 0 emissions. For instance, if hydrogen was produced by elecralysis powered by on site solar, the gas would be confirmed to be produced with no emissions. As for transport, that can be done with hydrogen powered trucks. I truly think hydrogen is the future because it's more similar to petrolium than electricity, which makes it easier to transition to

[@TheClearsky88]

To ensure a round tank: but hydrogen in the fuselage, pit the passengers in the wing!

[@RogueRoulette]

Unfortunately, I think the height required for passengers exceeds the maximum thickness of even a blended wing aircraft. You increase the thickness of the wing, you increase the drag and therefore, the fuel required to exceed that drag, and the problems continue.

[@loooooopy]

@@RogueRoulette I think it was a joke

[@pasoundman]

@@loooooopy The entire concept of aircraft fuelled by (liquid or high pressure) hydrogen is an extravagant joke !

[@pasoundman]

I see you got the first principle of a pressure vessel right. Well spotted that man !

[@comment2099]

@@RogueRoulette You can store passengers in horizontal coffins, asleep.

[@andreastattarisuo1034]

From rocket engineering it is known that hydrogen produces less thrust per unit of energy than kerosine. Thus I'm guessing the turboprop concept is the most promising due to high bypass ratio.

[@thevegastan]

At least it's a small step forward in the grand scheme of things.

[@kianjt]

This channel has turned me from a seriously nervous flyer.. like, white knuckles and bolt upright during take off, to genuinely considering something in aviation as a career

[@haydenoneil4975]

Hydrogen powered aircraft is a really neat idea. I remember reading a Popular Mechanics magazine 10 years ago saying that it will be the power source for future aircraft. Also, the U.S. Navy has a green energy project called the Green Hornet program where they are flying an F/A-18 on bio-jet fuel, and eventually they are going to make a hydrogen blend fuel to test on the aircraft. I can't wait to see what the future holds for this technology! keep up the great work, I really enjoy your channel.

[@DeHerg]

"Hydrogen powered aircraft is a really neat idea." If it's in a fuel cell running electric motors yes. If it's in some form of combustion engine it's just inefficient wasteful marketing nonsense.

[@MjolnirFeaw]

@@DeHerg Not even. Hydrogen is just too small a molecule. It leaks from everywhere. And I mean everywhere: it can even pour through solid metal tank wall. Slower then than does in seals, of course. The Hydrogen seal is one of the most complex part of a hydrolox rocket engine and it does not have to stay hermetic for days, month, years like a plane engine will. A study about using hydrogen in cars has shown that around half of hydrogen produced could not reach delivery point, even with a brand new infrastrcture. Maybe we can find a way to go around this sealing problem but until we do, hydrogen is a no-go.

[@etherealessence]

The problem with hydrogen is that it has a LOT of engineering problems to over come before it'll see wide spread use. This is promising tho. Can't wait to see how this tech develops.

[@flagmichael]

I agree completely. A remarkably bold and ambitious project, my guess is that it is more of a research project with some possibility of going into production. Unless the plug is pulled early, Airbus will have experience far beyond anybody else in the commercial world at all sorts of bleeding edge technologies. They could potentially become a megabusiness beyond our wildest dreams. Or they could just become poorer. "Try not the Pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior! A traveller, by the faithful hound, Half-buried in the snow was found, Still grasping in his hand of ice That banner with the strange device, Excelsior! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[@etherealessence]

​@@flagmichael I doubt Airbus will become a mega business from this. They may very well become the pioneering business, but others will follow suit when it will be cheaper to do so. However, hydrogen fueled vehicles will be incredibly expensive to develop. It will require advances in engineering and material science to make it a feasible fuel source on a mass scale. It has inherent disadvantages, such as its low density (or in other words high volume taking up more of the aircraft) and high tank weight to fuel weight ratios that are impossible, or at the very least, harder to overcome. With the flight times of even short haul flights, you'd also have to contend with the constant boil off from the tanks, boil off which could explode at any point with a slight spark. And there's far more of these problems to solve. Hydrogen is one of the hardest fuels to work with bar none. I doubt any one company will solve all the issues, however it will take companies blazing the trail for hydrogen to become a mainstream fuel. Its certainly an attractive one when you think about how much water and sunlight we have on this planet, but the properties of the fuel and its difficulty to store make it harder to work with, especially as you start scaling up the use. If anything, going too hard on hydrogen too soon will probably bankrupt Airbus (but they seem to be pacing themselves in a reasonable way). But someone has to pull the trigger, and it seems that Airbus is. I can't wait to see how this develops, but I'm keeping a more grounded (hehe) perspective on it.

[@conveyor2]

It's been used in rockets since the Apollo days so it's hardly reinventing the wheel.

[@etherealessence]

@@conveyor2 Passenger aircraft are not one shot rockets so that wheel needs more reinventing than you think. Hydrogen has a lot of problems that would affect a vehicle with a lifespan of years that wouldn't affect one with a lifespan of hours. Embrittlement being one. The boil off from the fuel tanks would be another problem that isn't such an issue for rockets. Not all the problems are in the aircraft either. There's massive engineering issues to create infrastructure capable supporting commercial air travel with hydrogen fuel.

[@kornpop4887]

not in our lifetime,,,, the oil companies will re play the hindenburg video constantly

[@jessicabredesen432]

Thank you for making this video. It’s a very exciting development in commercial aviation. I love aviation and I love flying just like you do, but the intensive carbon footprint of aviation is something that I have long been very uncomfortable with. Now, there’s finally a chance to achieve sustainability.

[@truthpopup]

There are huge problems with hydrogen transportation and storage. A practical alternative is clean-burning synthetic hydrocarbon fuel which can power existing engines without modification. Nuclear energy can be used to synthesize hydrocarbon fuel from water and carbon dioxide. The amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the synthesis entirely offsets the amount of carbon dioxide released during combustion, so the cycle of synthesis and combustion is "carbon neutral." Next generation nuclear reactors, including those that use thorium, can be the primary source of energy.

[@truthpopup]

Yes it can be done, but at great expense and some risk. The vehicles that use hydrogen fuel also have to be equipped to handle high-pressure hydrogen gas or cyrogenic liquid hydrogen. Carbon obviates all that by bonding to hydrogen and making it liquid at normal temperature and pressure.

[@5Andysalive]

There are(were) huge problems with transportation and storage of gas/petrol. Hasn't stopped nobody. Hydrogen is not more dangerous.The challenge is a bit different, not bigger. There just isn't the effort and research put into handling it because the need wasn't really there. With the scary prospect of running everything with (trillions of) Lithium based batteries it is. Gas (literal) is used all over private households and industry for centuries! Liquid Hydrogen is moved around in ENORMOUS quantities in the space business for decades. The (expensive) solutions are already there. You can use it for rockets, why not for big planes. What exlploded on Apollo 13 btw was not the hydrogen but the oxygen tank and due to a heat/pressure issue. And arguably if a fast moving plane has a hydrogen leak, it will spread out way too fast to reach a dangerous density outisde the plane (unlike in a static a petrol station situation) . And it would still need a spark. If the effort is put in, there are no more "huge" long term problems than with petrol or batteries(production/recycling). And if it fails you can use backup batteries to fly and land because the system is basically electric. Oh yes and transportation and storage (lol) of nuclear waste is it's very own topic. Thrilled when the Messiah (fusion) will arrive. Because fission is NOT it. Miracle fuels not withstanding.

[@Markle2k]

"Nuclear energy". That is the most expensive way to provide electrical power today. Not due to the input, which isn't "clean" in the most generous ideations, but because the nuclear option is just opting to back-load the "what do we do with the emissions" to entire civilization, not just a few future generations. Insurance companies don't like to reimburse entire regions for their losses due to errors. That is not even to mention the massive economic impact of losing productive areas to the half-life of contaminants. Nuclear fission has to reduce its potential impact on the surrounding area first. Fusion generates waste as well, but it doesn't tend to do so in ways that pollute the immediate environment for kYr.

