Kerosene – no other game in town?

I’ve seen a prototype which was fed water in a typically sized fuel tank. The engine did the rest.

10 years ago it occupied a 1 foot high space beneath the passenger compartment. And extended most the length of the vehicle between the axles. In all, it was not that much different from the space taken my a conventional cumbustion engine, just flattened out and placed in what would normaly be dead space.

What shows again that space and weight are much less of concern in a car. Most cars drive distances below 50km a day with an average occupation of below 2 pax/car. Any hydrogen/biofuel application is best used in cars.

Boeing is developing a fuel cell for an APU replacement. This will be fitted to a DA20 aiui so at least for light aircraft the future may change (depending on performance)

Light aircraft are less relevant than gas driven grass mowers, only in the perception of light aircraft owners and users their fuel consumption truly matters. Globally, it is fart in a tornado.

I’m no scientist but had thought that the major by-product of burning hydrogen was water vapour, a product with which the environment is well used to coping. Admittedly, it would put this into the atmosphere in large amounts so the consequences would presumably be – clouds..?

… which have proven to have a serious effect on climate. At rush hour up to 3% of European sky is covered by contrails. After 9/11 (cease of all airline operations for 3 days) the temperatures were measurably colder than for comparable weather conditions with A/C-traffic. Additionally, the use of hydrogen will produce nitrogen oxide.

The discussion about jet fuel alternatives is an artificial one, hyped by the fact that air travel always earns more attention than other modes of travel. Most of the world’s railways still run on diesel, my car runs on “conventional fuel”, my heat does, and all ships on this globe do. So, considering that these vehicles/applications burn way more oil than aircraft do, that these vehicles/applications are less safety or weight critical, why don’t we put our efforts into replacing “conventional fuel” there?

If a B747 can run on biofuel, why can’t my heater or my car, or the railway? These applications are not safety critical and nobody cares if the engine fails with a 0.15% higher probability. Let’s face it: biofuels are no real alternative. At the moment they actually blind the general public as people really think that they can replace today’s fuel and that they are “environmentally friendly”. That is of course big bullock, as the airline fuel alone burned by aircraft going in and out Heathrow would need a substantial amount of UK’s agricultural area. You can rather plant trees there. Additionally, the energy and water needed to convert plants into fuel is substantial and equalizes a good proportion of the saved carbon dioxide.

The most interesting question is “bang for buck”: which proportion of CO2 emission can be saved at what cost and what side effects. Go to your next street corner and estimate the average vehicle weight per transported passenger (example: one guy in a VW Tuareg is 2.2tons per passenger; 3 people in a Golf III is 350kg per passenger). You immediately see where we have to work on.

Boeing is developing a fuel cell for an APU replacement. This will be fitted to a DA20 aiui so at least for light aircraft the future may change (depending on performance)

You also still need to use energy (be it nuclear or fossil) to produce the hydrogen – the alternative being to generate through the use of a wind farm or another renewable source

Much work is being done on the production of hydrogen by biological methods – microbes digesting something and ‘excreting’ hydrogen. It’s a long, long way off yet though.

Moggy

BMW has a prototype running on hydrogen. The only problem is that the tank is still a little bulky (let’s say that there’s nearly no trunk in a 7 series anymore 😉

I’ve seen a prototype which was fed water in a typically sized fuel tank. The engine did the rest.

10 years ago it occupied a 1 foot high space beneath the passenger compartment. And extended most the length of the vehicle between the axles. In all, it was not that much different from the space taken my a conventional cumbustion engine, just flattened out and placed in what would normaly be dead space.

I’m no scientist but had thought that the major by-product of burning hydrogen was water vapour, a product with which the environment is well used to coping. Admittedly, it would put this into the atmosphere in large amounts so the consequences would presumably be – clouds..?

Also, concerns arise that the by-product of hydrogen fuel (water) may actually cause adverse effects on the environment at the heights airliners fly (something to do with Ozone if I remember correctly).

