A hydrogen-powered air taxi flew 523 miles emitting only water vapor

https://www.popsci.com/technology/hydrogen-power-air-taxi/

by geox • 2 years ago

72 87 2 years ago

akira2501• 2 years ago

Liquid Hydrogen is not a lot of fun. Anything with an 700:1 expansion ratio is a stored energy hazard in and of itself, but because it's cryogenic it also means the cumulative daily loses in tanks where cooling is not actively maintained will be a constant annoyance.

They seem intentionally coy about how the 523 miles where flown, seemingly just above Marina, CA. They have requested that flight tracking not be publicly shown on flight aware.

aftbit• 2 years ago

You might be able to find them on ADS-B Exchange, either live or in the historical data sets. They are somewhat famous for only using citizen-sourced ADS-B data and refusing all requests to delist or hide data (allegedly anyway).

It looks like their tail number is N542B but I'm not sure how to translate that to the ICAO hex codes that they use to archive their data nor exactly what date and location the flight took place. Some more sleuthing would be required.

https://www.adsbexchange.com/products/historical-data/

kbaker• 2 years ago

N542BJ is the tail number (not N542B,) flightradar24 has the Mode S code listed even though the flight data is locked there. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n542bj#

Some test flights around 6/23 - 6/27. Looks like a pretty boring way to get 523 miles. They should fly the loops over the Indianapolis Speedway instead.

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a6df7c&lat=36.689&lon=-...

antonvs• 2 years ago

I wonder if the the high-pressure, non-cryogenic hydrogen tanks used in some cars and buses would work. That technology seems to have solved the major issues, although I suppose aircraft crashes could introduce some additional problems.

Toyota has some detail about their system, which is similar to systems used by Honda and Hyundai, at: https://www.toyota-europe.com/news/2015/hydrogen-is-that-saf...

more_corn3• 2 years ago

The Hydrogen in our supply chain also comes from petroleum so it’s more dangerous, more expensive and less green than any other alternative. Its would literally be more green to burn coal.

GenerocUsername• 2 years ago

That's great. How horrible was the process of generating the fuel to only emit water by the final link in the energy chain?

akoboldfrying3• 2 years ago

You don't seem to realise that that process happened far away from where we are. Maybe even in a different country.

So when you think about it: Did it even really happen at all?

pauljurczak• 2 years ago

Greenwashed hydrogen?

taylodl• 2 years ago

The production and use of hydrogen in transportation requires 4x more energy from the electric grid than EVs - and there are people claiming the grid can't handle EVs (they're wrong - but that's another point). What the grid can't handle is hydrogen. Between Microsoft and Google battling over AI, the claim that the grid can handle EVs is being cast into doubt.

None of this is even getting into the consumer issues with hydrogen - of which there are plenty.

Hydrogen may find a use in long distance haulers and heavy-duty construction equipment (think replacing big diesel engines), but it's never going to get a strong foothold on personal transportation.

pdonis• 2 years ago

"Emitting only water vapor"--which is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

XorNot• 2 years ago

You might want to consider that 70% of the planet is covered with water which emits a lot of water vapor per day, everyday.

Water vapour condenses out of the atmosphere in a matter of minutes to hours. CO2 in the atmosphere has a half-life of 120 years.

tzs• 2 years ago

Yes and no. Yes, water vapor is more effective at warming than CO2, and is responsible for over half of Earth's total greenhouse effect.

But humans have very little effect on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere [1]. Emit a ton of CO2 and that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

Emit a ton of water vapor and it is gone from the atmosphere in weeks. The average emitted water vapor molecule only stays for two weeks.

So no, as far as emissions go emitting CO2 is much worse than emitting water vapor.

[1] https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-do-we-blame-climate-chan...

Terr_• 2 years ago

Don't worry, any excess water vapor quickly falls out of the atmosphere.

Literally. As rain.

rad_gruchalski• 2 years ago

We need to ban water as its existence makes water vapour possible. Do something.

al_borland• 2 years ago

From what I’ve read, liquid hydrogen isn’t a great option due to the energy required to create it. Where does that energy come from?

analog314• 2 years ago

Commercially viable hydrogen production starts with methane, goes through a combination of "steam reforming" followed by "shift reaction." So far as I know, liquefaction involves essentially mainstream cryogenic refrigeration.

