Fuel Cells In Airliners?
The March 2009 issue of Smithsonian’s Air & Space magazine, a publication much respected and admired, included an article titled “Flying Fuel Cells,” in which it was reported that a Super Dimona aircraft was flown using a fuel cell. The Dimona is, of course, a small plane, so how did I leap from there to jumbo jets? The article explained it all.
In the Dimona, the fuel cell ran an electric motor that actually turned the propeller (there was also a battery that helped on takeoff).
But, you might say, jumbo jets don’t even have propellers. Right you are, but Boeing conducted this flight. (The tiny Dimona had “Boeing” painted on the cowl. Talk about something that could cause rumors!) As Boeing points out, a cell that can spin a prop could instead spin a generator that might provide all of the electrical power the jumbo uses.
Currently a small fraction of power from the jet engines and/or an APU is used for generators that run onboard lighting and other systems. Fuel cells would run cleaner and save fuel, which would save weight and thus save even more fuel. The jumbo jet would thus save money and be “greener” as well. That’s a win-win improvement in today’s world. (Just last week cometh from the Wall Street Journal a “News Alert” informing me that the EPA found that “carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a danger to the public, setting the stage for a battle over regulations that could have a far-reaching impact on the U.S. economy.”)
Ah, and, as mentioned before in this BLOG, P&W is working on a geared turbofan (they have already sold some of these engines for future airliners) that will save even more fuel and also lower carbon dioxide emissions.
But wait! There’s more! Engineers at other companies are improving LEDs so that they can replace the lights in airliner interiors and maybe even the landing lights. That would save more fuel which would mean a lighter takeoff which would save even more fuel.
Ain’t the free market wonderful?
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Neil–
I surely can’t disagree with any of that, but it must depend a lot on predicting the next half century of change in aircraft and how we use them..or so it seems to me.
Thanks for writing.
Ralph Hood
Neil
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Steve…
First, where/when was that seminar? And was I any good?
Yes, the guvmint will use overkill whenever/wherever it can. My point is that P&W and others can make a profit helping us conserve resources efficiently. More power to them.
Thanks for writing,
Ralph Hood
Earl…
I think everybody is kinda sick of the whole thing, but it is there and evidently there is a profit to be made making it go away, as P&W and others are doing.
Thanks for writing,
Ralph Hood
Allen–
Yep, you’re right. And I don’t know about you, but am pretty sure that I had nothing to do with the dinosaurs’ extinction long before man was on the earth.
Thanks for writing,
Ralph Hood
Dan
Yes, I have an LED flashlight myself. It works well. They say it’s harder to use them for headlights/landing lights, but it will happen.
Thanks for writing,
Ralph Hood
Ralph, I remember being at a seminar listening to you. I agree LED is the new light of the future, if you change your all the lamps in your home to LED it will cost a lot but the return in electric savings is good. It seems we have a lot of problems with the environment and a lot of opinions on how to fix it. Have you noticed everyone with great and big ideas to help the environment somehow involves the US government and MILLIONS, BILLIONS of dollars. You know the more we save on electricity, fuel, natural gas, etc, the less companies make in profit, states make less in tax, government makes less in tax and the result of less use and tax income means prices and taxes go up to make up for the lose. I agree we have to conserve, it makes financial and environmental sense. Making money in this economy is difficult because companies do not have or want to spend the extra money on aviation. Thank you, Steve
Is it just me, ( and I know this isn’t politically correct or in vogue now ) or are other people fed up with “greenhouse gases, carbon foot prints, going green, etc. Whatever happened to the ozone problems…don’t hear much about that anymore. If we have “holes in the ozone, wouldn’t that get rid of the “greenhouse gases ? Geez, now I gotta worry about my “carbon footprint” in addition to my athlete’s foot. Last time I looked, we were still recovering from the ice age. Duh…that means going from cold to hot…Something we been doing for a long, long time. I think it would be nice to concentrate on solving obvious problems that everyone would agree WAS a problem, and something could be done about… World hunger, world health…401K’s…mundane stuff like that.
We need to do all we can for the environment but the Guvmint will still require more expensive solutions for us to adopt without a thought about the volcano popping in Alaska that is putting out more greenhouse gas than aviation alone could erase in 100 years if all we used was air alone.
I can attest to them LED’s. I have a single LED flashlight from a local grocery market that beats all of my other flashlights, including older LED’s as well.
This thing throws a beam like you would not believe.
Now, if we can just keep the Guvmint away from this………