[@alandaters8547]

I agree with your premise and would even support nuclear if the waste issue can be solved. But meanwhile, synthetic fuel can be made with the energy from solar, geothermal, tidal generators, or wind and can be stored and transported much more easily than hydrogen.(Most major hydropower has already been harnessed.)

[@gerryino]

@@Markle2k the problem is that you can say the exactly same thing for the fossil fuels, we are loading the burden of the released carbonium to our entire civilization. Maybe it's not "poisonous" like nuclear waste but once it's gone in the atmosphere is gone... and it will do no good, and it will be no less problem to deal with. That make it al least competitive with our actual technology. Fusion is good, but at this stage it's just a bare prototype, we are not certain even if it'll work. I mean, for a pure physical point of view it work for sure, but we can't be sure we can produce it on earth wit our current technology. ITER is just a prototype, then we'll have DEMO and then "maybe" a commercial viable reactor. 50 years if we are lucky, and there's no guarantee

[@matsv201]

There is no way we are going to see hydrogen in normal turbofan or turboprop aircraft's. There is two major reasons for that. Volume and engine life. The later issue is that hydrogen burn very very warm and have a tiny frame front. This destroys absolutely everything in its way. Rocket engine manufactures have known this for a long time and they burn it far away from everything else. The pre-burner is very very hydrogen rich and there for burn with a lower temperature. The final burn is done outside of the engine. 5:40 I would say run hydrogen burning in a turbine is not really a viable option. Because of the flame front is way to short. There is no real way of doing that in a fan or propeller engine. I guess a lot of people seen videos of hydrogen burning in a normal car engine. And that is very much possible. But the engine will either burn it very inefficiently or the engine will die after a few hours of burning it. Having hydrogen with a Lambda of 1 in a internal combustion engine is just not workable. Now there is engines like the Sabre engine that is sort of a external combustion jet engine. NOTE. This is a jet engine, not a turbofan. No bypass what so ever. The advantage of Sabre engine is that it can run at very high altitude and there for being efficient due to low air density. This type of aircraft could actually be more efficient than a turbofan based one simply due to the very high altitude. If we just wanted to run aircraft of non fossil fuel we could do that today. HVO work excellently in turbine engines. While its not certified, there is no real technical limitation 7:20 Its a bit more complicated than that. Hydrogen need to be both chilled AND compressed to be liquid. So not only insulation is needed, also a pressure chamber. While the pressure is not really that high, its still something that need to be considered. This is specially complicated in fueling. But the tank also need added structural rigidity, making it still a bit heavier. 7:40 Forklifts and trains used pressurized hydrogen, not liquid. That is a LOT simpler. The downside is that the pressure vesil is very heavy. Even carbon fiber once is heavier than what it would be in normal fuel.

[@MentourPilot]

I would hesitate to guess that Airbus engineers would not have gone out publicly with a solution that doesn’t work. The heat is a problem but not one they can’t overcome. There are earth-bound gas turbines being used today. If they want to do it, they can.

[@lucifermorningstar4548]

Mentour Pilot in fairness you wouldn’t have thought Boeing would have put a danger plane on the market either but it happened. There are lots of impractical projects that still end up at least being tested, but that doesn’t mean it actually comes to pass.

I agree. Switching to hydrogen is fix for something that has no problems. It is nice to be flying in a plane that does not have explosive fuel. I would say this is a better idea than the hyperlink but not by much.

[@matsv201]

@@MentourPilot Its not that its literally impossible. Its that there are some issues that really don´t match up well with. What the turbine that run on hydrogen do is really what i would consider cheating. It runs on a hydrogen/methane blend. This solves the flame front issue. They have demonstrated it running on pure hydrogen for a short while. The issue here is nobody is really questioning if that is possible. The question is if it could run on hydrogen alone for hours on end with out needing to replace the turbine every 10 or 12 hours or so. I would consider running on hydrogen alone for a PR stunt. The solution that exist now is not viable to do so. Its really a predominantly natural gas plant. I would even go so far to say that the hydrogen part is more green-washing than anything else. Its absolutely possible. But that is far from being a good idea. Most solutions have fairly big drawbacks. In the engineering community it have been well known for decades that the obstical for having internal combustion hydrogen is unreasonable. There also is really no real benefit. This have really been known since the 80-tys. One solution that is floated around quite often is to react hydrogen with nitrogen. This solves most of the problems with no really drawback. Granted, ammonia is a nasty chemical, but liquid nitrogen is even worse. When "engineers" present something from a big company, its always a management decision. I bet it would be hard to find a combustion engineer supporting direct hydrogen internal combustion. For external combustion... that is something else. Worth saying, that even rockets that run hydrogen for external combustion. They run the hydrogen very rich. While this is mostly to improve the Isp of the engine, it also greatly reduces the component stress. Running it rich in a internal combustion engine would increase the fuel consumption of cause. Running it lean will increase the problem with flame fronts. Jet engines running Jet-A already have problem of running to hot as is. I don´t know the numbers by heart, is not quite my specialty, did some googling and it suggested the ratio was 33:1. That would be about reasonable, a turbine engine need to run a lot colder than a piston one. Of cause, if a aircraft engine could have ERG, that would lower that quite considerately. But i really doubt they ever build in something that heavy into a aircraft engine

[@obstinatejack]

I was curious also wether hydrogen is really any better than biofuel of sort, as the infrastructure required for hydrogen from production, to storage, and transportation is much more difficult than biofuel. I can imagine electric cars dominating the consumer market pretty soon, so aviation fuel shouldn't be that big of a burden to keep per se, either by fossil source, or bio source. So what really is the point of even converting to hydrogen powered aviation industry anyway.

[@kenmore01]

When the concept became in light around 15-20 years ago, I brought hydrogen power up with my dad. His reply was "where do you get the hydrogen? Producing it costs more than you could possibly save by using it." Of course new techniques have emerged as well as good old nuclear power (I just saw a video about Chernobyl this morning lol.) Yes, wind, solar and hydro are awesome! Hopefully we will vastly increase those techniques. They don't work for every area but the ones they work for will hopefully have an overabundance and share with the less endowed areas. Of course hydrogen production will be where there is sufficient energy now. I think it's great! It should be the future of cars and other equipment as well. Thank you for the great video and the optimistic perspective!

[@gerardfinnigan7974]

i have no intrest in avation this guy just calms me.

[@rodneyboehner3007]

When I think of hydrogen and aviation, I always think of the good old days of the Hindenburg! Oh, the humanity!

[@jeanblodgett8308]

He has a calm, controlled demeanor, authoritative in his delivery. Keeps the horrific accidents from being scary.

[@anisimovsergey1]

👏🏻👏🏻😂😂

[@sky_uolter8960]

Those aircrafts look awesome, can't wait to have more info in the following years

[@rogerstokes]

Although the area where the hydrogen is stored is shown in black I assume it would be white on actual aircraft to minimise radiation heating from sunlight. Using the maverick shape fro cargo would presumably need less adaptation at airports I guess that developing it for purely cargo would not be cost-effective.

[@wiredforstereo]

All vehicles in warm climates should be white. Last dark colored car I bought was 2005.

[@sleddog9347]

I'm very excited to see this put into practice! So many folks trying to make planed with heavy batteries, but no real H2 prototypes. Cool stuff!

[@luizrcs]

16:45 did you guys put your comments in the description as he asked? i really love his excitement hahah

[@Muck006]

This kind of excitement is NOT WARRANTED ... because the "oh we can use renewable energy to produce hydrogen" is BS ... because we dont even produce enough renewable power to satisfy the regular demand. A BIT OF CRITICAL THINKING would make that clear ... "do we actually have renewable energy TO SPARE? NO!"

[@StinkPickle4000]

Love your enthusiasm for innovation in your "is this the future of aviation" videos!

[@381delirius]

the audio sounds 10x better.

