There are three ways to go to make an airliner that is better for the climate than what we have flying today. Airliners use and burn a LOT of fuel. Just to fuel a single seat, single engine fighter plane for a long flight (Duluth Minnesota to Tyndall AFB Florida) took 10,000 gallons of jet fuel. This is a full 18 wheeler semi trailer worth of fuel. That’s just for a little fighter plane. To fuel a four engine jet liner carrying a couple of hundred passengers across an ocean takes a lot more, probably something like 40,000 gallons, 4 full 18 wheeler semi trailers.
Aviation Week keeps mentioning “Sustainable Aviation Fuel” (SAF). What ever it is, Aviation Week claims it burns without CO2 emissions, and to work fine in existing jet engines. I have no idea what SAF is, how it is made, what it might cost. Googling turned up one post, which I wrote myself a couple of years ago.
Then there is hydrogen. Burns good and clean, no CO2, just H2O (water). Has to be cooled way way down so it liquefies, before you can get enough of it into an airliner to do any good. The airliner needs special hydrogen tanks, fitted in somewhere. The usual plan for fuel storage, filling up the wings with kerosene, probably won’t work for hydrogen. The hydrogen keeps boiling off, requiring a cylindrical fuel tank that can take some pressure. The wings cannot take any sort of pressure.
And finally there are batteries. I am surprised that even theoretically possible batteries have enough power to lift themselves (let along an airliner) off the ground. I am aware a one experimental battery powered aircraft project. The aircraft is the size of a Cessna. They got a lot of development work to grow that up to airliner size.
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