Universal Hydrogen's 40-Passenger Hydrogen Electric Plane Completes Maiden Flight (electrek.co) 50
Mere weeks after achieving experimental airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Universal Hydrogen has successfully taken its 40-passenger regional hydrogen electric plane to the skies. Electrek reports: Universal Hydrogen is celebrating today following the first successful flight of the hydrogen electric plane this morning, which took off in Grant County, Washington, at 8:41 a.m. PST and flew for 15 minutes. For this initial flight, one of the airplane's engines was replaced with Universal Hydrogen's fuel cell-electric powertrain. The other standard engine remained to ensure the safety of the plane and its pilot, former US Air Force test pilot Alex Kroll.
Kroll spoke to the confidence achieved during flight: "During the second circuit over the airport, we were comfortable with the performance of the hydrogen powertrain, so we were able to throttle back the fossil fuel turbine engine to demonstrate cruise principally on hydrogen power. The airplane handled beautifully, and the noise and vibrations from the fuel cell powertrain are significantly lower than from the conventional turbine engine."
Connect has secured the first US order to convert 75 ATR 72-600 planes to Universal Hydrogen powertrains with the purchase rights for 25 more. With the first successful flight complete, Universal Hydrogen kicks off a two-year testing program that is expected to enable full certification for hydrogen electric passenger flights using the aforementioned ATR 72 planes by 2025. The flight also marks the Dash-300 flying test bed as the largest hydrogen electric plane to take flight, paving the way for more hydrogen electric conversions of existing aircraft. You can watch a video of the flight on YouTube or embedded in Electrek's article.
Kroll spoke to the confidence achieved during flight: "During the second circuit over the airport, we were comfortable with the performance of the hydrogen powertrain, so we were able to throttle back the fossil fuel turbine engine to demonstrate cruise principally on hydrogen power. The airplane handled beautifully, and the noise and vibrations from the fuel cell powertrain are significantly lower than from the conventional turbine engine."
Connect has secured the first US order to convert 75 ATR 72-600 planes to Universal Hydrogen powertrains with the purchase rights for 25 more. With the first successful flight complete, Universal Hydrogen kicks off a two-year testing program that is expected to enable full certification for hydrogen electric passenger flights using the aforementioned ATR 72 planes by 2025. The flight also marks the Dash-300 flying test bed as the largest hydrogen electric plane to take flight, paving the way for more hydrogen electric conversions of existing aircraft. You can watch a video of the flight on YouTube or embedded in Electrek's article.
off the ground (Score:3)
So, it's good for one orbit of the airport, carrying no passengers and just one pilot? Good start, I guess, but you may need to improve the range a bit.
By the way, where are you going to get that hydrogen? By what means is it produced? And once in service, the plane must legally be able to divert for emergencies to alternate airports. After it lands at one of them, how will it be refueled?
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Good start, I guess, but you may need to improve the range a bit
The range isn't a huge problem. Storage of hydrogen is one of the bigger challenges on this end. As a liquid fuel isn't really all that ideal density-wise.
By the way, where are you going to get that hydrogen?
This is the bigger question and bigger challenge.
By what means is it produced?
Could be solar. A few people are trying that avenue. But yeah, this is the *burning* question.
After it lands at one of them, how will it be refueled?
This isn't really a priority in an emergency. In an emergency the main priority isn't "how will I get refueled?" It's "how do I not kill everyone on board?" That said, tanker trucks do exist and believe or n
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You can use solar to crack water, or you can use it to produce alkanes with water and co2. Prolly better to go the alkane route.
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Also in regards to refueling since the range they are looking to reach for this plane is 460mi(+ reserve) having a tanker available at one of the airports should account for that situation if it were to arise. Even doing short hop flights of say 200mi means there can be fueling infrastructure at a main hub departing airport for both trips.
I could see an airline like American who has a terminal in JFK using this for short hops. 200mi gets you to Philadelphia, Albany, Boston, Baltimore and probably DC as we
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The parent never was in Europe ... or heard about that mythical "country".