Except that with renewable hydrogen the level of “waste” can be increased by flying at a less efficient altitude to reduce that risk. Of course the real risk of using hydrogen on a wide scale is clear. The earths atmosphere is incapable of holding hydrogen gas. It can hold it when combined with other elements like with oxygen in the form of water but pure hydrogen will float from the ground out into space and not come back. Therefore widespread use and misuse of hydrogen could lead to too much oxygen being freed in the process of seperating H from h2o that no longer has h to combine with to make water… water shortage anyone?

The main problem with biofuel is that the crops that are good for making biofuel will displace crops for food. The population is increasing at a faster rate than improvements in crop production… as they say except in Hawaii, they aren’t making any more land…

This topic has popped up here in the past several times, but again I will throw my 2c in.

For a long time, the global estimate for KNOWN oil reserves have been around 50-60 years. This figure may go up as fuel powered engines become more efficient (be it aircraft, automotive, locomotive, ship, industrial etc), however you also have the counter argument that more cars/planes are taking to the roads/sky so are using more. There may be more oil wells not discovered though that will put this figure up and if worst comes to the worst, if the reserves do get low (down to a decade or so), then the treaties put in place to stop people mining the reserves in Antarctica may be lifted.

As mentioned, alternative fuels are being tested and prototypes are being made. Hydrogen fuel cells are somewhat of a “developed technology” by now and have gone through several redesigns and improvements. The problem arises however, that it is currently still expensive to generate the hydrogen required for these fuel cells and as such it is not yet economically viable. You also still need to use energy (be it nuclear or fossil) to produce the hydrogen – the alternative being to generate through the use of a wind farm or another renewable source though this would take some time.

With regards to pure hydrogen as a fuel, frankvw is on the right line. It takes 15t of storage to store 1t of hydrogen due to the pressures involved. I believe hydrogen jet engines are being developed and possibly even tested, though the difficulty is acquiring the infrastructure at the airports to store the fuel. Also, concerns arise that the by-product of hydrogen fuel (water) may actually cause adverse effects on the environment at the heights airliners fly (something to do with Ozone if I remember correctly).

My personal view is that yes, oil reserves are depleting but as new fields are discovered and mining techniques are improved, the limited increase in oil is just about counterbalancing the increase in use. There is definitely money in next-generation fuels and power plants. There is a wide belief that if you crack the hydrogen storage problem then you will become one of the richest people on this planet. I look forward to seeing the outcome of the bio fuel power plants.

The Soviets were playing around with hydrogen powered versions of the Tu-154 and other airliners. The problem with hydrogen is it is a low density fuel that either needs to be kept at cryogenic temperatures or under very high pressure. Equally the public view of hydrogen is shaped by the hindenberg disaster and hydrogen is seen as very dangerous… of course it is far less dangerous than Petrol that will detonate at normal air pressure but at high temperature with the right fuel air mix, while hydrogen will only explode under high pressure and high temperature with the correct fuel air mix.

For what it’s worth, next month Virgin Atlantic will do a testflight with one of their 747s flying to AMS using bio-fuel. Exactly what kind of bio-fuel this is going to be has not been announced. Virgin did say the bio-fuel would not pose a treat to the food or water supplies.

The flight will go to AMS empty, so not particularly environmentally friendly regardless. 😉 (willing to bet that the plane would have to to AMS anyway as KLM performs heavy maintenance for virgin, but that’s speculation on my part)

BMW has a prototype running on hydrogen. The only problem is that the tank is still a little bulky (let’s say that there’s nearly no trunk in a 7 series anymore 😉

If you ask me, this whole “fossil fuel resources are low” could just be a con by all the oil Shekhs.

What better way to increase the price and therefore profits on you product that to say its getting in short supply?

Where are the engines that run on hydrogen fuel cells? I remember 10 years ago seing a workable prototype car with hydrogen fuel cells. They even managed to make it safe in terms of Hydrogens unfortunately high inflamability. Suddenly its gone. 100 of millions spent on its research and it simply vanishes?

I bet the oil Shekhs bought it out and tucked it neatly under the carpet.

Oil running low is the same as the global warming debate. Man made hype to control the population.