Japan Airlines fuels up on hydrogen hype with eye on cleaner skies
- Reference: 1700140916
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/11/16/japan_looking_at_hydrogen_fuelcell/
- Source link:
The flagship carrier for Japan said it has signed agreements with three companies involved in hydrogen-electric aviation. This is part of a project aimed at bringing hydrogen-fueled aircraft into service for regional routes around Japan in an effort to decarbonize commercial airline flights.
All three companies have already achieved hydrogen-fueled test flights, according to Japan Airlines, using hydrogen in fuel cells to generate power for electric motors rather than being burned in conventional combustion engines.
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This approach to hydrogen power is typically intended for propeller-driven planes covering relatively short distances, hence the emphasis on regional routes.
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The study is set to evaluate the powertrain requirements needed for varying flight distances and aircraft size as well as examining the safety, economic feasibility, and maintainability of the technology for future airliner operations around Japan.
One of the companies, Stuttgart-based [4]H2FLY , tested a hydrogen-electric demonstrator aircraft in September this year, which it claimed as the first piloted flight of such a vehicle.
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The company claimed the test flights were completed using cryogenically stored liquid hydrogen to power the HY4 aircraft, and the results indicate that using liquid hydrogen in place of gaseous hydrogen would double the maximum range of the aircraft from 750 km to 1,500 km.
"We are now looking ahead to scaling up our technology for regional aircraft and other applications, beginning the critical mission of decarbonizing commercial aviation," H2FLY CEO and co-founder Professor Josef Kallo said at the time.
[6]ZeroAvia , a British-American company, is putting forward its ZA2000 engine platform, described as a 2-5.4 MW hydrogen-electric propulsion system for 40-90 seat regional turboprops. This is scheduled to come into service in 2027.
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One of the things ZeroAvia will look at is assessing retrofitted hydrogen-electric aircraft for existing and prospective routes, as well as developing hydrogen fuel infrastructure and engine maintenance, repair, and overhaul practices.
"Japan plans massive investment in hydrogen supply and also in supporting the development of hydrogen aviation, so there is clear opportunity for exploring early adoption," the company's chief customer officer, James Peck, said in a statement.
[8]Ireland to develop datacenter powered by fuel cells
[9]Boris Johnson's mad hydrogen for homes bubble bursts
[10]British boffins say aircraft could fly on trash, cutting pollution debt by 80%
[11]Nukes, schmukes – fuel cells could power future datacenters
The third company, California-based [12]Universal Hydrogen , has already developed a conversion kit for existing turboprop aircraft such as the De Havilland Canada Dash-8, but its involvement in this study is also in building a supply of green hydrogen for Japanese airlines. It has developed what it calls modular hydrogen capsules that can be transported from production sites using existing freight networks.
Japan Airlines Engineering (JALEC) president Ryo Tamura said in a statement that hydrogen could solve a number of key challenges including CO₂ and non-CO₂ emissions from aviation propulsion.
"It is important that we explore the potential benefits and challenges for hydrogen aviation with the leaders in the sector as a matter of urgency. Our collaboration will lead and contribute to safe and sustainable aviation in Japan," he said.
Other moves towards hydrogen-fueled airliners have come from European multinational aerospace corporation [13]Airbus , which said it intends to have hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft by 2035. It is looking at both fuel cells and aircraft powered by hydrogen combustion, using gas turbines with modified fuel injectors.
Rolls-Royce and UK budget airline EasyJet claimed to have conducted the "world's first run of a modern aero engine on hydrogen" [14]last year , using an engine converted to burn hydrogen, which the pair said they hoped would lead to test flights, but no timetable was detailed at the time.
