Rolls-Royce, EasyJet fire up first hydrogen-fueled jet engine
- Reference: 1669733376
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/29/rollsroyce_easyjet_hydogen_engine/
- Source link:
While the test was ground based, Rolls-Royce said the successful firing of a Rolls-Royce AE 2100-A regional aircraft engine converted for hydrogen power was a major step forward in proving hydrogen fuel as a viable zero-carbon option for the aviation industry.
What's more, the hydrogen fuel used in the test was gathered by the European Marine Energy Centre at its test facility in the Orkney Islands, where it was collected using renewable power sources.
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"This is a true British success story, with the hydrogen being used to power the jet engine today produced using tidal and wind energy from the Orkney Islands of Scotland – and is a prime example of how we can work together to make aviation cleaner while driving jobs across the country," said UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Grant Shapps.
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Shapps noted recent moves to "guilt-free flying" by shifting away from fossil fuels toward carbon-neutral or zero-carbon energy sources.
Rolls-Royce and easyJet said additional runs would follow analysis of the test data, with plans for a full-scale ground test of a Rolls-Royce [4]Pearl 15 jet engine to cap the project. Eventually, the pair said they want to carry out test flights, but no timetable has been publicly set.
What about electric planes?
As for other recent green aviation moves, last year the UK government awarded a meager [5]£700k ($836k) to airports for future-proofing efforts. The cash pool was thinned even further by dividing it up amongst 15 projects that would use it to retrofit facilities and train ground crew to handle both hydrogen and electric aircraft.
A pair of projects conducted earlier this year elsewhere also bode well for the future of hydrogen as an aviation fuel source.
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The first, conducted at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, found that synthetic gas (or syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide) can be generated using only moisture and CO 2 [7]gathered from the ambient air and reformed in a high-performance solar radiation condenser.
Because the CO 2 used in creating the syngas is pulled from the air, the fuel is carbon neutral and only releases what was gathered in its production.
A second effort out of the University of Melbourne saw a team do something similar by using solar power to extract water vapor from the air and split the hydrogen from the oxygen. That project only produced H 2 fuel, not syngas, and was designed to operate in low-humidity environments – like the Australian outback.
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Electric aircraft, meanwhile, have been hampered by the same thing that hampers all electronics: Batteries. In this case, their [9]weight .
That doesn't mean developments in the electric aerospace realm have stalled. American Airlines in July made reservations for [10]50 electric aircraft , while United Airlines and regional carriers ordered [11]200 electric airplanes last year.
The kicker in both those cases is that they're tiny craft designed to operate as local flying taxis to take commuters to airports, in American's case, and 19-seaters for short hops of up to 200 miles (400km) for United.
Heart, the makers of the 19-seaters bought by United, recently ditched that design in favor of a 30-seat variant with less electric range but the addition of gas-powered backup engines, effectively making it a hybrid that, when burning gas, still only manages to get back into the neighborhood of the 19-seat variation's range.
Heart believes it will have its 30-seat craft in the air by 2028.
[12]Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists
[13]CT scanning tech could put an end to 100ml liquid limit on flights by 2024
[14]FAA wants pilots to be less dependent on computer autopilots
[15]Aviation regulators push for more automation so flights can be run by a single pilot
EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren, meanwhile, said that hydrogen offers "great possibilities for a range of aircraft, including easyJet-sized aircraft." While not a direct dig at battery-powered planes, a look at [16]the low-cost airline's fleet shows it's made up of Airbus A319 and A320-family aircraft, each with a seating capacity in excess of 150 people and a minimum range of 1,711 miles (2,753 km).
Rolls-Royce said the partnership between it and EasyJet was inspired by the UN's race to zero campaign to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 - just a little more than 27 short years away.
For anyone looking to get net-zero beyond regional flights, that 2050 deadline might require some hydrogen. ®
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[4] https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and-services/civil-aerospace/business-aviation/pearl-15.aspx
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/30/airline_funding_ecology/
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[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/02/all_electric_cessna_magnix/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/18/american_airlines_vx4/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/15/united_mesa_electric_aircraft/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/04/solar_hydrocarbon_production/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/24/airport_scanning_liquid_limit/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/23/faa_pilot_computer/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/21/pilot_single/
[16] https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/boarding-and-flying/our-fleet
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Batteries != energy
I'm not sure what your point is - whether it's 1GWh of energy stored as hydrogen, or 1GWh of energy stored in a battery, I can guarantee it involved an expenditure of greater than 1GWh of electricity at some point prior to take-off to charge the store. Unless we're talking gray hydrogen of course, in which case it's just another fossil fuel.
Re: Batteries != energy
Hydrogen can be produced en masse in a constant stream either on site or centralised somewhere (or a mix), electricity can't since changes in demand require ramping up and down of the fuel source. Remember, that's only 1GWh per plane (given my very fuzzy calculations). If an airport needs to refuel say 5 trans-Atlantic flights per hour that's 5GWh. The largest nuclear plant in the world is ~7GWh max and it's about the size of an airport.
Re: Batteries != energy
Ah, you're arguing that hydrogren is useful for this application because it can be moved at a higher ... I think the word I want is "current" - than charging a battery on a plane? Yes, I agree with you on that.
Re: Batteries != energy
I'm sorry - I can't take seriously the back of a napkin maths of someone who doesn't distinguish between energy and power.
