China Flies World's First Megawatt-Class Hydrogen Turboprop Engine (fuelcellsworks.com) 63
Longtime Slashdot reader walterbyrd shares a report from Fuel Cells Works: China says the AEP100, a megawatt-class hydrogen-fueled turboprop engine developed by the Aero Engine Corporation of China, has completed its maiden flight on a 7.5-ton unmanned cargo aircraft in Zhuzhou, Hunan. The 16-minute test covered 36km at 220km/h and 300 meters altitude, with the aircraft returning safely after completing its planned maneuvers. State media described it as the world's first test flight of a megawatt-class hydrogen-fueled turboprop engine. [...] The Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC) says the result shows China now has a full technical chain for hydrogen aviation engines, from core parts to system integration, which is the kind of capability needed before any industrial rollout can begin. You can watch a video of the test flight here.
7.5 ton UAV testing flight (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm genuinely curious if it's easier to get cleared on safety permit on a previously unflown engine in a 7.5 ton plane if the plane is unmanned rather than if it's manned.
I'd expect that at least in EU, it being an UAV would actually make it harder to get it cleared, but I don't know that for a fact and I wonder how it is there and elsewhere in the world.
Either way, pretty neat!
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Also I'm struggling to find much info on this but I'm curious if anyone knows; would this specific plane be carrying cryogenic liquid hydrogen, or pressurized hydrogen gas?
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Long distance a/c will tend to use cryo, to improve the energy volumetric efficiency (which is much worse than kerosene etc).
Re:7.5 ton UAV testing flight (Score:5, Informative)
intercalation (a saturated solution of hydrogen in a charcoal-like solid).
Neither liquid nor compressed gas can match intercalation for volumetric efficiency.
It's safer than compressed, as well as lower-storage-cost than refrigerated liquid.
Compressed gas is a no-no for flight safety
reasons: you can't depend on soft landings.
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Is LH2 really any safer in the case of a non-soft landing?
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Cryogenic has bee used for the ground tests, so presumably it was here too.
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Liquid hydrogen in a vacuum flask
Re:7.5 ton UAV testing flight (Score:5, Interesting)
It used to be the case that the testing permits for drones (esp. small ones) were easier to obtain, but the rules were recently tightened across the board. Be that as it may, for an aircraft of this size the paperwork needed by the Chinese FAA equivalent is nearly identical to the one for a manned unit.
You'll definitely need an air worthiness certification, which is hard to get and identical for both types. For the normal airplane, you'll also need a licensed pilot, for the drone - a licensed/certified operator, which would be a bit less strict, but not significantly so. You'll also need air traffic control approval, etc.
TL;DR: nearly the same requirements.
Fun fact (Score:5, Informative)
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So we cut down on methane? oh yeah, that is massively expanding as a doomsday problem when the arctic starts melting...
Another fact: If we replaced all that stupid ethanol corn production (which Trump just boosted) that is more than enough LAND for solar to power the whole nation.
Another fact: go look up the list of biggest power plants. Most of them are hydro (actual baseload) and not nuclear even (which doesn't ramp up/down like hydro does; sadly, it's the one being slowed down not gas etc. because it's
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Note that some nuclear power plants can run load-following (for instance some of th
Re: Fun fact (Score:2)
Unless you have plenty of spare carbon free energy to pump that water out in the first place then it's a non starter.
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Re:Fun fact (Score:4, Informative)
No, it has a GWP100 of 11.6, CO2 is the reference chemical so its GWP100 is 1. Methane is 81. So a kilo of released H2 has the global warming potential of 11.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide, while NH4's potential is equivalent to 81 kilograms of CO2.
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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You know what decreases the lifespan of atmospheric methane? Nitrogen oxides! So if you convert your car to run on hydrogen, make sure to also do a cat delete to offset the environmental harm.
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This is a silly approach to the problem (in a general case, I don't actually think a H2 economy is a good idea). Rather than concerning ourselves with something that minimises the breakdown of methane, how about we raise hell on the fuckwits who don't at least flare off methane in the first place. There's zero reason to leak any significant amount of methane into the atmosphere. It's not just a waste, but it's also quite unsafe.