The runway to hydrogen powered planes remains long and uncertain. ®
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[4] https://www.h2fly.de/
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[6] https://zeroavia.com/
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[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/ireland_to_develop_datacenter_powered/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/18/boris_johnsons_hydrogen_for_homes/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/17/sustainable_jet_fuel/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/04/fuel_cell_datacenter_power/
[12] https://hydrogen.aero/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/21/airbus_hydrogen_airliners_concept/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/rollsroyce_easyjet_hydogen_engine/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Keeping the fuel cells cold will be an interesting challenge in light weight heat exchanger design. However, it's not as big an engineering challenge as keeping the fuel cells, electric motors and pressure vessel for storing hydrogen light enough that the mass of the energy stored plus propulsion system can even be even remotely similar to that of conventional jet fuel plus a gas turbine. Bare in mind that the fuel tanks for a conventional aircraft are essentially the weight of a sealing coating of plastic on the inside of the wings, plus some fuel pumps.
The hydrogen either has to be cryogenically cooled, or kept under high pressure to achieve a reasonable energy per unit volume, so fuel tank mass becomes significant. Together with the rest of the equipment required for fuel cells, you are very likely to end end with a fairly low proportion of your take-off mass being payload.
Well, let's see them overcome the major problems of poor energy density and immensely heavy tanks. In a demonstration aircraft it's a piece of piddle to show that an aircraft can fly on hydrogen. As a viable aviation fuel things are very very different.
Ultimately, this is more of the hydrogen madness. Assuming we had some magical source of renewable H2, the ONLY logical way of using it for air transport is by processing it into kerosene as the principal ingredient of avtur (jet fuel). Meanwhile, as the west has people promoting hydrogen aircraft, hydrogen mains gas, hydrogen cars and other poorly developed ideas, China burns over 3 billion tonnes of coal every year, and in the first six months alone of 2023 started work on 37 GW of new coal fired generating capacity, resurrected 8 GW of deferred coal plans, and additionally approved 52 GW of new coal capacity.
"the critical mission of decarbonizing commercial aviation,"
Whether it decarbonises aviation or not depends on the source of the hydrogen. Just developing the planes on the basis that somebody else is going to produce hydrogen is throwing the problem over the wall.
"Just developing the planes on the basis that somebody else is going to produce hydrogen is throwing the problem over the wall."
Well, it worked when we outsourced our industrial base and its emissions to China, didn't it? There was much dancing around the eco-handbags when the UK more than halved it's 1990 emissions in 2020.
Thinking outside the box
Or in this case, thinking outside the metal tube. It's impractical to store hydrogen within the fuselage, due to weight and safety issues.
However it could be stored in an outside tank. In order to save weight, we won't compress it, or use thick walled vessels to maintain it under pressure. Instead we'll store it in fuel bags. This loses us a lot of storage efficiency - the volume is going to be huge. But the advantage is that our stored hydrogen can now be used to generate lift. This allows us to do away with the cumbersome and heavy wings, which previously encumbered our plane. Now that we don't require high speed, in order to gain lift through the use of large wings, we can move at a more sedate, and fuel-efficient, speed. Which means we'll be much more environmentally friendly and generate much less noise.
So now we have an aluminum tube, suspended below a large hydrogen store. Thus separating our passengers from the burny stuff. And some nice, efficient low-powered engines that can burn some of our excess hydrogen as fuel. And we've invented a new type of aircraft never seen before. What could possibly go wrong...
Hydrogen is no solution to everything but niche applications do have value. While commercial airlines aren't exactly niche, they are highly regulated and controlled which given hydrogen is probably what is required.
It'd be interesting to learn how the efficiencies pan out between hydrogen fuel cells generating electricity to power motors compared to just directly burning hydrogen.
While I think hydrogen fuel cells are great/cool technology, the downsides of them including providing a clean enough oxygen supply, what they are made of and their waste heat are some challenges to overcome, particularly compared to the relatively very well understood process of "exploding stuff for movement" (internal combustion engine) and how the modifications to use hydrogen are relatively minor to do this. I suspect that once going the heat generated through either process would be used to warm up the cryogenically stored hydrogen so it's not going to be entirely wasted.