The Allplane Podcast #27 - with Universal Hydrogen co-founder Jason Chua
One of the hottest green flying startups out there is Universal Hydrogen.
It certainly helps that among its co-founders you find some high caliber names of the aviation and technology corporate ecosystems, but, perhaps most importantly, Universal Hydrogen proposes a truly innovative solution to one of the main roadblocks in the way to a carbon-free aviation industry.
Jason Chua is the COO of Universal Hydrogen. A veteran of Google, Airbus and United Technologies Jason has come on the podcast to explain Universal Hydrogen’s audacious plan to facilitate the adoption of hydrogen thanks to a truly innovative approach.
Universal Hydrogen’s founders have taken their inspiration from the consumables business model - which has proven to be a big success for firms such as HP and Nestlé’s Nespresso - to come up with a system for airlines convert their aircraft to hydrogen propulsion while securing long term contracts to supply hydrogen capsules to power them.
The beauty of all this is the modularity of this concept.
Capsules would be pre-filled at a hydrogen production facility and then distributed wherever they are needed, with minimal need for on-site fuel manipulation. Whenever you need to refuel a plane, you would simply replace the capsule at the back of the plane, just as you would replace an expended ink cartridge in a printer.
This technology would become first available on turboprop regional aircraft, but the potential is there to become generalized across other segments of the commercial aviation industry.
Check out today’s episode for an in-depth review of Universal Hydrogen’s road map to convert the global airliner fleets to hydrogen propulsion in an efficient and straightforward way…
Download this episode from:
Apple Podcasts / iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher
Things we talk about in this episode:
What is Universal Hydrogen? Its founders’ background and vision
Why Universal Hydrogen decided to focus on the logistics and supply side of the hydrogen economy
Why Universal Hydrogen is focusing on the turboprop market first
Universal Hydrogen’s business model
The future of carbon-free aviation
Resources
New report about the launch of Universal Hydrogen
Wikipedia profile of Paul Eremenko, former AIrbus CTO, now a founder at Universal Hydrogen
A Bloomberg New Energy Finance summary of what hydrogen can mean for aviation, with Airbus’ Glenn Llewellyn
Our previous podcast with Kate Akulinicheva, CFO of ZeroAvia, one of the leading firms in the development of hydrogen-based aviation
Here are some diagrams and renderings to understand the Universal Hydrogen concept for carbon-free aircraft refuelling:
Images: Universal Hydrogen
Podcast Music: Five Armies by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3762-five-armies
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Interview Transcript (coming soon!)
(please note that, although we strive to make it as close as possible to the original recording, the transcript may not be 100% accurate)