[@davidshakespeare9767]

Humans are nearly incapable of preventing problems We are however the best life form we know of at solving problems

[@apparently2]

@Vlasko60 Speak for yourself.

[@edcoombs6172]

Happy 500th video!

[@helenfountain7554]

Enjoyed the content of your podcast .... as well as the lovely mural for your backdrop.

[@astibamartin]

Awesome presentation, very informative. And oh my, ain't that wall paper gorgeous

[@Quasihamster]

Last time I was so early the most common air crash was two pteranodons colliding.

[@MentourPilot]

Hahaha! Congrats

[@ArdePier]

Mikosch2😂

[@fascistpedant758]

Did they really taste like chicken?

[@Quasihamster]

@@fascistpedant758 More like duck, very delicious!

[@RichardStefanits]

Their timing is just perfect I have to admit.

[@MentourPilot]

Yes, it’s carefully chosen I would say

[@haqvor]

I would say that it would have been even better 30 years ago before we experienced large scale consequences from global warming. That said even if commercial aviation certainly have some contribution (about 6% of the overall effect from green house gases taken high altitude effects into account comes from aviation) it isn't where the battle will be won. About 60% of the worlds electrical generation comes from fossil fuels and that is the single most important point that must be solved.

[@gaborbakos7058]

The timing would have been perfect at least 50 years ago.

[@andrasdudas8226]

Especially since Eu is talking about hydrogen based energy source shift too. But let's see, since these days Eu establishment loves to throw words out into the public, but tends to be less ambitious when it comes to actions.

[@haqvor]

@@andrasdudas8226 that is unfortunately true for all politics. It's mostly posturing and pretending to do meaningful things while avoiding the hard and important problems. The consequences of global warming has been known for more than 40 years while the worlds governments have done nothing to change the path. Even today in 2020 here in Sweden the government will probably allow Preem to expand an oil refinery which will double their emissions and make it impossible for Sweden to follow the Paris Agreement. Join your local Extinction Rebellion organization and help to force the worlds governments to take meaningful action!

[@EliAviator]

Thankfully, it's not a no-pilot technology )))

[@venkatsaimurlidharan9144]

It is a no pilot technology,it is Airbus,what do you expect? They plan to implement it with the no pilot technology . They have already tried everything. They just haven't made it official yet.

[@venkatsaimurlidharan9144]

The name of the no pilot technology they have already tested is ATTOL - Automatic takeoff and landing. They will implement it in the next 2-3 years.

[@fasttracklap8480]

venkatsai murlidharan if autopilot disconnects whenever there’s a problem then i would say that pilots are here to stay !

[@philippal8666]

It’s like no surgeon technology, except we actually do some of that already. Not sure I want something with no empathy completely in charge of something that can immediately kill me.

[@aerojetrocketdyners-2538]

i want no pilot technology mainly because i am an aerospace engineer lmao

[@fascistpedant758]

Happy 39th birthday! I remember reading about H2 powered planes around the time you were born. I hope you get to pilot one sometime in the next 39 years.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Using liquid hydrogen in a plane sounds a bit nuts but using the hydrogen generated using renewable energy and then take CO2 from the air and make methanol, that I can see a future with. Much easier to store and transport and you can put it in the wings as usual.

[@COIcultist]

We don't have the energy density of land to use wind turbines and solar power to even touch our present electrical energy requirements. Let alone the National Grid infrastructure. Where is the hydrogen coming from? Apparently whilst commercially hydrogen that is generated by chemical action is the most cost and hence energy efficient the hydrogen isn't clean enough for fuel cells. I've got a mate who helps design hydrogen production plants for fuel cells. They work by electrolysis which is desperately inefficient. (Don't believe me look up electrolysis to split water.) One of my first questions to him was "Well what do you do with the oxygen?" It turns out oxygen which is 1/3 of the product by molarity or 8 times by mass is just vented off to atmosphere. Why would you do that with a valuable product on which you have expended energy to produce? Well that would add expense, and the grants for the *Unicorn Fart Rainbow Gas Power Source.* Only depend on the hydrogen production so why would we spend more money on collecting the oxygen than it would be worth? It's all a pseudo green ideology that actually is desperately energy inefficient.

[@zapfanzapfan]

@@COIcultist Yes, it's never too late to give up.

[@COIcultist]

@@zapfanzapfan Thanks for that, such a short, trite and shite line. I don't want to give anything up. I appreciate real environmentalism but first of all how could we advance anything by accepting things that are untrue? You would most probably disagree with me about my views on climate change and that would be fine if we were both trying to be truthful in our arguments and not just playing to win. 1/3rd or more of America is choking because of faux environmentalism that after forty plus years has caught up with us on forest management.

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

@@COIcultist Apparently (anyone feel free to fact check me on this) but California pays Arizona to take their excess solar energy while Arizona simply stops producing solar. California looks good on paper pretending they're offsetting carbon emissions and the neighboring states get free money. One of the reasons solar is so bad at satisfying energy needs is that peak production and peak load do not align, and nothing short of a miracle will make batteries feasible to store the excess energy. Electrolysis is inefficient but nobody cares about inefficiency when you're using power nobody wants. You think 1/3rd of the product, or even 8/9ths is wasteful? We go through much more wasteful processes. I have my gripes with hydrogen but this ain't it chief.

[@dannydaw59]

The airlines will be like: We want to cram in passengers where that hydrogen tank is. Will it cost more than jet fuel?

[@TheNasaDude]

You can sell green flights for a premium, there is a market for it. If the experiment works, it's only a matter of time before the EU makes it mandatory for all aircraft in its airspace to be "green"

[@tingletanglebob4621]

In Europe we are considering Taxes on CO2. That would basically increase prices for fossil fuel and the need for peopel willing to pay extra for a green flight would vanish. Obviously there are drawbacks to this, but it doesnt sound to bad all things considered. At the same time the US would propably follow, as it makes no sense to have a multitude of different technoligies within one airline. Btw. there are a lot of Truck/Semi- Companies right now, that are coming up with similar concepts. Really looking forward to this.

[@dattaxpony920]

First of all: seeing you back in uniform is always exciting! I think the Maverick is best suited for cargo. Why? lack of windows. You probably know this better Petr but people are much more comfortable when they can see easily outside the aircraft. But tbh I would still love to hop on one!

[@RazvanMaioru]

Boeing already verified that in collaboration with NASA, on their X48 (also referred to as the Boeing Blended Wing Body (BWB) concept). Unsuitable for passengers, because they didn't like any available layout, and the evacuation procedures would be very awkward. They're still considering the possibilities for it in military and (as you said) cargo use though. TL;DR: You were right with that statement

[@orejustretherewithreonlyre2380]

I read about that before, their designs are very beautiful, and that’s actually a pretty concept. Can’t wait to fly on those, when the first airlines have them.

[@StinkPickle4000]

@Mark Grudt Agreed! The energy density including their fuel tanks is the problem. Hydrogen has plenty power density when its blowing up

[@Hans-gb4mv]

@Mark Grudt The problem is not hydrogen. The problem is storage. To store enough hydrogen you need to store it as a liquid. And as a liquid, it has a higher energy density than kerosine. The problem is that in order to store it as a liquid, you'll either need to store if very cold or under extremely high pressure. And that's the challenge that needs to be solved.

[@michaelraede]

@Mark Grudt you are right about the energy density, but you have to also take the improvements in efficiency and aerodynamics into account. Agreed that it would not have worked in the past, and that it is an ambitious endeavour for the present and futute, but it should be possible. Take note that for this reason they are not talking about long and extra long range yet.