Loughla• 2 years ago

And the energy for that comes from where?

wrycoder• 2 years ago

Hydrogen is just a “battery” for energy storage. The ultimate goal is to produce “green” hydrogen by cracking water using solar energy - either via photovoltaics or developing a way through bioengineering photosynthesis.

avmich2• 2 years ago

Can be from solar cells, the cheapest option today.

wenc• 2 years ago

Green hydrogen (from renewables) is not the cheapest option to my knowledge. In fact it is not yet cost-competitive.

The electrolysis process is not still efficient today (but improving) and does not yet have scale, and the cost is several times SMR-produced hydrogen.

Most economical hydrogen is produced through SMR or as a byproduct.

defrost• 2 years ago

To produce 640 tonnes of renewable hydrogen per annum takes: https://www.energy.gov.au/news-media/news/australias-first-l...

Current project status: https://arena.gov.au/projects/yuri-renewable-hydrogen-to-amm...

Related (Australian) hydrogen energy projects: https://arena.gov.au/projects/?technology=hydrogen

(and a few other largish projects with no government funding)

condiment• 2 years ago

This is pretty cool. They built the taxi to do battery operated flights, with the longest flight so far was 150 miles at a top speed of around 200 mph.

For reference, 500 miles is the distance between San Diego and San Francisco. That’s a 90 minute flight that would take closer to 2 1/2 hours with this air taxi. So I suspect that this demonstration is less about any sort of aspiration to replace batteries and fossil fuels with hydrogen, and more a demonstration of an operationally clean burning fuel.

The criticisms that hydrogen is environmentally expensive are valid, but what’s interesting is that the operational use of the vehicle, whether it’s battery or fuel cell, is effectively emissions-free. When the operational fuel is clean, emissions improvements can be centralized. That’s a really big deal.

https://www.jobyaviation.com/news/joby-progresses-next-phase...

readthenotes1• 2 years ago

If it's a taxi service, is there a chance that +90 minutes for security and baggage could be avoided to make the door to door time more comparable?

imtringued2• 2 years ago

You still need to make sure that no one except the pilot can take over the controls and that nobody is secretly loading up the VTOL with bombs in their luggage with the intention to crash it into the side of a glass skyscraper.

Then there is the safety of the passengers. If you and the pilot are the only ones in the aircraft, there is not much risk to yourself, but if the pilot dies, then the aircraft must land autonomously. If there is a group of passengers, then a terrorist could take the passengers hostage. So you still need to check for weapons and explosives.

The only case where you could get rid of security is with a fully autonomous aircraft that carries no luggage and only a single person.

vernon992• 2 years ago

This is already the case with a bunch of small plane airlines. They are also reasonably priced (compared to chartering). I personally love JetSuiteX (JSX) and the experience is truly incredible, with just 5 minutes to board the plane from entering the hangar. No TSA, no BS. There are a few more with similar service, but as far as I know, JSX was the one that found the loophole in the regulations that allowed them to run their operations this way legally. Proliferation of small aircraft cheap to operate will make this model ubiquitous.

Edit: typos

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

is there a chance that +90 minutes for security and baggage could be avoided to make the door to door time more comparable?

Blade in New York flies through high-security corridors. Check-in is like a minute. (Counterpoint: I regularly show up to my small-town airport fifteen minutes before boarding is scheduled to start, although that precludes being able to check a bag.)

That said: you can’t easily take out a building with a helicopter. That may not be true with a tankful of 700-bar hydrogen.

briandw• 2 years ago

Cost to produce H2 from water, 50-55 kWh/kg Cost to liquefy H2 is 10-13 kWh/kg 1 Kg of H2 stores about 33 kWh of energy. More than 50% of the energy is wasted before transport, storage, boil off etc are concerned.

H2 does not make any sense whatever.

akoboldfrying3• 2 years ago

Well, the article actually admits that 95% of hydrogen produced in the US is from hydrocarbons, and thus produces lots of CO2.

And if you think about it for a minute: Do CO2 emissions that occur miles away from where I'm standing right now really even exist?

remram• 2 years ago

Just give me an electric train for that distance...

coryrc3• 2 years ago

It makes better sense than curtailing solar or wind production. 50% is better than zero.

That being said, hydrogen is usually the worst option, but I don't think that's true for every scenario.

jfengel• 2 years ago

If you had all of that H2, what is the additional cost to just fix some CO2 into hydrocarbons?

It feels like that would be a much simpler way to get to net zero than having to reinvent all of the infrastructure.

