Largest hydrogen fuel cell aircraft of all time takes flight

In the automotive world, batteries are rapidly becoming the energy source of the future. For heavier tasks, however, they just don't cut the mustard. Their energy density, being a small fraction of that of liquid fuels, simply cannot do the job. In areas like these, hydrogen holds promise as the cleaner fuel of the future.

Universal Hydrogen hopes hydrogen will do for aviation what batteries cannot. The company has developed flight-ready fuel cells for this specific purpose and has begun test flights for this specific purpose.

Hydrogen Sky

It's only recently that battery technology has advanced enough to build decent, usable electric cars. Even still, just getting a few hundred miles of range out of an aero sedan usually requires over a thousand pounds of batteries. For planes, which are much more power hungry than cars, batteries are simply not a viable power source. Hydrogen, however, could be a viable alternative, as it has an energy density comparable to that of fossil fuels. It can be burned in internal combustion engines and jet engines just like fossil fuels, producing no carbon dioxide and a minimal but measurable amount of nitrogen oxides. Even better, it can be used to generate electrical energy with only water as a by-product, using a fuel cell.

Hydrogen has an energy density comparable to that of fossil fuels, both in weight and volume. Batteries fare much worse in comparison. Note, however, that this comparison focuses on the fuel itself and does not take into account the storage infrastructure such as the tanks needed to keep the hydrogen at the right temperature and pressure.