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From Universal Hydrogen's website:
Hydrogen contains 3x more energy per weight than jet fuel, and enables vastly longer trips than battery power. https://hydrogen.aero/ [hydrogen.aero]
So, yeah, it carries more energy per weight than jet fuel, but it doesn't list how efficiently that energy is converted to propulsive thrust. However, electric motors are highly efficient and perhaps have less power-robbing gearing than IC engines. There are plenty of delivery trucks and buses using hydrogen power so the storage problem is mostly solved already. https://www.ballard.com/market... [ballard.com]
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Per unit of weight is great and important for aviation and all, but the problem with hydrogen is volumetric density. IIRC the Toyota hydrogen car carries just 5kg of hydrogen in two tanks that are 150 liters in volume and the tanks themselves weigh like 90kg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Re:off the ground (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. And as you increase volume to compensate for the dramatically increased fuel volume, you increase drag. Furthermore, even on a mass perspective, it's not simply a question of fuel mass, but also tankage mass.
Liquid-hydrogen is such a god-awful fuel from a handling perspective as well. The more you know about it, the more you want to stay absolutely away from it unless absolutely unavoidable. Just to pick a random one: cryopumping. If a crack ever forms in your insulation, anywhere, air that gets in starts to liquefy. This dramatically decreases its volume, thus sucking in more air to liquefy. The ever-accumulating liquid air then drips out and pools in whatever environment it lands in, forming an intense fire hazard and increasing the vehicle's mass at the same time.
Liquid hydrogen is just bloody awful to deal with. Even in rocketry, the most extreme example of need for "low mass at any cost", there's still heavy effort put in place to avoid having to deal with liquid hydrogen, and - where it's used at all - with a limited number of exceptions it's mainly only used on upper stages, where mass has a massive trickle-down effect to the mass of the lower stages. And even as an upper-stage fuel, interest in hydrogen has been waning.
As for this test flight:
1) The hydrogen-electric propulsion was only used on the left side; the right side continued to operate on fuel. Said engine produced twice as much power as the hydrogen one (that said, in level flight most of the power was from the hydrogen engine)
2) Why did they use this dual approach? To avoid what happened to ZeroAvia, whose prototype crashed in 2021 due to a problem with the fuel cells. Fuel cells - compared to batteries - are highly inefficient and put out a lot of heat (combustion engines are more inefficient, but that heat leaves in the exhaust). This much fuel cell power in one place is massive cooling problem. ZeroAvia had to shut off their stack mid-flight due to overheating, but then couldn't restart it. Universal Hydrogen says this couldn't happen with theirs, but then again, theirs is underpowered as well.
3) This test was so short that they only burned 16kg of gaseous hydrogen, thus allowing them to sidestep the vast majority of *actual* engineering challenges.
4) Airlines are cutthroat in terms of cost. Electrolytic hydrogen is expensive. Liquid hydrogen, all the moreso. Fuel cells are expensive. The whole thing is a massive cost increase. If you want a cost decrease, batteries are the only route.
5) Universal Hydrogen's target range on a full product is 560km. Which, say, compares to the 460km range of the Eviation Alice battery powered plane (though for high-end customers they're looking at making a future variant that uses an alumium-air battery with a li-ion buffer to achieve 1000-1200km (al-ion is available today, but in low volumes, high costs, and with limited cycle life). And battery energy densities have a far faster improvement curve than liquid hydrogen storage tank masses and fuel cell efficiencies.
I just don't see a role for hydrogen in transport, at all. If you're going short range, you want electric, for cost efficiency. If you're going long-range, you're talking about a tiny fraction of global emissions (aviation as a whole is only 2,5%, and long-range a small fraction thereof). And on that note...
6) While aviation is only 2,5% of emissions, it's 3,5% of climate impacts according to climate models. Why? Well, there's significant impacts to non-CO2 emissions, but also a unique factor: contrails. While water vapour in the lower atmosphere is quickly recycled, it lasts much longer in the stratosphere, and water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas. And fuel cell airplanes emit a lot more water vapour than conventional aircraft.
7) While we're on this topic, we can add that leaked or incompletely combusted hydrogen has a greenhouse gas potential greater than CO2 (but less than CH4), leaks readily through almost anything (not just aboard aircraft, but in ground equipment as well), and also destroys ozone.