[@CervantesTS]

As usual another great video of Mentour! 😁 Always enjoying this quality content! H2 is the way to go I think... Years ago, I had the opportunity to be in contact with a Belgium factory called Borit, specialized in bipolar H2 fuel cells... From that point, I was already excited for this technology. Greetings out there and have an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC weekend. 😁👍

[@Alamito24]

Hello Young Man, I just watched your video on the Mumbai "runway excursion." Thank you for that detailed explanation. During your film you used the expression "crab," or "crab angle." I quickly looked it up and while finding information on it, I must say the concept is easier to understand than the actual operational physical enactment. Would you please do a talk on crosswind landings, detailing (with schematics) crab, crabbing and so forth. Included in that video, if you find that you do it, can you also explain "side slip" as it affects a crosswind landing? I've just recently discovered your highly educational films and do (as a retired school teacher) appreciate them. Your explanations are very full and clear -- even I, a layman as well as a "nervous" flyer, mostly understand them. Your efforts are valued, I'm sure, by many of us -- knowledge is power. Again, thank you most sincerely... Edward

[@BrightBlueJim]

I feel your excitement! This is extremely good news. It seems like Airbus has found a useful thing to do with this huge slump we're having in the air transport industry, and it's like a breath of fresh air. Everywhere I look, I see companies saying they can't do this, and they can't do that, and Airbus instead is saying, "here's something we CAN do". One note about synthetic fuels: they are expensive. Most of the development of synthetic jet fuel has come from the requirements of naval aviation, where it takes a LOT of jet fuel for an aircraft carrier to keep its planes flying, so being able to use that nuclear reactor to turn seawater into jet fuel saves a lot of logistics, which can make it a win, even if you have to pay a lot more for the fuel itself. This isn't the case with airliners, where the cost of fuel is one of the largest factors in making or breaking the profitability of any given flight.

[@robertrobert5188]

Airbus never said "heres something we CAN do." What they said was here is something we have dreamt up with absolutely no basis on reality and is akin to a child drawing a robot with laser eye balls and superpowers and announcing that one day it MIGHT, just might be built. They should hitch a ride on the Boeing Dreamliner.

[@AdvancedUSA]

In addition to the low energy density of hydrogen, liquid or gaseous hydronic has to be produced. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia. “Now, steam reforming, which combines high-temperature steam with natural gas, accounts for the majority of the hydrogen produced. This method of hydrogen production occurs at temperatures between 700-1100°C, and has a resultant efficiency of between 60-75%.”

[@MentourPilot]

Yes, that technique can’t be used for this. There are new techniques in development that are better and cleaner.

[@sharg0]

@@MentourPilot And from where is the energy for that process supposed to come? Hydrogen gas is sadly not an energy source but a carrier.

[@carstekoch]

@@sharg0 Hydroelectric/tidal/solar power plants, windturbines, as soon as we can find a safe place for the waste i'm completely fine with fission power, we might even have fusion power plants in a few decades.

[@unitrader403]

13:30 Nope, most Hydrogen today is not generated by Electrolysis. 90%+ of the World Market gets its Hydrogen by Steam Reformation.

[@paulharland7280]

You got right to the point. Lots of people are finding ways to use electricity and hydrogen, very few are finding ways to produce them. I personally think solar-powered airships are an overlooked technology. Especially since it's one of those special cases where the square-cube law is on your side.

[@doorhanger9317]

@@paulharland7280 How would a solar-powered airship work at night? That seems to be a major flaw in this plan.

[@alexkazzeo6208]

Like the museum style background. Much cleaner and professional than the living-room.

[@volti99]

Peter, Thank you for your enthusiasm and topic to seek out solutions for the future. Keep up the good work and overarching belief that we are able to make a significant difference in our planet and legacy for our children. Peace be with you....

[@zoperxplex]

The problem with hydrogen is that it takes up a lot of room insofar as storage is concern and it is less fuel efficient than jet fuel.

[@MentourPilot]

Same energy but you need 3 times the volume. But it can be sorted

[@lucifermorningstar4548]

Mentour Pilot I think he means because it takes up so much volume that if you used the same physical amount it is very inefficient.

[@ulfpe]

Biofuels works , you can use Methane, or Methanol made by solar energy. There are easier to store and transport. No need for cryo fuels if you use Methanol and its not very complicated, the current jet fuel is a chemical product not something that flows out of the ground

[@specialopsdave]

@@lucifermorningstar4548 Exactly, but we can work around inefficiency, I mean, how long was the 707 in service again? Remember how much of a fuel hog it was?

[@marzipanhuman2356]

@@ulfpe they aren't using other liquid fuels in rocketry because they cant get hydrogen after all

[@Seriously_Unserious]

For nuclear technology, the best option would be Thorium Reactors. Thorium is not as hot as Uranium, which is what most reactors currently use, and Thorium breaks down into inert (not radioactive) forms in a tiny fraction of the millennia it takes for spent uranium fuel rods need. This is a much more viable option then solar or wind power which are unreliable for large scale generation and not as green as they first seemed.

[@paulmaxwell8851]

Solar and wind are incredibly efficient, and certainly green. I have two sets of solar panels; one is twelve years old and the other is thirty-one years old! They still keep cranking out power month after month, year after year. As a rule, photovoltaic panels produce the power that was required to manufacture them within eight months or so, after which the output is pure 'profit'.

[@speedstyle.]

Solar, wind, etc are great for hydrogen fuels because they're so variable. Our grids are built on always-on gas/coal/nuclear power stations, with a bit of hydropower or other storage to smooth out peaks and dips. There's way more variation in the sun and wind, but by building for peak consumption we can produce hydrogen and charge EVs during the dips. Hydrogen can also be fed straight into the natural gas grid for cooking and heating, or put into a gas-fired power plant after short-term storage. But all the renewables are a stop-gap for fusion anyway tbh

[@Seriously_Unserious]

@@speedstyle. I saw a segment on Rebel News a couple of days ago about this guy in Ontario who's using a form of combustible ammonia to power his vehicles which runs about as good as gasoline, has 0 harmful emissions, without the potentially explosive risks of gasoline or hydrogen fuel options. His design even has the option to switch manually to gasoline power in case you can't get the ammonia based fuel in a particular area.

[@speedstyle.]

@@Seriously_Unserious You lost me at RNN lmao. Are you sure the ammonia wasn't being used as chemical storage of hydrogen? If it was being combusted directly it will have huge NOx emissions. Hydrogen fuel tanks like they talk about in this video have a chance of exploding. Hydrogen fuel _cells_ mostly store the stuff by sorption or some electrochemical reaction, at normal temperature and pressure. It takes up a lot of volume, but very little weight, which is fine for aviation.

[@wiredforstereo]

Always a thorium bro in every green energy conversation. Come back when a working commercial thorium reactor exists. Until then it's just angels dancing on the head of a pin.

[@Cheranetube]

This is a very exciting concept. I like that we're moving forward with green technologies. Sure there are hiccups, but that's innovation. Well done Airbus, and thanks for the video, Peter.

[@ktulu3767]

Start asking questions, you think solar and windmills are better for the environment, or even electric cars when 95% of that electricity used for those electric cars comes from coal powered electricity. Windmills, look how much acreage those take up, same thing with solar... how about how those materials are made, how are the broken parts disposed of? They're not biodegradable, not recyclable. Just remember that not all "green" technologies are actually beneficial to the environment, just a lot more expensive

[@wiredforstereo]

Hydrogen is not a green technology. It's greenwashing.

[@sameergangrekar]

I am not pilot and I am not related to aviation industry in any way. Still I find your videos interesting and knowledgeable. I love your channel ❤️❤️

[@richardlongstaff4545]

Mentour you cheeky boy! I received your birthday cameo with great happiness. Even recorded by yourself ON your birthday - which was even more lovely :) I hope you had an Absolutely Fantastic day :)

[@plcwboy]

Wasn't there something about hydrogen aircraft back about a hundred years ago?

[@kennethsrensen7706]

Yes in russia they worked well but the problem was to contain the hydrogen safely. They didn't just use it in fuel cells to make electricity. They directly used in the engines and burned it as any other fuel. This was great because it make NO pollution when combusting. Only by product is H2O , water so extremely green no CO2 and all the other bad gasses.. The only problem was to containg it safely in fuel tanks..... Hydrogen is an extremely '' escape '' type of gas.

