PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Hydrogen fuel could revolutionize airlines - Los Angeles Times
Old 29th Oct 2020, 17:13
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infrequentflyer789
 
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Originally Posted by tdracer
So what you're going to end up with is a massive H2 tank in the middle of the fuselage - which needs to have fail-safe segregation from passengers and crew.
Or you could put strap a really big, uncompressed H2 tank on top. Would add massive drag, so speeds would be limited, but on the other hand it would provide lift. Might take longer to get from A to B but given the need for 14 days quarantine at B anyway, there may be les of a rush in future. Add emergency H2 (or Jet A1) tanks somewhere, say in the wings :-), and an ejection mechanism for the "tank" and you've got that fail-safe segregation.

Biofuel (probably based on algae) is a far more viable long-term solution than H2 - with the added advantage that it would work with today's aircraft...
Or synthetic fuel produced from carbon capture by chemical process. Definitely the easier way to go, utilising all existing infrastructure, if such a process (or algae) can be found and scaled up. That is the bet that is being hedged with H2 R&D.
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