Hydrogen should take priority over biofuel in aviation

Flight Global ^ | 11/30/2010 | Kerry Reals

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The aviation industry should focus research and development programmes on liquid hydrogen rather than third-generation biofuels in the quest to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, according to World Wildlife Fund director for global energy policy Stephan Singer.

Speaking at a roundtable on environmental issues at the European Parliament in Brussels today - part of the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe's (ASD) Aeroweek conference - Singer said liquid hydrogen and algae-derived biofuels should be the focus of investment over other alternative fuels because they are less likely to interfere with land used for food producti

[wastoute]

LOL Like minds...

[RoadTest]

“Hydrogen should take priority over biofuel in aviation”

Cars, to. The fuel cell is the engine of the future, not a Rube Goldberg contraption burning corn and making sparks.

[bert]

Week before last I visited a company that is experimenting with hydrogen powered fork lifts.

The electric lift trucks work well but experience downtime and battery maintenance costs.

They make their own hydrogen on site and would need to do little to make enough more to run their forklift fleet

[palmer]

The fuel cell is the engine of the future

That would be nice except that it takes 35 kWh of electricity ($3.50) to generate a kg of hydrogen. Or you can use NG and get the hydrogen for about a buck / kg. But then you would ask yourself why not just burn the NG in an engine and eliminate the conversion losses? Carrying around natural gas gives you 25 MJ / liter but hydrogen is only 10 MJ / liter. Gasoline is 35 MJ / liter.

[BobL]

Conceivably we could use nukes to generate the electricity for hydrolysis, and the Obama admin is dedicated to building more nukes. Whoops, never mind, that dedication only lasted while ratification of the latest global warming treaty was on the table - LOL.

[palmer]

All their talk about nuclear is too cheap to meter (e.g. Sec. Chu)

[monocle]

Besides water vapor, the product of combustion, overwhelms carbon dioxide as a purported greenhouse gas.

[SeeSac]

Second law of cryogenics: Helium leaks worse than Hydrogen. Personally I’d prefer to fly on something fueled by a propellant at or near room temperature.

Questions? What does cryogenics have to do with hydrogen leaks? Doesn't hydrogen leak faster than helium? I thought that hydrogen fuel cells were gas, not liquid? Doesn't 'propellant' more properly refer to rocket fuels?

[Slings and Arrows]

*chuckle*

[palmer]

But the natural water cycle overwhelms man-made water vapor from irrigation which overwhelms man-made water vapor from combustion.

[monocle]

The same is true with carbon dioxide. Besides organic materials decaying and carbon dioxide being expelled from the largest source of carbon dioxide the oceans.

[Skepolitic]

“All their talk about nuclear is too cheap to meter (e.g. Sec. Chu)”

Very good!

[surfer]

Of course hydrogen is the answer but it won’t happen until they come up with a scam to figure out how to tax ALL of it.

[Skepolitic]

There’s no doubt that dihydrogen monoxide is a greenhouse gas as well CO2. Greenhouse gas emissions are purported to be the cause of over 800 sorts of devastation of the planet.

See http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm for an amusing and complete list of things caused by GHG.

[RoadTest]

Food for thought

[catnipman]

Hydrogen is simply another ecoscam:

Currently the dominant technology for direct production of hydrogen is steam reforming from hydrocarbons. Thus the fossil fuel energy inputs to make hydrogen, store it, distribute it, load it, and burn it far outweigh simply burning the original natural gas to begin with. Not to mention the exorbitantly expensive infrastructure to do all of the above.

However, Obama bailed on hydrogen not because it’s any better or any worse than any of the other eco-energy scams, but because hydrogen is obtained from natural gas, yet another evil product of evil fossil fuels in an industry that requires no Federal subsidies to exist, and therefore is a political force that opposes a larger Federal government and the Marxist Rat politicians that strive otherwise.

Obama wants to destroy fossil fuel interests and their political power, which he is naturally antithetical to anyway, and build a new political base of special interests by lavishing massive federal taxpayer-funded give-aways on any and all crack-brained schemes as long as they are not nuclear or fossil fuel based. His plan is to develop large numbers of industries like corn-based ethanol that are unable to exist without permanent and continuous taxpayer handouts, and which therefore become yet another potent entitlement group that must support Rat politicians for their continued survival.