Re: Batteries != energy
Actually it's pretty simple. I estimated the equivalent energy required for a Boeing 737 engine to be ~50MW. For a London to New York flight it would require about 600 MW of energy for a 5 hour flight plus some extra for safety, and to recharge that in half an hour would require ~1.2GWh to be competitive with the roughly 20 minute refuel time of kerosene.
If you're talking about the title, batteries store energy, getting that energy in the form of power is more cumbersome than liquid fuels.
Re: Batteries != energy
And then claim that you can measure a power plant in MWh...
Re: Batteries != energy
I said their maximum output was in GWh (7GW in an hour), not their capacity. My whole argument is about the time requirement of refueling a plane. The hour part is pretty relevant here wouldn't you say? I'm all for being a nitpicky a-hole, but try to consider nuance first.
Re: Batteries != energy
7GW in an hour doesn't mean anything.
7GW means 7GJ per second
You could say a 7GWh per h but that's a bit silly
Re: Batteries != energy
A GW is indeed a GJ per second. a GWh is a GJ per second per hour. That's actually a pretty widely accepted concept.
Hydrogen seems to be more a viable future for planes (also) than batteries.
Well done Rolls Royce, you beat [1]CFM in the hydrogen race
== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==
[1] https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/stories/2022-02-the-zeroe-demonstrator-has-arrived
The real problem for hydrogen that still needs to be solved is a reliable and safe way of storing it either under very high pressure or in a liquid form. Because the molecular size of hydrogen is so small, it can escape from a hole that is literally too small to detect with current scanning technology. Adding to that is the fact that escaped hydrogen, when combined with atmospheric oxygen, is an explosion just waiting for a very, very small spark to happen.
NASA and other space agencies have been trying to solve the hydrogen storage problem for decades, and they are still no nearer to a solution.
Yup. NASA know it'll leak, so they have procedures and designs of kit and spaces to cope with that. Witness the postponements of the Artemis 1 mission due to H2 leaks.
Aircraft design will become a lot more interesting if they are forced to use a fuel, H2, which is totally unsuited for that use.
I suspect this is most useful as PR
I think hydrogen is going to have a hard time competing with synthetic hydrocarbons because of the storage problems. Even liquid hydrogen requires much bigger storage tanks. Then you've got the weight and size of the insulation. If you don't liquify it, you've got to compress it, which again requires heavy tanks. Then you've got the much higher risks from leaks, especially during refueling.
Long distance flight must eventually become net-zero carbon, but I doubt that Rolls Royce would be doing this if EasyJet weren't paying for it, probably from their PR budget.
Re: I suspect this is most useful as PR
It all comes down to cost. I'm with you, in that synthetic fuel can be a drop-in replacement for ordinary jet fuel, requiring no new infrastructure or aircraft designs, while hydrogen requires a lot of new infrastructure, and pretty much requires radical new designs to accommodate the tanks, so the former would seem to be much more likely. But if all the green hydrogen production being planned results in very cheap hydrogen, and synthetic fuel remains expensive, then hydrogen might still end up being worth it.
Gravy train
Who cares if tech is not viable if you can spend years "researching" it and milking tax payer subsidies.
It's for Net Zero after all, so it can't be criticised.
Revert back to airships?
Hydrogen's nice and light, but needs three times the volume as aviation fuel if stored as liquid (very cold). Six times the volume if stored as 700bar pressurised gas.
So planes will significantly need bigger fuel tanks, but will save energy by not having to carry as much fuel weight around.
Batteries, with current technology, aren't as energy-dense as liquid hydrogen. But easier to handle.
Volumetric energy capacity:
- Petrol/aviation fuel: around 34 MJ per litre
- Compressed hydrogen (700 bar): 5.6 MJ per litre (fuel tanks six times larger)
- Liquid hydrogen: 10.1 MJ per litre (fuel tanks three times larger)
Hydrogen?!
Hydrogen is dangerous. It leaks through everything, and it is flammable. The mass of something able to contain enough hydrogen to feed an engine for a long trip is not something an aircraft wants to carry around. The Hindenburg disaster is a hint that when things go bad with hydrogen, they go bad very enthusiastically. To quote NASA, "Liquid hydrogen must be stored at minus 423°F and handled with extreme care. To keep it from evaporating or boiling off, rockets fueled with liquid hydrogen must be carefully insulated from all sources of heat, such as rocket engine exhaust and air friction during flight through the atmosphere." Gaseous hydrogen needs a very strong container, or something that can adsorb or absorb the hydrogen - then release it. Both are heavy.
NASA uses liquid hydrogen (with great precautions) mostly in UPPER stages. Dealing with liquid hydrogen in a main stage only makes all the problems bigger. The Shuttle engines used liquid hydrogen, but they threw the fuel tank away before they reached orbit. Wouldn't want the leftover fuel close to the shuttle and its crew and cargo for the entire trip. Wouldn't want airplane passengers sitting on it either.
The only place I can see hydrogen being really useful in transportation is for a train, where weight is far less significant.
Re: Hydrogen?!
Trains do derail, and run into vehicles on level crossings.
Batteries != energy
Even if the weight issue with batteries was solved, it still wouldn't be viable since you'd need to generate >1GWh for cross-Atlantic/cross-Pacific airliners.