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Comment by ef4 | Hacker News Reader

My bet for carbon-neutral aviation is not batteries, it's synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.

A factory that can make kerosene out of atmospheric carbon and electricity at a reasonable cost seems like a smaller stretch than an exotic new battery with orders of magnitude better energy density.

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Yep. If only we can make it work economically, carbon-neutral oil will be a complete win.

I think that hydrogen may be a practical alternative. Hydrogen seems vastly inferior for cars but I think the economics are very different for large aircraft.

This.

But storage is currently a problem for most airplane sizes, and hydrogen would really shine if coupled with fuel cells, not turbines.

That is, airplanes would really gain from all those useless gadgets companies used to push into cars.

Hydrogen is low energy density and next to impossible to contain or transport without lossage. These are major barriers to commercial adoption absent a breakthrough, laying aside the problem of generation.

Hydrogen has low energy density by volume, but very good energy density by weight. The overhead of the volume might be offset by the gains from the reduced weight, which is especially important for aircraft.

Lossage is certainly a problem, but I think once your aircraft is airborne, you can basically burn any hydrogen as it outgasses.

I was thinking carbon-neutral oil, because we have all the infrastructure already.

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