So much simpler that I wonder why anyone would keep trying on hydrogen. Which makes me darkly suspect that the goal is to take our attention off the solution that's already being deployed, i.e. wind and solar.

skoocda2• 2 years ago

Regardless of net efficiency, that still entails collecting CO2 at a central facility (where it could have been dealt with in other ways, such as injection underground) and sprinkling it through the air as you fly over delicate ecosystems. I'm sure bankers see both as net zero, but condors might have more issues with your simpler workaround.

ianburrell• 2 years ago

It takes a lot of energy to pull CO2 from the air since it is only 400ppm. It also takes energy to make hydrocarbons. This means they will be really expensive. They might be used for classic cars but can’t replace fossil fuels.

Hydrogen or ammonia have advantages that can be made from water and nitrogen. Ammonia may be good for ships and planes since can be liquid at cold temps. But can’t substitute in cars.

rasz2• 2 years ago

1 Kg of H2 stores about 33 kWh of energy

as horrible as Hydrogen is, isnt that still ~two orders of magnitude better than li-ion? Pressure vessel will probably bring that down to one order of magnitude.

In cars where weight doesnt matter that much Toyota, leader when it comes to pushing BS hydrogen, is only able to get Hydrogen Yaris to do 10-14 Fuji laps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGL5g91KwLA thats 45-60km of range on Hydrogen.

skoocda2• 2 years ago

That gravimetric energy density is about 2 orders of magnitude higher than lithium ion batteries.

audunw• 2 years ago

The difference in volumetric energy density is not that big though, and hydrogen is not as flexible as jet fuel or even batteries when it comes to how you can store it in the vehicle.

To be fair, high gravimetric density is a fairly large advantage for an air plane. But the bad volumetric energy density does present some serious challenges.

dzhiurgis4• 2 years ago

So why it’s not used in rockets?

rich_sasha• 2 years ago

But according to HN armchair engineers, electricity will be free, nay, negatively priced in T+epsilon as exponential decrease in solar panel prices actually turns them negative. Or maybe even imaginary.

THEN it definitely makes sense.

more_corn3• 2 years ago

Wholesome energy prices do in fact turn negative. But then you store it in batteries and use it when they flip positive again. No complicated, expensive, delicate, dangerous, cryogenic fuel systems required.

g8oz2• 2 years ago

https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/oil-and-gas...

ZeroGravitas• 2 years ago

H2 doesn't make sense for a lot of things it's promoted for (see Michael Leibreich's Hydrogen Ladder for detail on this) but this is one area where it makes some kind of sense.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-mi...

chgs4• 2 years ago

There are times it makes sense - when you have a remote location you need power in that is more than batteries can provide for example. Say you need 300kW in a farm miles from the nearest supply for 3 months.

more_corn3• 2 years ago

Why on earth would you want to maintain cryogenic fuel systems and delivery systems in a remote location?

dtgriscom• 2 years ago

Note that they never say what the payload was. Was there just a pilot? Was it just remote-controlled? (I'm guessing just the pilot, but that's less than useful except as a personal transport, not a "taxi".)

akoboldfrying3• 2 years ago

It's reassuring to know that the CO2 that will be emitted in the end-to-end process of getting these planes airborne will be occurring somewhere far outside of my immediate vicinity.

flembat• 2 years ago

Generation, transmission, storage and local consumption of energy, are separate problems. Hydrogen probably makes sense in the long term, it can be transported in pipes, can quickly refill a local users tank and is not going to create a monstrous waste recycling problem.

rasz2• 2 years ago

it can be transported in pipes

how long do the pipes last before crumbing? and how long do the pumps last? Toyota cant even make a hydrogen car fuel pump last more than 7 hours.

dzhiurgis4• 2 years ago

We’re not even using hydrogen, the most dense fuel, in rockets. Why would you use anywhere else? Cars, trucks, EVTOLS and even planes are getting batteries which are superior in most aspects.

ramon156• 2 years ago

Electric trains, people

TedHartDavis• 2 years ago

This is seriously impressive to me, if indeed as claimed. I'm no longer skeptical about the successful application of hydrogen for power in vehicles.

Buuut will we ever make it truly make sense for vehicles en masse?

arnaudsm• 2 years ago

Impressive range! What's the CO2/mile?

nullc• 2 years ago

But would falling passengers count as carbon emissions?

A hydrogen-powered air taxi flew 523 miles emitting only water vapor

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