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Hydrogen-powered planes almost ready for takeoff
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Why?
I'm guessing that they are (falsely) equating it to the hindenburg, when IMO it wouldn't be much different safety-wise than current fossil fuel powered planes.
It's not like they would be filling the wings and luggage compartment with free-floating hydrogen, it stays in it's tank
Hydrogen is very hard to make stay in it's tank. And flying around with a tank of pretty much the most flammable element with a few hundred people sitting on top of it seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Yes, but notably you can design to reduce the risk of leaking hydrogen. If the areas around the tanks are designed to allow any leakage to vent before it reaches dangerous levels, you can reduce the risk. Yes hydrogen is flammable, so tanks of it are dangerous. Jet fuel is also quite flammable, and we've used that for a long time.
This is all in contrast to the design of the Hindenburg, which was specifically trying to hold onto a bunch of hydrogen in the flammable regime
Not to mention that material science has improved a hell of a lot since Hindenburg.
Because hydrogen is highly explosive.
Hindenburg
Or, you know, the fact that hydrogen is extremely explosive and incredibly difficult to contain.