Over a 20 year span methane has a GWP of around 80x that of CO2. We should direc
Re:Fun fact (Score:4, Interesting)
Off gassed hydrogen has ~ 37x the warming potential of CO2 on the climate.
I've heard more like 12x. Even at 37x though, it seems like H2 from non-fossil sources would be far better than CO2 producing fossil fuels. Even at 37x, it comes down to whether the use of hydrogen as a fuel would displace 37x as much or more CO2 from being introduced into the atmosphere. Basic logic says it probably would. Consider, with fossil fuels, essentially the entire mass of the fuel plus about 3x its mass becomes CO2 in the atmosphere. Essentially, every last drop of fuel ends up as atmospheric CO2 with a 4X multiplier. So, that would mean that something like 10% of the hydrogen fuel would need to end up in the atmosphere to be as bad as a greenhouse gas. Now, hydrogen is hard to contain completely, but it still tends not to leak that badly.
Then there's the fact that displacing methane usage with hydrogen would lead to significantly less methane in the atmosphere in the first place, so there would be less methane for it to extend the lifespan of. There are other effects hydrogen may have that would also contribute to global warming, however, so it would not drop to zero even if methane were eliminated entirely.
We also need to consider that this is for air travel. Hydrogen in other uses such as cars, etc. is unlikely. For most purposes, battery technology would be preferable. This would just be a potential solution for modes like air travel, where battery weight might make it prohibitive. So that means that the actual overall usage for it would be far less than for fossil fuels in general.
So, looking at it, that seems to suggest that, even if it has more warming potential, the net effect would still be a reduction in warming. Of course, that's not the only consideration for hydrogen. The extreme flammability is a concern, along with hydrogen embrittlement of containment vessels, the turbines themselves, etc. So, there are some questions about viability.
Overall, your argument seems overblown. Any industry currently using fossil fuels would still be doing better from a greenhouse gas perspective if it moved to green hydrogen (obviously not to hydrogen from fossil fuel sources).
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Now, hydrogen is hard to contain completely, but it still tends not to leak that badly.
That is kind of a myth.
Hydrogene can not be hold under pressure in a metal tank ...
Since we know how to make plastic/carbon fibre/glass fibre tanks: it is no problem at all.
Leaks can be a problem in pipes, especially if the gas is burning, as the flame is nearly invisible.
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To clarify, when I say it won't leak that badly, I'm not using a colloquialism. I'm literally saying that it won't leak as badly as would be sufficient and necessary for the amount to leaked to produce enough greenhouse warming to exceed the greenhouse warming that the replaced fossil fuels would cause. It would have to leak enormously to do that and we have enough experience to know it would not leak that much. So I'm really only thinking about an upper limit to the leaking.
I do completely agree with you t
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But the real question is why chase hydrogen at all when more viable alternatives exist - battery and synthetic fuel. Hydrogen is a precursor to making synthetic fuel and it requires more ener
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It'll leak all over the place. Hydrogen under pressure is too bulky to use in aircraft. It would have to be liquid cooled and it would leak all the way from the plant to the plane. Because as hydrogen warms up it evaporates and that gas has to be vented. Now perhaps we could vent / burn it safely, or perhaps we can't.
This is all irrelevant to the question of whether it would leak enough to be a greater greenhouse issue than burned jet fuel. As I established in another post in reply to you just now, that would need to be nearly a quarter of all of the hydrogen used in such a system. That is an extremely unlikely scenario.
Once again, I am not talking about any of the other logistical questions about using hydrogen like this. Only the greenhouse gas issue that came up.
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And "basic logic" is doing some heavy lifting here. To carry the amount of hydrogen necessary to power a flight of any length would mean liquid cooling it. Which in turn means off gassing as it evaporates. Not just in the aircraft but where it refuels. Not to mention leakage. Or the need to dump hydrogen in certain circumstances where it instantly heads into the atmosphere - as opposed to fuel vapour which is heavier than air.
