The Death Of Fossil Fuels

[Little waster]

Has anyone ever considered keeping the hydrogen in a big bag and suspending the fuselage beneath it?

I haven't done the maths but I assume the whole "lighter than air" thing would provide some sort of lift.

I imagine the handling would be quite sluggish, reminiscent of a large aquatic mammal. In fact I might name my first one The Spoiler:

Huge Manatee

[TimW]

Elongating the fuselage isn't the bit I had concerns about. Both the A320 & A321 will have a centre of gravity somewhere around the wings and it won't change significantly between loaded and unloaded conditions.

Bjorn has done some blogging, complete with maths and diagrams, about this very issue

https://leehamnews.com/2020/12/18/bjorn ... iner-tank/ (and following entries)

We can see that the effects on the efficiency of having a rear-mounted LH2 tank system in a domestic airliner with a maximum range of 2,000nm are marginal.
[but]
As you prepare for a maximum range flight you have to include a forward movement of the Centre of Gravity with 13% during the flight

[Trinucleus]

Some peeps are claiming to have developed hydrogen tanks for aircraft...

that have demonstrated a 75% mass reduction compared to existing state-of-the-art aerospace cryotanks (metal or composite).
...
enabling H2-powered aircraft and eVTOL manufacturers to store as much as 10 times more LH2 fuel without adding mass.

https://www.compositesworld.com/news/hy ... ogen-tanks

Could be bit of a game-changer.

An aircraft equipped with GTL dewar tank technology could achieve as much as four times the range of a conventional aircraft using aviation fuel, cutting aircraft operating costs by an estimated 50% on a dollar-per-passenger-mile basis.

This seems surprising:

"Based on our internal analysis of a De Havilland Canada Dash 8 Q300, which seats 50 to 56 passengers, the standard PW123B engine would typically support a range of 1,558 kilometers,” said Sergei Shubenkov, co-founder and head of R&D at HyPoint. “By implementing HyPoint's system and a standard liquid hydrogen tank, the same aircraft could achieve five hours of flight time or a max range of 2,640 kilometers. With GTL's tank, it could fly for 8.5 hours or a max range of 4,488 kilometers, indicating that this aircraft could fly three times further with zero emissions by using HyPoint and GTL compared with conventional aviation fuel," "That's the difference between this plane going from New York to Chicago with high carbon emissions versus New York to San Francisco with zero carbon emissions."

How is the hydrogen managing to achieve a greater range than kerosene? Even with a standard H₂ tank and their "HyPoint system"?

If it works for aerospace, would that also work for other systems? I'm thinking marine engines.

Zero carbon emissions? You'd need to use a lot of renewable energy to generate the hydrogen

[Grumble]

Some peeps are claiming to have developed hydrogen tanks for aircraft...
https://www.compositesworld.com/news/hy ... ogen-tanks

Could be bit of a game-changer.

This seems surprising:

"Based on our internal analysis of a De Havilland Canada Dash 8 Q300, which seats 50 to 56 passengers, the standard PW123B engine would typically support a range of 1,558 kilometers,” said Sergei Shubenkov, co-founder and head of R&D at HyPoint. “By implementing HyPoint's system and a standard liquid hydrogen tank, the same aircraft could achieve five hours of flight time or a max range of 2,640 kilometers. With GTL's tank, it could fly for 8.5 hours or a max range of 4,488 kilometers, indicating that this aircraft could fly three times further with zero emissions by using HyPoint and GTL compared with conventional aviation fuel," "That's the difference between this plane going from New York to Chicago with high carbon emissions versus New York to San Francisco with zero carbon emissions."

How is the hydrogen managing to achieve a greater range than kerosene? Even with a standard H₂ tank and their "HyPoint system"?

If it works for aerospace, would that also work for other systems? I'm thinking marine engines.

Zero carbon emissions? You'd need to use a lot of renewable energy to generate the hydrogen

But it is possible, given the energy.

[dyqik]

You could also use nuclear power or carbon captured fossil fuel power.

The main point of hydrogen and batteries for transport is that they move the point of potential emissions away from the moving place where the emissions are currently released to centralized locations, where carbon capture or power source replacement with non-fossil fuel alternatives can happen easily, and to times when there's excess power available.

[EACLucifer]

You could also use nuclear power or carbon captured fossil fuel power.

The main point of hydrogen and batteries for transport is that they move the point of potential emissions away from the moving place where the emissions are currently released to centralized locations, where carbon capture or power source replacement with non-fossil fuel alternatives can happen easily, and to times when there's excess power available.

Indeed, and sometimes it's more important to have high energy density than maximum electrical efficiency, ie aerospace and military and other high performance applications.

[jimbob]

https://youtu.be/4vHuldVlpFA

Fully Charged Show - solar powered campervan 600km range which is 3 days charging in a Dutch summer, so getting to be useful

[Grumble]

We’ve been generating lots of wind and solar, and selling GW overseas. We can help Europe break free from Russian gas and oil. Maybe only by a few GW currently, but it’s a good long term aim.

[IvanV]

We’ve been generating lots of wind and solar, and selling GW overseas. We can help Europe break free from Russian gas and oil. Maybe only by a few GW currently, but it’s a good long term aim.