[@z33r0now3]

@@kennethsrensen7706 Hindenburg...

[@superdingo9741]

@@kennethsrensen7706 The main problem was that the Soviet Union has dessolved and Russia got into deep economic crisis, so the project Tu-155 could not be continued.

[@conveyor2]

@@z33r0now3 Hydrogen for lift, not as fuel.

[@z33r0now3]

@@conveyor2 who Made that distinction you little smartie

[@SiawR.A]

Mr. Pete. where's your couch & Patxi.. they are the two missing legends on this channel. 😁

[@glenith50]

Batteries or Hydrogen, both of those rely on vast amounts of electricity being produced which at the the current state of play is majority produced by burning gas or coal, so they will still be running on fossil fuels, just indirectly. Once we achieve nuclear fusion then unlimited, cleanly produced hydrogen will be possible.

[@chemieju6305]

Yes and no. Yes, you need a lot of electricity for this. But unlike powering the grid, which needs power constantly, you can produce a lot of hydrogen and store it for at least some time. The problem with renewable energies is that they are not constant, e.g. solar doesnt work at night. By converting that energy into a storable form you can use renewables much easier, and only switch to fossiles in case of shortages.

[@VolkerHett]

This year we had 53% of our electricity from renewable sources in Germany. Now imagine you'd produce electricity somewhere to the south! I wonder when the Emirates, Katar, Saudi Arabia and others start producing H2 with solar energy and export that instead of crude oil. Sweet water for the deserts would be a side effect.

[@glenith50]

@@VolkerHett Lets hope if/when that happens they adopt a technology such as molten salt storage over regular PV panels.

[@VolkerHett]

@@glenith50 Molten salts are good to store heat. Using an array of mirrors you can heat them up and then store the heat for a couple of month. Here on the northern half of the planet this topic gets more interesting every week now 😊 For my roof PV is better, add some batteries so I can use the electricity generated over the day later when I'm at home. Here in crowded northern Germany we don't have the space for a large array of mirrors to melt salts. As a boy using a lens I found out the sun is barely strong enough to produce a dark spot on a piece of paper.

[@glenith50]

@@VolkerHett If only Africa would stop concentrating on power and started concentrating on power (see what i did there) they would become a first world continent in no time, a world leader in hydrogen production.

[@jdavison8551]

Great content and presentation. Great to hear some good news about aviation for a change too.

[@mr88cet]

Even after you take into account the energy cost of creating hydrogen, I can’t imagine we could get it *dense* enough to be feasible in commercial aircraft. Hydrogen has very-high *Specific Energy* (energy per Kg), but even in liquid form, it is still has very-low *Energy Density* (energy per liter). It’s amazingly light, yes, but it takes up a lot of space. In short, even if you liquefy the hydrogen (which has an even-higher production cost), it will take up most of your passenger/cargo space!

[@garywatersjr8959]

I know the stigma surrounding Nuclear is more negative than positive. However, for close to 70 years military ships have been nuclear powered with almost no problems! Just saying.

[@flagmichael]

Well, discounting the Russian submarine experiences, anyway.

[@GertvandenBerg]

There have been attempts at nuclear planes... (For bombers with LONG endurance) Heavy shielding has some compatibility issues with flying.... (Using nuclear to generate hydrogen might be an option though) (Although that might actually be one thing that solar panels actually work well for, if the production can be scheduled based on energy availability)

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

It is absolutely possible to make a nuclear-powered engine, you "simply" replace the combustion chamber of a jet engine with a nuclear reactor that heats the air. The big problem is that, unless it's intended as an unmanned vehicle (e.g. nuclear-powered supersonic cruise missles), you will need a lot of shielding to protect people in flight and on the ground, and shielding is heavy. And this is in fact the big problem with most alternatives to combustion engines (e.g. electrical) for aircraft specifically: just too damn heavy. And of course there's also the little issue that a plane crash may end up a nuclear disaster, which is also not ideal. I'm not sure whether a reactor could be made robust enough to "survive" (in the sense of preventing release of nuclear material into the environment) an impact like that of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, flying straight into the ground at full climb thrust.

[@jorehir]

Ships can't crash in the middle of a city, killing tens of thousands of people due to the radioactive fallout.

[@garywatersjr8959]

@@jorehir that's not true at all! Ships crash into cities all the time, generally now first where the reactor isn't.

[@iamtehmunkie]

We were powering Internal Combustion engines with Hydrogen in the Early 1800's long before we were powering them with Petrol. Hydrogen lost out to petrol over energy density. Now emissions are more important its great that Hydrogen is ready for a comeback. I live in Scotland where we have massive untapped reserves of Hydro and wind power, plenty to make the hydrogen we need for aviation cleanly using clean electrolysis.

[@jerrymiller276]

It is simply too bad that fusion is always 50 years away, because it would be the ideal source for the power to make the hydrogen. But without a massive government push to get fusion to work, it is likely that in 50 years it will still be 50 years away.

[@pasoundman]

@@jerrymiller276 ITER is rubbish.

[@jerrymiller276]

@@pasoundman One can wish. We'll have to wait and see.

[@StinkPickle4000]

Wow you learned me something today: first internal combustion engine 1807 ran on hydrogen gas. Neat! Thanks!

[@pasoundman]

@@StinkPickle4000 Just because it existed then doesn't make it a good idea now or indeed ever. The very LACK of general adoption should be a signpost. Practical ICEs came much later in the 1870s onwards and ran mostly on liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Important note: NOT exclusively on fossil fuels ! Early diesels were designed to run on, amongst other things, vegetable/plant oils. They would run on whale oil too but that's probably best ovelooked.

[@JohnnieWalkerGreen]

Still, no research on "Dilithium Crystals" ?

[@chriswareham3755]

As always, great video! Thanks!

[@ryszmansoundvision6572]

Your foot is HUGE! Great video as always 👍🏻

[@robertsleight8013]

I'm just waiting for the day when staying in my wheelchair is an option.

[@edstanton1997]

Hydrogen requires a large amount of power to manufacture it, And how clean is the power that makes it?

[@StinkPickle4000]

@Carl Clarke Don't forget; less losses! net gain = -ve

[@andriiyeromenkov6337]

Interesting feature is used in this blended wing concept. They have several small engines on top of the wing-fuselage structure which will accelerate airflow over it thus producing more lift out of “no-where”

[@kenjohnson6101]

Here's an idea: Put the fuel in the fuselage and put the passengers in the wings! :)

[@tomtheplummer7322]

All about laminar flow.

[@robertmendez7376]

I love that My "ATR" will live on for years to come. I'm guessing it won't be called and ATR but man I will be too old to fly it commercially when it becomes to fruition. Petter. I love videos like this.

[@antonnym214]

Great video! A few thoughts: Hydrogen at -423°F. I agree we don't want that in a wing. I hope we don't have icing from that! The good point, which you touched on is that it's lighter than jet fuel at 4.42lbs per cubic foot. Even with it lighter, I wouldn't have it in the aft part of the fuselage, but in a compartment over the entire length above the passenger area. That way, if there is a leak, it vaporizes and goes up, away from the cabin.

[@MAF5431]

I see a splendid future for the A380 and wonder why Airbus has not just shown a converted A380 as a hydrogen powered long-haul jet: one deck for hydrogen, the other for passengers. ;-)

[@richardcarlin1332]

Batteries are more efficient than hydrogen fuel cells because the amount of energy to create the hydrogen is way more. Much hydrogen today is created from natural gas. Natural gas per volume has more hydrogen than water. I like what the airline industry is doing, but the real solution is with efficiently extracting the hydrogen. I do agree nuclear is a zero emissions way to do it, and that we should greatly expand the use of nuclear for regular electric power generation.