This is not the way forward.
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Crop based biofuel doesn't scale. Open ocean and bioreactor based biofuel is expensive. Converting hydrogen to hydrocarbons is expensive. Direct air (or seawater) capture and sequestration for compensation is expensive. At net zero everything is expensive.
Aviation and marine will likely end up using the same solutions, it would make a mockery of net zero to not solve them.
Cooling is only really a problem for PEM based fuel cells like they are using now. SOFC is the more likely future with widescale adoption
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When you're talking about less than 1% of the world's current energy consumption for long-haul air travel (not air travel as a whole), there is no massive "scale" under discussion.
LNG is the easiest. CH4 is the easiest and most efficient hydrocarbon to synthesize. It's also produced naturally from waste in landfills and sewage plants,and many industrial processes. It does not have extreme tankage requirements, particularly when one is talking about short-term storage applications (e.g. aboard a plane that
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Oh, and if you're going to introduce SOFCs, then let's do that for methane as well. MC-SOFC-DCFC is ~72% efficient (without external heat reuse), vs. ~60% for a H2 SOFC in the same situation, because the waste SOFC heat goes into MC, and DCFCs are nearly 80% efficient. And while the old process of individual electrolysis and Sabatier reactions for producing CH4 from water and CO2 is inefficient (~50-60%), if you do them together and plumb the waste heat from the exothermic Sabatier process into the endoth
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It can be cheaper than hydrogen + carbon capture + conversion, it doesn't have to be, but it can. There isn't enough renewable methane for aviation and marine by far. For crops aviation and marine would be massive consumers, far in excess of what's currently used for 10% ethanol fuel.
LNG would just be a storage medium for hydrogen from electrolysis at net zero.
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4) Airlines are cutthroat in terms of cost. Electrolytic hydrogen is expensive. Liquid hydrogen, all the moreso. Fuel cells are expensive. The whole thing is a massive cost increase. If you want a cost decrease, batteries are the only route.
The hydrogen route right now is expensive, but the real economic question is how expensive hydrogen would be if there were widespread corporate commitment. Batteries are cheaper now than two decades ago because the economic viability of electric cars was shown by Tesla, and the economies of scale for batteries only materialized after the initial demonstration of technical and economic viability. The same thing could (not guaranteed but might) happen for for hydrogen.
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So, yeah, it carries more energy per weight than jet fuel,
Yes... but the GP pointed out it isn't ideal density wise. It has a density of 70g/l versus 775 for Jet-A, so 1/10 of the density a 3x the energy density so you need 3 times as much volume of the stuff. It's also worse because unlike jet fuel which can be sloshed into oddly shaped wing tanks, hydrogen needs to be kept at 20K to stay liquid, or a bit higher at high pressures, at which point high pressure tans are needed.
It's not impossible and it beat
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So, yeah, it carries more energy per weight than jet fuel
If you are using it to boil water, fine. If you are pouring over a fuel cell, then the 3x is someone giving the wrong number. The Gibbs energy of a redox in hydrogen is vastly less than the energy of combustion. Yes, the electric motors have a high efficiency, but the input is inefficient means of energy. That's the limit, that the whole point I was making before the original person decided to put forth their "all liquids are the same" theory like the asshat they were being.
Additionally, as others have
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There are a lot of things to work out, certainly. On an energy density basis, jet fuel has 19.2X as much energy per unit volume as hydrogen at 200 bar, 8.7X times as much at 500 bar, 6.9X as much at 700 bar and 4.2X as much if it's liquid. Obviously the higher it's compressed, the stronger the tank needs to be, which means more weight. According to This study a 350 bar system can store about 6% of its weight as hydrogen and a 700 bar system can store only about 5% of its weight. So, it seems like, on a weig
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One of the key reasons hydrocarbon fuels have been popular for over a hundred years for engines, is that it can give a lot of energy for it's weight and volume.
The current growth of cleaner energy for vehicles is due to improvements in efficiency of the engineering of the vehicle, as well with energy storage that is a bit more dense.