About 10 years ago I managed a study for the European Commission DG-EN on the value of integration of the EU power sector. Imperial College carried out network modelling of scenarios of decarbonising Europe. This showed that putting renewable generation in places where it was more effective and transmitting it to the location of demand, saved gazillions of money. In particular, it made a lot of sense to put lots of wind turbines in the seas around the UK, and export the electricity to the continent, rather than those countries locating their own wind turbines in places of lower wind resource.

But, of course, EU countries didn't trust each other very much, so get worried about depending upon each other for power. And they really don't like paying the premium cost of renewable power (for, at least before the present gas crisis, there was a premium cost for such power, despite all the claims of it being the cheapest thing even before the gas crisis) if it is located outside their borders. So interconnection was sub-optimal for present day conditions, let alone future ones. And the institutions for making use of those interconnectors also tended to reduce trade to below efficient levels. And very little progress on a common approach to paying supplements for renewable power, regardless of country of origin within the EU. The "single energy market" that was built up did integrate things together better, but was far from being a nation-blind entirely free energy market across Europe - there were still borders of major effect in the energy market. In the course of that study, for example, I interviewed a major Belgian industrial company who said that in practical reality they could not buy their electricity from a supplier in one of the large neighbouring countries, as if they were in those countries, even though Belgium was just as well connected electrically to those countries as many regions within those larger countries were, yet were free to contract electricity across the country.

Since Brexit, the UK has not been permitted to remain in the single energy market. It won't be let in unless it becomes much more Norway-like in its approach to the EU. And since it was one of the main cheer-leaders for improving the integration of EU markets, I expect the EU will get less enthusiastic over this kind of thing.

So whilst it makes a lot of sense for the UK to expand its wind production to sell to the EU, and doubtless that will happen to a degree if serious decarbonisation should start, I doubt the EU is going to embrace purchasing British windpower with as much enthusiasm as it ought to, given how much money it would save their decarbonisation plans.

[Grumble]

We’ve been generating lots of wind and solar, and selling GW overseas. We can help Europe break free from Russian gas and oil. Maybe only by a few GW currently, but it’s a good long term aim.

About 10 years ago I managed a study for the European Commission DG-EN on the value of integration of the EU power sector. Imperial College carried out network modelling of scenarios of decarbonising Europe. This showed that putting renewable generation in places where it was more effective and transmitting it to the location of demand, saved gazillions of money. In particular, it made a lot of sense to put lots of wind turbines in the seas around the UK, and export the electricity to the continent, rather than those countries locating their own wind turbines in places of lower wind resource.

But, of course, EU countries didn't trust each other very much, so get worried about depending upon each other for power. And they really don't like paying the premium cost of renewable power (for, at least before the present gas crisis, there was a premium cost for such power, despite all the claims of it being the cheapest thing even before the gas crisis) if it is located outside their borders. So interconnection was sub-optimal for present day conditions, let alone future ones. And the institutions for making use of those interconnectors also tended to reduce trade to below efficient levels. And very little progress on a common approach to paying supplements for renewable power, regardless of country of origin within the EU. The "single energy market" that was built up did integrate things together better, but was far from being a nation-blind entirely free energy market across Europe - there were still borders of major effect in the energy market. In the course of that study, for example, I interviewed a major Belgian industrial company who said that in practical reality they could not buy their electricity from a supplier in one of the large neighbouring countries, as if they were in those countries, even though Belgium was just as well connected electrically to those countries as many regions within those larger countries were, yet were free to contract electricity across the country.

Since Brexit, the UK has not been permitted to remain in the single energy market. It won't be let in unless it becomes much more Norway-like in its approach to the EU. And since it was one of the main cheer-leaders for improving the integration of EU markets, I expect the EU will get less enthusiastic over this kind of thing.

So whilst it makes a lot of sense for the UK to expand its wind production to sell to the EU, and doubtless that will happen to a degree if serious decarbonisation should start, I doubt the EU is going to embrace purchasing British windpower with as much enthusiasm as it ought to, given how much money it would save their decarbonisation plans.

Renewables being cheaper than other forms of electricity is true for those projects that were bid recently but haven’t yet been constructed. To my knowledge at least in the U.K. renewables generation is still subsidised, although there is also the whole cost difference pricing thing going on. The benefits will be felt in the next few years when those projects with cheap generation cost come online.

[IvanV]

Renewables being cheaper than other forms of electricity is true for those projects that were bid recently but haven’t yet been constructed. To my knowledge at least in the U.K. renewables generation is still subsidised, although there is also the whole cost difference pricing thing going on. The benefits will be felt in the next few years when those projects with cheap generation cost come online.

That's right - it is the bids for the future capacity that are cheap. And they did look surprisingly cheap at the time, to the extent that even I thought that Gordon Hughes (he who publishes rather cleverly dubious "economics" to "prove" wind turbines shouldn't be allowed) might be right for once that it couldn't possibly add up. But costs for off-shore wind have continued to come down to a greater extent than seemed assured at the time.

Recently the market price of electricity has been so high that the government has from time to time actually been making money out of wind CfDs. If gas remains expensive, building an off-shore wind farm becomes a privilege you have to buy, rather than a burden you are reimbursed for. In principle that money might be returned to consumers, but it just that just makes expensive electricity a little less expensive.

I had always felt that it would be so much easier to get decarbonisation going if electricity cost a lot more. Rather suddenly that has happened. Though the other impacts of expensive electricity are exceedingly unpleasant.