Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft == Anti-Terrorist Device?

maladroit asks: "Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation/Science Friday , Harry Braun of the Phoenix Project said that a hydrogen-powered airplane would not have produced the fire and intense heat that brought down the World Trade Center towers. Is this true ? What are the other advantages and disadvantages of hydrogen fuel ? Details on the Phoenix Project's website are a bit sketchy, but I'm sure the Slashdot crowd has some answers (and Richard Dean Anderson jokes)." Sounds like a good theory, it doesn't account for the hostage aspect, but it would prevent the use of aircraft as cheap bombs. Would there be any drawbacks? How much would such a refit cost for your average commercial aircraft?

Comments

Re:Hydrogen burns

[Seanasy]

It wasn't hydrogen burning.
From the DOE H2 website:

Did hydrogen cause the Hindenberg to blow up?

No. A recent study of the accident implicates the paint used on the skin of the airship, which contained the same component as rocket fuel.

Kinetic energy didn't take down the towers.

[DunbarTheInept]

The impact of the planes did not destroy the towers. They were build to take a *massive* shakedown like that and still stand. They fell because the steel they were made out of started getting mushy when their temperature approached the melting point of steel. In other words, take out the fuel fire and just have the kinetic energy of the impact and the towers would have stood. (but the damage would have been bad enough that it would still have taken a long time to fix them.)