Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by liquid hydrogen

Re:Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by li... by XorNot on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @10:22AM (#26890059)

You still have to cool a combustion engine - hence why car's have radiators.

Combustion engine's are also limited by Carnot cycle engine efficiency - about 64% theoretically, no more then 50% in the real world. So you're still going to wind up having to dump progressively more heat from a fixed surface area.

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Re:Airbus pioneers a superconducting powertrain cooled by li... by ethbr0 on Wednesday April 21, 2021 @10:55AM (#26890470)

(Post coffee) Cars have radiators to cool the operating structure (e.g. engine block), but that cooling's ancillary to power produced, no?

Carnot cycle was what I was grasping for.

Original point being that in a thermal engine, increasing your temperature gradient by increasing your high-temperature side (while holding exhaust constant) leads to more potential power.

Or IOW, a thermal engine that doesn't burn hot somewhere isn't going to produce much power.

(Electric being a completely different ball of wax)

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