If people are desperate to r
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There's no doubt that it's very iffy if this would be more suitable for aviation than other synthetic fuels. There are lots of potential issues. However the greenhouse warming potential as an issue just doesn't make mathematical sense. As far as 37X vs 12X, doesn't really matter since I addressed 37X in my post.
To cover it again, GWP is by mass. So, if 1/37th of the mass of CO2 in hydrogen is released, we're saying it's just as bad. However, we have to start by considering that we're not burning CO2 in engi
Re: false equivalence (Score:2)
37x the warming potential per what? Per gram? Per liter? Or per mile traveled?
Because I'm pretty sure the amount of carbon dioxide exhaust released per mile traveled in an equivalent jet-fuel-powered plan is far more than 37x greater in mass than the amount of hydrogen fuel released by a mile traveled in this hydrogen-powered plane.
Mostly because CO2 is an exhaust gas generated by burning jet fuel, whereas hydrogen literally is the fuel in this case. And since it is the fuel, they probably try really reall
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Dead end (Score:4, Interesting)
Types of engines running on hydrogen are already plentiful.
The rear problem is production and storage.
Either you're making very inefficient use of electricity or you're still using fossil fuels.
Until we have a massive surplus of electricity, hydrogen is a non-starter that is purely used by PR departments for greenwashing.
Re:Dead end (Score:4, Interesting)
When you power the world using solar and wind, there is a massive oversupply of energy at any time when it isn't night or still air. At those times (most of the time, almost all of the time) does it really matter that hydrogen production is inefficient?
Re:Dead end (Score:5, Interesting)
While the US just repaid a French company a billion dollar deposit to cancel offshore wind farms, China has constructed the largest wind turbines in the world for their newest wind farms.
https://kdwalmsley.substack.co... [substack.com]
This is the world’s largest offshore wind turbine. It is off of Fujian province, in South China. It generates enough power for 44,000 households, or over a hundred thousand people. It displaces 22,000 tons of coal per year. This unit is part of a large farm 30 km offshore, where there are already a number of 16-megawatt turbines, and when those were installed, they were the world’s largest.
It’s a breakthrough in engineering, that this much output comes from a single turbine, instead of a group of them working together, and experts say that it will inform future wind farms. That’s also a region that sees frequent severe storms.
This was all hard to do, then, and we’re curious why the Chinese bothered at all. It required a ship to be specially designed and built, just to get the turbine into position. Having it out there means that China can leave 22,000 tons of coal in the ground they otherwise would have hauled to the surface and set on fire . . .
In December, the Interior Department announced an immediate pause on offshore wind projects under construction in the United States, due to national security risks identified by the Department of War. The government found that big turbine blades create radar interference, and obscure legitimate moving targets and generate false ones.
It’s not great to learn that our money-no-object Pentagon has radars that can’t tell the difference between a supersonic bomber flying toward Washington, or a windmill floating off of Long Island Sound. And it’s also not great that the White House has just told the rest of the world that our radars are that bad. This should be in a super-top-secret Pentagon report, instead of a press release from the White House.
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The radars are not that bad. They are simply lying.
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Many ridiculously inefficient by "green" activities become perfectly reasonable in a solar powered world.
In a fossil powered world- they amount to merely greenwashing.
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China is headed that way with their renewables. Ireland is planning for renewable hydrogen production as well.
I think it will probably only end up with relatively niche uses, but it's a useful option.
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What storage problem? This is a jet. They burn fuel like crazy; you don't need to store it for years on end. Just for the length of a flight and somewhere at the airport. Expensive vehicle with very limited and expensive fueling locations. already.
A Hydrogen ECONOMY is still idiotic. We need a mix... we already have a mix, they don't run jets on gas, it's "jet fuel" which is different. Same basic source, but then hydrogen can be differently "refined" solar.
The problem is we didn't invest to make this happ
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We kind of did.
The original SR-71 was going to be hydrogen powered because jet fuel could self-combust at the kind of temperatures it would reach on board and the CIA had plenty of money to spend to try something new.
