Hydrogen-Powered Plane Startup Just Raised $21 Million From Bill Gates, Amazon and More

Conrad

Well-Known Member
Hydrogen-powered planes may be the way of the future if California-based startup ZeroAvia has its way. And with $21.4 million in new funding under its belt, that may just happen sooner than we think.

Its new injection of cash comes courtesy of Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which should help it reach its goal of developing commercially viable, zero-emissions aircraft. And the Microsoft founder isn’t the only one vying to support the potentially aviation-shifting venture: Amazon and Shell also count themselves as investors.

So far, the company has operated 10 successful test flights with the long-term goal of operating commercial flights of up to 500 miles using 10- to 20-seat aircraft by 2023. It’s also working with British Airways to identify ways ZeroAvia believes that benchmark can be extended with 200-passenger aircraft traveling up to 3,000 miles by 2030. To do so will require more rounds of funding like Gates’ contribution. “This is a capital-intensive industry, so having investors to help you through the process is very important,” said ZeroAvia founder Val Miftakhov in an interview with Reuters.

So far, that investment has led to serious momentum. Though the company expects its technology will likely be used for cargo aircraft first, it has already partnered with investor British Airways on how it can move away from fossil fuel-powered jets. This comes at a critical time when the ravages of rapid climate change have stirred reevaluation of aviation and how it negatively impacts the environment.

According to the International Council on Clean Transportation, in 2018 aviation produced 918 million metric tons of CO2, about 2.4 percent of global fossil fuel emissions. Hydrogen is the most abundant element on earth and has the potential to dramatically slash this figure in a few year’s time compared to other technologies, like pure electric. “With compressed hydrogen gas storage, you immediately have four to five times the advantage in terms of energy density if you compare a 1,000-lb. fuel cell system to a 1,000-lb. battery,” Miftakhov told Robb Report in May.

With the rapid scalability of hydrogen fuel cells, it may not be long before our skies start looking a little bluer.

 
I suppose scale is key, but hydrogen prices need to come way, way, *way* down for this to be economically viable.
 
I don't know much about hydrogen - is it renewable - i.e. can we make more of it, or are we dependent upon finding it somewhere?
 
With enough energy it's abundant and renewable. But we're talking huge amounts of energy. Or new technology. There's plenty of research along those lines, but nothing near market yet.

The current tech to get hydrogen is fossil fuel reliant and pretty dirty. Transportation and storage are also challenges.

(I was looking at buying a hydrogen car a year ago and went down the rabbit hole).
 
Jet fuel, compared to the 100LL, has a major advantage of not being prone to exploding. Hydrogen, on the other hand... yeah, have fun with that.
 
With enough energy it's abundant and renewable. But we're talking huge amounts of energy. Or new technology. There's plenty of research along those lines, but nothing near market yet.

The current tech to get hydrogen is fossil fuel reliant and pretty dirty. Transportation and storage are also challenges.

(I was looking at buying a hydrogen car a year ago and went down the rabbit hole).

i looked into hydrogen while looking at the Nikola pickup and it turns out there’s only 28 places to get hydrogen fuel in the entire US.
 
I have my doubts but if Bill Gates and Shell are investing in it, I'm going to temper my skepticism a little bit since these people are generally way smarter than I am.
 
i looked into hydrogen while looking at the Nikola pickup and it turns out there’s only 28 places to get hydrogen fuel in the entire US.
So for fun... something like 75% of ALL THINGS is hydrogen. That is 75% of all matter in the universe is hydrogen.
 
I don't know much about hydrogen - is it renewable - i.e. can we make more of it, or are we dependent upon finding it somewhere?

Actually, you can stick a pipe in the ground and you get all kinds of hydrogen. Doesn’t even need to be cooled.
 
Hydrogen has VERY low energy density and requires extremely large storage capacity compared to Jet A. Not exactly the kind of thing compatible with light and aerodynamic aircraft design.

Biofuels are promising for commercial jet aircraft, but hydrogen? I’m not convinced... Just seems like an expensive pipe dream.
 
Hydrogen has VERY low energy density and requires extremely large storage capacity compared to Jet A. Not exactly the kind of thing compatible with light and aerodynamic aircraft design.

Biofuels are promising for commercial jet aircraft, but hydrogen? I’m not convinced... Just seems like an expensive pipe dream.
I could be wrong but from what I understand from a carbon standpoint biofuels aren't really much better. Plus our willingness to destroy swathes of land to grow hamberders makes me worry about what would happen if we were suddenly doing the same to make go-juice out of plants.
 
Hydrogen has VERY low energy density and requires extremely large storage capacity compared to Jet A. Not exactly the kind of thing compatible with light and aerodynamic aircraft design.

Biofuels are promising for commercial jet aircraft, but hydrogen? I’m not convinced... Just seems like an expensive pipe dream.

Cooling and compressing hydrogen can help with (but not resolve) the density issue. But then you start running into weight issues. Plus the inherit risks of highly pressurized tanks.

But yeah I can see it maybe working technically for the short hops, but it working for anything else is suspect, and I'm not sure there's the appetite for building out an entire energy ecosystem for short hops.

Not my money, though. If they find a way to make it work or get some useful spin-off technologies while trying it's cool by me.
 
Hydrogen seems like a perfect fuel to allow us travel without besmirching our little blue marble. Truth is given our current technology it takes more power to produce hydrogen than we're able to harness because nuclear power is somehow a bad thing. It's unicorn farts, don't get me wrong, I'd love to never smell Jet A or turbine exhaust for the rest of my life but I suspect battery tech is more likely to change the game than hydrogen. Of course that brings up how the batteries are manufactured, try to explain to a Prius owner how much damage their car caused the enviroment before it was built. Normally it's either a Karen or crickets and regardless they do not want to have that conversation.
 
Well, they have a hydrogen powered Piper Malibu flying as proof of concept.

 
Well, they have a hydrogen powered Piper Malibu flying as proof of concept.


Yes, and Nikola has a semi truck that can run downhill and Theranos is going to revolutionize the medical testing industry! In this day and age, that kind of stuff is basically meaningless.

The stats on their page are pretty optimistic. Actually, I would say more like totally unrealistic. 3,000+ miles? I just don’t see it, nor does it make any sense when there is plenty of Jet A to be had.
 
That "Powertrain Timeline" is something else.

2023 for their 500NM, 10-20 seater, then four years later a Dash-8 equivalent? Then three years after that an E195 equivalent? Five years after that an A320? If they were just building a clean sheet Jet-A powerplant and slotting it into existing types that would be madness. But this is a whole new fuel system, too. Even if their technology is that scalable, that quickly, you can't do such major modifications--with novel technology, no less--at that pace.

And that's putting entirely aside the sort of ground infrastructure you'd need to generate, move, and store that much hydrogen.

I mean I guess they want to hype investors that it's a technology they can fly their kids on before they're out of school, but yikes.
 
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I could be wrong but from what I understand from a carbon standpoint biofuels aren't really much better. Plus our willingness to destroy swathes of land to grow hamberders makes me worry about what would happen if we were suddenly doing the same to make go-juice out of plants.
I believe the most popular JetA biofuels are made from algae that need far less land.
 
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