New cryogenic projects to try to power a large plane

The problem with large airplanes is that they weigh a lot and you cannot put batteries in them (they are very heavy) to fly in an ecological way. Airbus, Boeing and others have a serious problem making green airplanes.

To try to remedy this, cryogenic projects are being carried out using hydrogen at a very low temperature (-253 ºC) so that all the components are very close to superconductivity and not have energy losses.

But it is one thing to say it and another to do it.

As this is just a theory at the moment, several similar projects have been launched late by Airbus, Boeing, NASA, and several universities to carry out prototypes on the ground that could one day be shipped on a plane.

Work is being done in both parts of Atlántico, and Airbus has called the project ASCEND.

If the project were feasible on the ground, a similar system operating at -253ºC would have to be fitted to the plane to activate high-efficiency electric motors to move the plane.

Apart from the complexity of the system, there is the issue of safety in flight since hydrogen is a good fuel (it provides a lot of energy) but it is very unstable and flammable.

A video can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/l7cL3uU-kRg

The problem for large aircraft manufacturers is that time passes and they have few ecological alternatives to put their aircraft in the air, and people are increasingly aware that flying is only essential in very special cases; and as time passes and there is a greater sensitivity of the people, fewer polluting flights will be carried out.

That’s the problem with time- that it never stops and we can’t control it.