Replacing Oil

During Feburary and March of this year, just south of Madrid, a real living breathing pilot flew an airplane powered by Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Unmanned hydrogen fuel cell crafts have been flown in the past, but this was the first time in history that a real person has been in the plane.

Boeing’s, soon to be historic, hydrogen fuel cell powered airplane

The takeoff required more power than the fuel cells could supply at once, so a lithium-ion battery system on board with a full charge is required before takeoff. However once reaching an altitude of 1,000 meters the plane shut off it’s batteries and cruises solely on power generated by fuel cells. The electric motor turning the conventional prop was able to maintain a speed of 100 km/h using only power generated by the hydrogen fuel cells on board.

Although Boeing doesn’t expect to be developing commercial airliners with electric motors powered with Hydrogen anytime soon, the experiments bolster confidence in the use of hydrogen powered EVs.

Although there’s talk of solar/hydrogen powered hybrid planes. Panels on the wings be used to recharge the Lithium-Ion batteries for the next take off and/or add hydrogen to the tank. We suppose if you parked one of these hy-bird planes on a sunny tarmac long enough the panels could charge the lithium-ion batteries necessary for takeoff and create enough hydrogen fuel to keep it going once it’s up there. Talk about cheap travel!

Tags: airplanes, Boeing, EVs, Hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries

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