An Electric car with a 360 mile range, has batteries that supply energy of about a 3 gallon tank of gas. While the battey pack weights a heck of a lot more and fills a good par
Re:off the ground (Score:5, Informative)
Remember, maiden flight. They are still working on the certification.
Ergo, it wasn't a 15 minute flight with no passengers because that is all the range it had, but because 15 minutes was all that it took to achieve the mission objectives. Now they'll tear the engine apart and check it, then do a longer flight. Once that is done a sew times, remove the remaining jet engine and go all hydrogen. It'll be a long process.
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Now they'll tear the engine apart and check it, then do a longer flight
Not much to tear down. It's basically an electric motor running on electrical power. I guess it's possible there is some gearing and variable prop controls, but they should be the same as an IC engine. The electric motor technology should be similar to what you find in a Tesla or other electric motor transports.
Engine checking (Score:2)
I agree that there might not be much to tear down, but remember, they're tearing it down to verify that no parts are experiencing excessive wear, that nothing broke, and all that.
They're doing it not because it is necessary for the engine's operation, but to satisfy the FAA.
Remember, Teslas and other electric motor transports have been, up to now, NOT been passenger aircraft. The operating environment is different. They TRUST the technology isn't supposed to be negatively affected by the speed and altitud
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And once in service, the plane must legally be able to divert for emergencies to alternate airports. After it lands at one of them, how will it be refueled?
Because of a one in a thousand event, no one will have a truck ready to bring some hydrogen to said port.
It is a disaster. They will have to dismantle the plane and bring the parts back to the factory.
Perhaps they just smelt it in the nearest forge?
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Part of the point of this companies offer is that the hydrogen is delivered in pre-filled cargo containers. So, if there is no fuel at the airport, they simply put the container onto the back of any lorry (i.e. they don't even need a tanker), ship it out and then load it using one of the standard cargo loader vehicles that most airports have. Reading between the lines of their website, I think that they see their future as a supplier of containerized hydrogen rather than an aviation company per se.
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The majority of the hydrogen will be produced by steam reforming of natural gas, but it will be 100% green after your airline buys carbon credits to offset that.
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Did they do this flight to show how non-viable hydrogen is? You know like Edison electrocuting an elephant with AC?
Wake up and smell the Dumbo-Burgers, people!
Cue The EV Hydrogen Hating Twats (Score:2, Interesting)
The EV fanbois are going to be losing their shit. Ohhh where are you going to be getting the hydrogen? From hydrolysis, green hydrogen. There are many enterprises in the works building wind farms specifically to make hydrogen; because it is easier and more reliable transporting fuel than rebuilding electrical grids all over the world. It's not about the storage mechanism, it's about distribution.
For example:
World Energy GH2 pushes $12B N.L. hydrogen plant, wind farm [sustainablebiz.ca]
there are currently 200 hydrogen projects [www.greenhouse.agency]
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The EV fanbois are going to be losing their shit.
This is an EV. Save your breathless whining, and leave the poor strawman alone.
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There are a few problem with hydrogen.
First, hydrolysis is extremely inefficient. You only get 33-35% of the powe
energy density (Score:1)
Re: energy density (Score:2)
So a no brainer since weight is everything in aircraft.
Then it's a good thing the magical containment vessel doesn't weigh anything...
Hydrogen power (Score:1)
This news item made me curious, so I asked ChatGPT:
what is the difference in usable thrust power obtained per unit of fuel between hydrogen fuel cell to drive an electric turbine versus burning hydrogen in a jet engine?
It did not come up with a quantitative answer, but:
The usable thrust power obtained per unit of fuel is generally higher for burning hydrogen in a jet engine compared to using a hydrogen fuel cell to drive an electric turbine. This is because the combustion process in a jet engine is more efficient at converting the energy in the fuel to thrust power. However, hydrogen fuel cells have other advantages over traditional jet engines, including lower emissions and noise levels, which may make them a more attractive option in certain applications.
For what it's worth.
