“Joby took a pre-production prototype of one of its battery-electric aircraft and outfitted it with a liquid hydrogen fuel tank and fuel system. The modified, hydrogen-powered VTOL was able to complete a 523 mile flight above Marina, California…”
Hydrogen: the crypto of green energy.
I didn’t read yet, but I alredy know you won’t see the roundtrip efficiency numbers in that article
It’s always important to remember that hydrogen is not harmless.
First, it normally comes from natural gas since it’s less energy-intensive to produce it that way.
Second, even if we were to produce hydrogen from water, the cycle of electrolyzing, transporting and using hydrogen is associated with enormous energy losses, and we still have to get that extra energy from somewhere.
Third, even if renewables will fully cover the demands of such production, they are not completely harmless, either. They need to be manufactured and then discarded; they require intermittent energy storage, which either relies on batteries which are not eco-friendly, or again something like hydrogen which would necessitate a much more powerful source and commonly requires rare metals. Also, even in use, solar farms and windmills affect local ecosystems by the construction process, shadows, and, in case of windmills, noise pollution.
That’s not to say renewables are bad - they are the best we’ve got - but any extra energy always comes at a cost, both financially and environmentally.
An air taxi is normally not a wise use of said energy.
There’s always a lot of hatred for hydrogen in these threads but I’m yet to see a strong argument against it.
Hydrogen is not the solution to climate change in the same way nuclear energy is not the solution - it’s probably an appropriate part of the picture in some instances. A lot of large, sophisticated companies and governments are heavily invested in hydrogen.
First,
No one is talking about using hydrogen produced from fossil fuel extraction.
Second,
Yes cracking hydrogen from sea water is not efficient, but in places with an abundance of sun and wind but no population hydrogen might be a good way to store and transport energy.
Third,
I don’t really understand your reasoning here. Yes producing energy requires resources. Using wind and solar to crack hydrogen from sea water does not require batteries nor “a much more powerful source”. In the right environment (arid areas) it’s easy enough to mitigate the impact on the environment.
1.That’s where it normally comes from in the industry. I later made an assumption that this will maybe change 2-3.My point was, all energy has a cost, including environmental one. Even if you put it in an uninhabitable area, you still have to manufacture components and install the plant in a remote area (which is expensive and requires ton of landscape engineering and logistics with a very real and large footprint), and then transport hydrogen to the destination.
That’s where it comes from presently because we haven’t started producing significant amounts of green hydrogen yet. “This tech is useless because we aren’t doing it yet!”
Constructing large solar and wind arrays in remote / uninhabitable areas is not free, but the land is “free” because in many cases it’s not suitable for any other use. I think a lot of people dreaming of a wind & solar renewable future underestimate the physical area required to capture enough sunlight to power everyone’s EVs.
Regarding transportation and storage, have a look into “LOHC”, there’s a lot of promising tech that is already beginning to solve these problems.
Will check out, thanks!
What are the advantages over compressed hydro on one side and metal hydride storage on the other?
Also, if I understand right, that does not address the issues of conversion efficiency.
So as far as I know, the benefit of LOHC is that compression/cooling is no longer required. Transporting/storing hydrogen becomes as easy as transporting any oil. There is an energy cost in the binding reaction, which is endothermic, but the unbinding reaction is exothermic so you get some of that energy back.
Unless you mean some other conversion?
Second, even if we were to produce hydrogen from water, the cycle of electrolyzing, transporting and using hydrogen is associated with enormous energy losses, and we still have to get that extra energy from somewhere
Is it worse than hauling enormous batteries, though? I know hydrogen looses like half the energy on generation, but to me it sounds the same as if we do all-electric and spend the same amount of energy for just moving the batteries around. I’m too cooked atm, but is anyone up to do the research/math on this?
Batteries take up about 15-20% of the vehicle mass and have around 90% efficiency
Hydrogen cycle has, at best, 60% efficiency (assuming amazing logistics and fuel cell for hydrogen-to-energy conversion); also, hydrogen systems also weigh a lot, but even if they would weigh literally 0kg, they would lose on efficiency anyway.
And no noise?
It has those helicopter engines, so definitely a lot of noise.
Hurry! Let’s build up an industry around this useless luxury and then be confused as to why emissions keep rising even though everyone is frolicing around in zero-emission hover taxies.
It’s the third world who is to blame. Damn developing countries. Stop supplying our demands!
Well, it’s a demonstration of hydrogen utilization. And if it spares ice vehicle trips, it’s just fine.
It’s an investment opportunity. A futuristic green washed technology with fantastical data that sounds like a great idea to ignorant optimist.
“Personal flight is better that fossil fuels”. Nonsense! I guarantee that it is less harmful to drive around in a tractor than to fly around in a “zero-emission” taxi-plane.
This will never take off.
taxi-plane
This will never take off.
I see what you did there.
Please do explain how is less harmful to drive in a diesel tractor around.
You kinda should like nothing I say will persuade you, but here it goes.
A tractor is bought and paid for, so to say. It’ll only emit as much as you put into it. Where as with a hover-cab, before you get to theoreticaly use zoro-emission fuel, you first have to make it. I.e. digging up and smelting rare metals, shipping parts all over the world and churning them out in coal-burning factories.
You’ll be dead before your tractor catches up the starting costs.
Where as with a hover-cab, before you get to theoreticaly use zoro-emission fuel, you first have to make it
This sounds almost like tractors are born in a shed, not made in a factory.
digging up and smelting rare metals
Not so much and less with newer battery types
shipping parts all over the world and churning them out in coal-burning factories.
Again, see first comment. Out of curiosity, what are coal-burning factories anyway?
You’ll be dead before your tractor catches up the starting costs.
While tractors are relatively cheap, you fail to see all the disadvantages with them it seems. Like fuel grows in a fuel pump stations and I’m sure they are very beneficial to air you breath, not counting co2 emissions and many other negative aspects. Let’s do a test. I’ll lie down next to e-vehicle exhaust and you’ll do the same next to a tractor exhaust or any other ICE vehicle of your choice. Let’s do that for 5 minutes while engines are running.
Yea. I called it.
Your drinking the coolaid, man.
Anyone who tells you that the answer is to buy their product is lying to you. The answer is to consume less not more.
And how are we doing with consuming less? Oh, wait, I know - consumption of oil and coal is at all time high.
Nah, not very fine. I wonder if it could be less eco-friendly to run something like this over an ICE car simply due to the massive energy demands of such a vehicle and the losses on energy to hydrogen to energy conversion.
Flying transportation is only reasonable at a large scale and high speeds, which is not a characteristic of an air taxi.
Also, better use hydrogen-powered car then.
While hydrogen is expensive to produce, it can be produced from reusable sources or surplus energy which makes it way cheaper and way cleaner. Also solves energy storage. A side note: ICE is around 20% efficient. I’m also sure that flying in choppers and private jets is not that clean and efficient. And yes, cars would be better, but both can coexist.
True, but that would require building expensive infrastructure that would sit idle for most of the time while we wait for the surplus - assuming we talk intermittent renewables.
Sure enough, hydrogen fuel cell is cleaner than ICE, my objection was to the form of transportation that might require so much power an ICE car would be a better alternative (but not an ICE air taxi, to be clear)
Cars would be better, but both can coexist
From an ecological perspective, they can not, and that’s what this “invention” pretends to be about. Also, cars too are far from perfect, but at least better than this monstrosity
Nice, they can tap into those hydrogen reservoirs.
/s
I like the other test that showed a full sized standard issue commercial aircraft was able to be retrofitted with a hydrogen tank and a special heat pump. That seems like a good avenue for development.