They scrapped that idea because the hydrogen version was huge and had limited range and it turned out to be easier to make the jet fuel not self-combust than to make hydrogen work as a fuel. As with all these other fads, there's a reason why we've used fuels that make sense for decades rather t
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Well, you can make the hydrogen easier to handle by binding it to carbon... Perhaps synthesizing jet fuel with carbon recaptured from the atmosphere will win, since it doesn't require modifying the planes and the new tech is on the ground.
This seems the most sensible solution currently - sure synthetic avgas will be expensive, but retrofitting or replacing every plane in existence, plus all the storage refitting, transport, and generation - surely there's a point at which it makes sense to use the synthetic fuel instead?
Are we primarily waiting for excess renewable energy to reduce costs enough to make it viable?
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What storage problem? This is a jet. They burn fuel like crazy; you don't need to store it for years on end.
Unless your jet makes its own hydrogen you need to make it somewhere else. As you said, they burn fuel like crazy so you'll need a lot of fuel. Not so much a problem if you have, but a massive fucking problem if you have several.
The duration of storage is very much years on end. Inventory needs to be retained indefinitely. It's this thing we call "refueling". H2 doesn't magically appear at the end of a hose, it comes from a storage facility.
Fun fact: Hydrogen refueling stations typically store so little hyd
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Either you're making very inefficient use of electricity or you're still using fossil fuels.
It's actually not very inefficient at all to make hydrogen. Using electrolysis you're looking at traditional systems having between 75-85% efficiency. We have already demonstrated technologies in pilot plants that push this efficiency up into the realm of battery charging (90-95% efficiency). Best of all, the use of electricity can be batched and electrolysis can be a load follower. - Actually most projects that haven't been cancelled in the hydrogen world right now are very much this - load following to ta
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Hydrogene explodes extremely rarely.
If you have a leak, it blows out and off just like children air balloon. The gas is gone rapidly.
And if that leak gets ignited, it is just flame like from a gas fired welding tourch.
To make an hydrogen explosion, you need first something that explodes the tank. So it can mix with oxygen, then: it can explode.
The last Hydrogen explosion I am aware of was the Fukushima reactor buildings. Because the Hydrogen could not be vented off.
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Either you're making very inefficient use of electricity
That is a stupid American myth.
There is nothing inefficient in making H2 from water with electricity.
Your car engine burning gasoline or diesel: that is damn inefficient.
Historical perspective (Score:3)
So 4 of those engines could power a WWII Lancaster Bomber.
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And a 200MW gas turbine is only 200,000HP.
What exactly is calling it what it is disproportionately?
Car engines in most of the world are not classified by HP since decades, probably since 30 years.
Obviously we know that a normal car has an roughly 100kW engine. And 1MW is obviously roughly 10 cars.
No idea what is wrong in your brain.
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Change the headline to read "Equivalent to thirteen Chevy Sparks!"
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Things That Go Boom (Score:3, Informative)
Didn't we try flying with hydrogen once before?
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Didn't we try flying with hydrogen once before?
US air force tested hydrogen powered high altitude jets in 1950s, as a fuel its superior to JP-8
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Internal combustion engines are *supposed* to go boom.
Bad technology (Score:2)
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Currently hydrogen production emits methane as it's produced in the Untied States
FTFY
Electricity in China is less than half the price as anywhere in the US, and at that cost hydrogen production by electrolysis becomes viable.
Petrol (Score:2)
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Somebody's a Rick and Morty fan :-)
Congrats AECC (Score:2)
I have long said that Hydrogen as a combustible fuel is a poor choice for automotive use but a potential good choice for aeronautical use.*
Good job China for continuing to follow this path. Keep at it, and -maybe- it will work out.
*Reasons include difficulties in production, storage, transport, explosive consequences of fuckups, toxicity of spills, etc. -all of which are easier to mitigate under higher security of aeronautical use than everyday/everywhere automotive use. Current production is from fossil
Burn more Coal (Score:1)
propaganda (Score:1)
do we not have that tag anymore?