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We have plenty of armchair aviation experts here on slashdot. They are sure to sound off with every possible answer with minimal prompting, which is probably easier than transcribing the question into chatGPT :-)
Can anybody say Hindenberg? (Score:1)
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Aviation fuel is pretty flammable too, and we've seen the worst case scenario with airlines many times. What's your point? A modern jet airline operates on rather thin safety margins, because the benefits are worth the risks. Skilled operation, engineering excellence and fastidious maintenance are generally the only thing keeping those planes aloft in relative safety. I don't see how a hydrogen-powered plane will be any different.
And in fact, after every disaster, we DO learn from it. That's a big feat
Hydrogen airplanes are not totally crazy (Score:3)
At the moment it doesn't make sense at all since Hydrogen is mostly produced from fossil fuels, but at some point in the future if we have non-carbon energy, (nuclear, solar, etc) hydrogen may be the least impractical fuel for aircraft. Given the long development time for even conventional airliners, its not crazy to start working on it now
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Given the long development time for even conventional airliners, its not crazy to start working on it now
Considering we already reached peak oil, I would say we are already late. Mass air transportation is doomed.
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What makes you think we've hit peak oil? Current high pricing is largely due to the war and one of the world's largest producers (Russia) being under sanctions.
I mean with fracking the US is churning out more oil than it has at any other time in our country's entire history https://images.app.goo.gl/w4gJ... [app.goo.gl] for instance.
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Hydrogen energy density is the point (Score:4, Informative)
Although naysayers seem to be obsessed with how the hydrogen is produced every time they hear a hydrogen story, that is not the point.
The real point here is that hydrogen has a bit less than triple the specific energy density of jet fuel. Even with conversion losses, the range of an equivalent hydrogen powered airplane could be at least double that of a standard plane. Let that sink in.
Hydrogen production is trivial and not an issue. The real challenge is the weight of the storage medium. Since hydrogen is literally the lightest element in the universe, its high specific energy density is meaningless unless you pack a lot of it into a small space. Since it has a triple point that is cryogenic, it must be stored as a compressed gas. Therefore, you must store it at very high pressures to realize its potential as a fuel.
Why not burn the hydrogen in a combustion engine? Well, you could, sure. But that would be boring. Most research is being done in electric motor planes because that would also solve another problem - namely that ICE power plants are either terribly complex and expensive (turbines) or heavy and primitive (piston) affairs.
In my opinion, the biggest winners for a viable hydrogen powered plane are light aviation. The fuel requirements are much lower for a hondajet (say 200lbs) than a 777 (about 350,000lbs). A light jet that can go 600nm today could go 1200nm on a good hydrogen system. Or you could build a bushplane that could fly STOL with half the weight of fuel. Lots of possibilities. In my humble opinion, building a viable hydrogen system for airliner sized aircraft is science fiction based on the challenges above. However, i believe the technology DOES have an application.
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The real point here is that hydrogen has a bit less than triple the specific energy density of jet fuel. Even with conversion losses, the range of an equivalent hydrogen powered airplane could be at least double that of a standard plane. Let that sink in.
In order to store hydrogen at that kind of density you need heavy storage tanks, not just a can with a bladder in it.
Re: Hydrogen energy density is the point (Score:2)
No. You do not NEED heavy storage tanks. In fact, heavy tanks are EXACTLY the reason why these systems are meaningless for large aircraft and better for small aircraft. You can easily engineer light hydrogen storage tanks - they just canâ(TM)t be very big.
In order to realize the energy density of hydrogen gas, you need a tank capable of holding at least 10ksi, which carbon fiber wrapped aluminum cylinders are already doing with current technology. These storage cylinders favor smaller diameters due to
Re: Hydrogen energy density is the point (Score:1)
In my opinion, the biggest winners for a viable hydrogen powered plane are light aviation.
Larger surface-area-to-volume ratios would suggest otherwise. This tech will only have a chance of succeeding in ships, trains and maybe the largest aircraft - the idea that it will scale downwards beyond that is naive.
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Production trucks are running on cryogenic fuel right now, there is no "must" for compressed storage. Airbus is aiming for liquid hydrogen for the moment.
now if only (Score:2)
Now if only they could find a fuel that has high energy content and is liquid at room temperature and pressure...
Haven't we learned anything from the Hindenburg? (Score:1)
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