[@marcusholmes7942]

That's easy for airbus to say, let's use hydrogen, but airbus is not a propulsion manufacturer. Airbus makes tubes with wings, not engines.

I was thinking the same thing. It is like a Chinese bus company talking about hyrodgen buses yet they are unable to even make a Detroit Desiel.

[@thomascheney6083]

Liquid hydrogen would need to be stored in the fuselage so existing planes would lose capacity.

[@almerindaromeira8352]

Turbines can use gases. Many run on LNG in powerplants. The only actual change is the combustion chamber and injectors. The biggest hurdle is really the infrastructure

[@nocare]

@@almerindaromeira8352 All turbines already run on gases. It's just a liquid in the delivery line. There are no existing engines that run on liquids or solids. All of them first gasify the fuel before its burned. However I think synthetic kerosine is a better bet than using hydrogen directly.

[@almerindaromeira8352]

@@nocare atomised not gasified. Jet A remains liquid, in small very fine droplets, just like in your car. There is a difference

[@carlwilliams6977]

15 years maybe "around the corner for Aviation", but not for a warming planet! I would have shared your enthusiasm if they had a prototype.

[@tomstravels520]

Jeez you don’t ask for much do you? Just be happy that someone is going in the right direction. We can’t rush these things

[@djprojectus]

They have a prototype. A small .... prototype.😁

[@andrasbiro3007]

Don't worry, electric planes will happen much sooner. In less than 5 years.

[@flagmichael]

We've been warming for 22,000 years. The English Channel as we know it was a land bridge as recently as 8000 years ago. Another few years won't make a difference.

[@carlwilliams6977]

@@tomstravels520 "Rush"?? We've been sitting on our hands since President Carter got laughed at for suggesting we put on sweaters instead of turning up the thermostat! Many scientists feel that the window for controlling warming has already closed. It certainly isn't 15 years away, even if everybody was on board, which they aren't!! I'm middle-aged and don't have kids. I'll be fine. How about you? Ironically, I've been sitting in front of a Starbucks writing this. The owner of the SUV next to me came out with his coffee, got in, and has been idling for 25 minutes. It's 8 in the morning, 60°. I got out and asked him if he was aware that his motor was running. He replied: "Yeah, I've got the air going". Latley, the majority of time when I pull in next to a car, their motors are running, while they look at their phone. Would they be doing that if fuel was $6 a gallon and funding infrastructure? I doubt it! To bring it back to air travel oh, the same applies. We've grown accustomed to flying at the drop of a hat, or price it doesn't reflect the harm that travel is doing to the environment. The pandemic may have an effect on this for business travel. But post-pandemic, people are still going to want to fly across country to see aunt Bessie for Thanksgiving, if tickets are cheap. I'll get off my soapbox now but, No... I don't think we're in any "Rush"!

[@rishabhmehta2477]

It’s a great initiative. Just imagining, what if aircraft’s could fly at significantly higher ceiling altitude with a plasma propulsion engine where limited thrust could propel them for a long distance. Star Wars kind of stuff you know. :D

[@briansmith6063]

Great video, bring on the future !!

[@aninaholbek]

My first thought is: safety. A ruptured tank during an emergency landing, or a leak being ignited - that would likely result in a high energy explosion. I'd rather not be on board if/when that happens. I've never been afraid of flying, but I would not feel safe on these planes - but ask me again in 20 years, when we can see how far technology has brought us, and what aviation looks like at that time.

[@aninaholbek]

@@timfryer9408 Only problem is, hydrogene is very explosive in the presence of oxygen. I'm just curious to see how a safety system around hydrogene would work.

[@ElectricityTaster]

@@timfryer9408 maybe a sponge.

[@Bourinos02]

I don't know, kerosene already reacts badly with sparks. There are materials today that can contain hydrogen safely (they can't even burn if you put a torch on them) but they don't contain much hydrogen to begin with and they would make air transport impractical.

[@kaikart123]

@@Bourinos02 Hydrogen energy density is more than 3 times more powerful than kerosene, the explosion from hydrogen fueled plane would be much much worse than a kerosene fueled one. Kerosene burned, hydrogen exploded.

[@Bourinos02]

@@kaikart123 Well, you are right, but have you even seen footage of a plane catching fire? If it happens, you already have close to 0 chances of survival anyway... That's usually the reason why planes dump fuel before an expected rough landing.

[@alanskinner7031]

the is great the first Hydrogen aircaft that fly's on a commerical route we will call it the "the hindenburg".

[@idanceforpennies281]

The Australian CSIRO has found a way of transporting and storing hydrogen efficiently: Ammonia (NH3). Which is a liquid and doesn't need cryogenics.

[@purplegeezer]

I would imagine that due to the toxicity of ammonia it's automatically a no-go for use on aircraft. Imagine a leak and the implications it would have.

[@idanceforpennies281]

@@purplegeezer Yeah, that's what I thought too. But here's the smart part: When you crack the NH3 you use the nitrogen to surround the ammonia and the hydrogen gets tapped off to do its thing.

[@KenApperson]

I do like your videos. I’m retired pilot with over 14 thousand hours of flight time including military experience. Keep up the good work.

[@thomasosterloh8247]

Back around 1980 NOVA had a show about using hydrogen for cars and aircraft. They interviewed an engineer from Lockheed and he showed how this would work on a L1011. He said the hydrogen could be stored on the center line in the fuselage, He also said that engines would burn clean without deposits in the engines as with fossil fuels. They also had a guy who modified his Cadillac to run on hydrogen and regular gasoline. The major problem was at the time was infrastructure and a reasonable way produce the hydrogen at a reasonable price. As for the blended wing concept, I was working at Edwards AFB when Boeing and NASA was working on that around 10 years ago. So basically these ideas have been around for a long time.

[@mwbgaming28]

Jet engines are literally the most versatile combustion engine ever made, they can run on just about anything that burns (you could run one on coal dust if you could find a way to get it into the engine reliably) Jet engines (particularly military engines) can run on unleaded petrol, crude oil, diesel, and even bacon grease in an emergency If the fuel delivery system is set up to handle it, so running a jet engine on hydrogen require little more than modifying the fuel system and injectors

[@TheNasaDude]

The coal dust experiment was done by Union Pacific with a series of turbine locomotives. The technology was abandoned because clogs were frequent. The same series of locomotives was mainly using a thick fossil fuel named "Bunker C" and the exhaust temperature caused damage to underpass and tunnels if the locomotive had to stop there

[@mwbgaming28]

@@TheNasaDude I said it's possible, I never said it was a good idea lol

[@TonyPadgett]

Didn't the Hindenburg use hydrogen? :)

[@Quasihamster]

Titanic also sank after hitting an object made of some 66% hydrogen.

[@Aimless6]

The Hindenburg had Diesel engines for propulsion.

[@da_mrbanana6190]

Didnt every plane that crashed by far use fossil fuel? Whats your point? 1900s were long ago.

[@crashzg]

@@Aimless6 Yeah but hydrogen for lift!

[@Quasihamster]

@@da_mrbanana6190 They were, but the fuel was in very, very few cases the cause of the crash. That was different on the Hindenburg.

[@elbuggo]

Where do we get the the Hydrogen from? The Hydrogen mines?

[@pegleg2959]

Does the ocean count as a mine? Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It can be extract water (H2o, the H stands for Hydrogen) quite easily.

[@elbuggo]

@@pegleg2959 - right, but you need energy to extract the H. You need more energy to extract the stuff than you get back from the H - what's the point?

[@pegleg2959]

@@elbuggo ahhhh I see.Tbh, I thought you were being stupid, which was stupid of me. Now I see you were being sarcastic. Lmao. You're right, it does take a shit load of energy to extract it (which is annoying, seeing as its bloody everywhere) but I have a feeling this problem will be solved soon. The best minds in the world are working on these concepts. Although, they've been working on expanding battery storage for years and they haven't got very far, so maybe there is no solution to these things. Mabye we didn't realise how precious fossil fuels really are. I'm obviously no expert, but im a thorium nuclear fan myself, I suppose you'll never get a reactor on a plane though haha.

[@bliblablub]

Probably a major breakthrough that is about to come there Really looking forward to the progress of this project

[@ralfoide]

Love that background... where was this filmed at?

[@subhanadhikary2299]

I miss the doggy, the red and green pillows, the Buddha statue at back 😢😢 I am so glad to watch Sir Peter constantly updating us about aviation and new aeroplanes... I am so happy I have found the channel ❤️❤️ Stay safe sir.. Lots of respect from a aviation enthusiast from India ❤️❤️

[@MentourPilot]

Yeah, I had to do my simulator so I did this video in the hotel 😂

[@BRUXXUS]

Hydrogen is *really* scary, and extremely difficult to contain in any tank or system. The atoms and molecules are so small they easily leak out from almost anything over time. With a 15 year timeline, I have a feeling that battery technology will far surpass any benefit to using hydrogen as a fuel source. Once there's a breakthrough in battery energy density there won't be much point in combustion fuel sources. I'd rather see the R&D time and funds be put towards better batteries and better and cleaner energy harvesting. That's just my thought, though.

[@jimmyjango5213]

Hopefully, then we can get over this H2 fad.

[@twotone3471]

I'd like to see a New York to Paris competition Ala the Ortig prize rewarded to Charles Lindbergh for alternative powered crewed aircraft.

[@BRUXXUS]

@@twotone3471 Ohh! That would be awesome!

[@twotone3471]

@@BRUXXUS It was the Ortig prize that brought fossil fueled aircraft as being the answer to intercontinental travel. A similar test for its replacement would be both fun (2020 could use a lot of that) and show that the technologies are ready. I'd disqualify the Burning of Hydrogen directly, bio fuels, and existing fossil fuels. Other than that, go for it!

[@bdf2718]

Battery has a big problem. It weighs the same empty as it does full. Fuel burns off as the journey progresses. Battery has another big problem. It's self-contained. All the energy has to be contained within it. Fuel burns with an oxidizer you don't carry around - oxygen in the air. So it's very hard to get the same energy to carried mass ratio Battery has yet another big problem. A tank of fuel is safe unless ruptured, when air can mix with it. A battery can go bang because it feels like it. Hydrogen has problems with the weight of containment/cryogenics. Energy per unit mass is a lot lower than jet fuel. Best option may be getting oil from algae or some other bio system. Would probably need some treatment to get a usable fuel. But mainly just needs sunlight to produce. Advantage - we have engines that handle this kind of fuel

[@ad3z10]

I'm honestly surprised that they're pushing this with how low fuel prices have been since 2014. Considering we've yet to hit peak oil, I wouldn't have expected manufacturers to resort to Hydrogen until after 2040 at the earliest.

[@maxhar2898]

They are political (or more likely ideological) reasons behind. They are (or will be) forced to reduce their emissions.

[@pdquestions7673]

excellent video... and very nice to see that even pilots can be environmentally conscious!

[@basil3913]

where is my heart button?

[@jacquesmertens3369]

They can launch their new aircraft on 6th May 2037 and call it Hindenburg II.

[@offcenterconcepthaus]

Hindenbus

[@derradfahrer5029]

12:14 Haha, "store passengers". passengers, aka talking cargo

[@B2BWide]

Talking and misbehaving, and moving around by design ;)

[@j________k]

Methanol makes way more sense as a fuel than hydrogen

[@deaddoll1361]

If you had any idea, it wouldn't make sense at all.

[@James-zu1ij]

But methanol has carbon atoms how would that help the environment. The idea is to produce water as waste.

[@hydrochloricacid2146]

Burning hydrocarbons produces Co2. The point is to produce none.

[@nallid7357]

@@James-zu1ij Adding water to the atmosphere is still pretty bad. At this point, adding water will cool the temperature's average down which is idle in our situation, but we will then run into the issue of global cooling and will need to reinvent the engine once more.

[@James-zu1ij]

@@nallid7357 lol

[@bbbl67]

Another thing that companies should look into are non-hydrogen fuel cells, such as alcohol or jet fuel fuel cells. In these systems, you use traditional carbon-based fuels, and react them to produced electricity rather than heat as you do in combustion. The fuel cell would be over 60% efficient, whereas combustion is around 20% efficient, so you could get higher power and range with the same fuels that we've always used. The fuel cell would power an electric motor. There would be no new storage methods required, as it's the same fuels that we've always used!

[@TCeries-plays]

I did not see much windows in the blended aircraft, what does Airbus say about that?

[@yevai]

cameras + large scale panorama screens...you will have a much better view

[@TCeries-plays]

@@yevai panorama screen for individual seats???

[@yevai]

@@TCeries-plays all design concepts I saw used big screens running along the wings and ceiling. and you will probably be able to choose different camera angles on the on board entertainment system, many airlines already have that feature today.

[@TCeries-plays]

@@yevai That,s Fabulous!!!

[@markellsworth4194]

Airbus makes plane bodies and BUYS propulsion! If this were an honest concept, one of the engine makers would loft the idea because it does not take anything special to burn hydrogen in turbo machinery. The special touch is an enormous fuel tank equal in volume to the main fuselage. Yeah, so hydrogen is an Airbus Concept? No. It's just silly, feel good cheerleading. Boeing did a hydrogen concept 767 twenty years ago. It featured a double, stacked fuselage, the upper one a huge hydrogen tank, because hydrogen is a very light, dangerous, low-density, expensive, cryogenic fuel. On a per volume basis, hydrogen generates far less power, which is why you need so much more of it by volume, hence the double fuselage fuel tank to do the same routes you can do with kerosene in the wings. Booo! Boring! This one is for people who cannot add, or who think merely that electricity comes from the wall. Whether you use electricity or methane cracking to make hydrogen, you get equivalent carbon emissions. It comes out the tailpipe at the manufactory instead of the tailpipe of the turbofan.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

Hydrogen storage is far from light. The best efficiency I could find was 7.5% that is for a fully filled pressure vessel, only 7.5% of the weight was hydrogen. They are also massive compared to solid state lithium cells IE just the hydrogen volume for 1kg is 28 times more not including pressure vessel. Then you lose 50% of your energy in fuel cells (or more in jet engines). If Goodenough's solid state cells are as good in production as they are in the lab then in reality they have a higher energy density once you take into account the fuel cells weight and pressure vessel weight.

[@123Andersonev]

liquid hydrogens energy density is about 120MJ/Kg and Kerosene and Airfuel energy density is about 40 MJ/Kg, it's simple you compress the hydrogen down to a liquid state and put it in a dewar high vacuum container the bleed off valve on the tail is for any escaping gas leaking from the container (which is normal) then you combust the hydrogen in the jet engine producing h20.

[@123Andersonev]

@UCqpf_QLVzqlQA2URFT79tcg as I said what is a dawar container and how does it work?, it's just a big vacuum flask, the temperature drop off is negligible if it's properly sealed, as it's literally in a vacuum chamber, but yes hydrogen does take more volume to store the relative equivalent energy density of airfuel but due to the energy density disparity between the relative two weights your 14 starts to look more like 4.6L:1.25L respectively which is achievable you just have to sacrifice more space for fuel storage.

[@gordonlawrence1448]

@@123Andersonev No a dewar will not work. Read the article.

[@123Andersonev]

@@gordonlawrence1448 what article? and of course it will work, how else do you think cryogenics is done?

[@Krasbin]

Aircrafts will probably need to run on synthetic fuels. That could be hydrogen, methane, ethane or heavier fuels. EDIT: the different fuels could be for different distances. Hydrogen/battery for short distances. Heavier synthetic fuels long distance flights.

[@MatthewWalster]

Dimethyl ether is one of the most promising. Can be used with very little modification in diesel engines, gas turbines, and LPG vehicles. There are certain types of nuclear reactor that have an overabundance of high temperature waste heat that are pretty much perfect for the kind of activities needed for a carbon-neutral method of sourcing the fuel from water and carbon dioxide (predominantly from the sea in this case). There's only two minor problems: The required high temperature waste heat reactors are only experimental at the moment (though are proven to work) and dimethyl ether is 20-30% heavier per Joule than diesel, so it makes for a tough sell to aviation :(

[@pasoundman]

Please learn, it's becoming more and more painful to see the English Language abused in this way ! The plural of aircraft is aircraft. Without an 's' ! Same as sheep, as in 1 sheep, 2 sheep. Same applies to gear as in landing gear. There is no such thing as 'the main landing gears' !!!! Why ? Because gear as used here is a 'group noun'. It's not the same as a gear in a gearbox which does indeed have many gears inside it.

[@pasoundman]

Vastly simpler and about a thousand times more practical to use liquid synthetic hydrocarbons if they prove practical to manufacture. Essentially, little or no change required from existing aircraft. Kinda sensible huh ? Doing so however requires an abundant source of low cost energy so as not to use the abundant source of fossil fuels. I did a quick calculation some time ago of a London Heathrow altered to support theoretical 'electric jets'. The recharging of batteries would require 6x 1 gigawatt power stations comitted exclusively to aircraft. In view of the losses involved in fuel systhesis, now make that 12x 1 gigawatt power stations or equivalent !

[@badpharma461]

I'm not convinced by the 'synthetic fuels' story. CO2 is under 0.5% of the atmosphere. Now, if you put your synthetic fuel plant next to an industrial process that creates 100% CO2 (such as concrete manufacture( AND a huge source of carbon-free electricity THEN you can do it. Nice idea but bears all the hallmarks of something thought up by a copywriter, not a scientist.

[@Glen.Danielsen]

Putting fuel in fuselage, baggage into the wings. 😉

[@lankumarpatrik7000]

Gases can be stored in liquid phase under two conditions. 1- under atmospheric pressure and low temperature. 2 - under high pressure and atmospheric temperature. Option one engineers use now in space rocket tanks. So for aviation also can be used option 2.

[@ysfsim]

so basically we will be flying around like the space shuttle with all that "rocket fuel"? I dont know man

[@LboroWick]

Not quite. Space shuttle or most conventional rockets carry its own oxidiser (oxygen) because there is no oxygen to burn the fuel in space.. The orange tank on the space shuttle was 2 tanks containing liquid hydrogen & Liquid Oxygen. Hydrogen is no more or no less safer than kerosene when handled correctly.

[@brantwedel]

Well, most rockets today are flying around with a bunch of jet fuel, so it just comes full circle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@Behemoth29]

Very few rockets run on LH2 because of it's density, most run off of RP-1. Which is just highly refined kerosene, no more dangerous than what is used in aircraft or in cars.

[@andret4403]

@@brantwedel it really isn't full circle. There is basic reason for this. Size of tank and ease of storage.

[@StinkPickle4000]

The shuttle could eject its fuel tank, not that it ever saved them... The fact that is was external may have prolong some lives but still resulted in death.

[@AnonYmous-rw6un]

Smells of PR.

[@pfa2000]

I was thinking the same. Driving the dialogue to create the impression of an environmental conscience. Could be Greenwashing.

[@mururoa7024]

H is more energy packed than batteries. However, the transformation of H into electricity is highly inefficient and with today's tech causes a 70-80% loss which results in less range than a with battery of equal mass. See the Real Engineering channel for the technical explanation with calculations. A H gas turbine to produce thrust makes more sense.

[@botpride]

Greanpeace members don't know that first you should burn some fossils to drive a tourbine of electrical generator that will produce electricity to split water into h2 and o2, and to generate liquid h2, and that Dewer vessel is very bulky and fragile itself. How do they know it if they all went on schoolstrike for climate?

[@doorhanger9317]

That's just false, H2 fuel cells are around 50% efficient at converting H2 into electricity - they're more efficient than heat engines like piston or turbines because there's no intermediate steps, and the extra energy density more than makes up for that 50% loss in terms of range - even hydrogen cars have much more range than battery cars. That's not what Real Engineering is saying in that video - there might be a 70% loss of energy throughout the H2 production chain but it doesn't make H2 any less energy dense. Also, comparing it to batteries _by mass?_ Come on, by mass H2 is even better than kerosene. The limiting factor is volume, and liquid H2 is still so much more energy dense by volume than batteries. The weight of batteries disqualifies them from anything more than short-medium haul even with any predicted advance of current or future battery technology.

[@mururoa7024]

@@doorhanger9317 Your math is wrong. Watch Real Engineering's channel to learn the proper calculation.

[@permacultureman]

Awesome video. Interesting what the future (present) has in store

[@davidrees3778]

Mentour pilot One idea is instead of combusting fuel is using a nuclear reactor in a jet engine, Convair and tupolev developed the idea in the 1950s. It may not emit co2 but it released a lot of radiation and the nuclear reactor had to be enclosed in lead shielding making it heavy so they dropped the idea. Tupolev even flew a prototype nuclear aircraft. Look it up it is a very interesting concept

[@ceoofairfrancevirtualrfs7066]

I will join the discord of my favourite pilot

[@MentourPilot]

Welcome to the Patreon crew!

[@christophertstone]

4:00 The *major problem* isn't infrastructure, not by a long shot. The problem is the stuff explodes. But I hear people protesting that JET-A or AV100 can "explode", it doesn't, not when it's a liquid. It doesn't even burn as a liquid; it has to evaporate (or be atomized) first. Hydrogen tanks can explode, with enough force to turn a plane into confetti. There would be no _evacuation_ procedures for a hydrogen plane -- in a fuel emergency it would just disappear, along with everyone on the plane, and anyone within a 1000 ft / 300 m. This the same reason hydrogen powered cars never took off (Toyota and GM already figured all this out decades ago; go lookup their research; a cursory look and you'll see how much R&D they dumped into hydrogen).

[@poseypapusdiazfamily4630]

Energy density of hydrogen is very low if I remember correctly and to remain at room temp, liquid pressure is several thousand PSI. Fuel tanks would have to be super strong and heavy. It is not logical.

[@Dean.Hilleary]

Unless it was perhaps in something super strong and heavy? A ship perhaps? I mean, they don't FLY, sure but they do use a ^#&*ton more fuel than aircraft. Oh, sorry you already said the thing about logic. My bad.

[@flagmichael]

Super strong, but not necessarily heavy. That aside, the storage aspect is something to watch. They may have an angle we haven't seen yet. After all, just to get to the prototypes costs more money than I will ever have. The hydrogen is not likely to actually be liquid, which only occurs below 32.9 K, but probably just highly compressed. That's another reason to put it far back, as well; rupture of the tank would be dangerous enough even with it there. Being enveloped in a cloud that makes nitrogen and oxygen condense on my skin is not the sort of experience I would seek.

[@maxhar2898]

" Energy density of hydrogen is very low if I remember correctly " I think you remember incorrectly. Energetic density of Hydrogen is roughly three times more than Kerosene. But for the tank, you're right : heavy, strong and sealed to the maximum.

[@MrDschubba]

H is of the highest energy density fuels, but when combined with the weight of structure to contain it the total energy density is compromised

[@maxhar2898]

@@MrDschubba Correct. But you cannot presume of a design in the energy density. Or you need to integrate many things in the comparison.

[@elchingon7351]

A blended wing aircraft would be awesome👍👍👍

[@donj.1228]

Love the enthusiasm!!! My very first thought though... was *** HINDENBURG - May 6, 1937!!! *** People had high hopes for the hydrogen filled airships in 1936-1937; Additionally evidenced by the landing dock built atop the Empire State Building; which has now all but been written out of history. Immediately after that tragic day, very few people were willing to step aboard any airship and every educated person knew it used Hydrogen.