1. Jet engines, including scramjets, work by "squeeze bang blow" the bang is where you add the fuel. In this case the squeeze is supplied by the velocity of the aircraft. The "blow" is simply due to volumetric expansion of the heated gas creating thrust as the air exits the back of the engine. Fuel creates heat, heat breaks the nitrogen tripple bound, the single nirtrogen atom finds an oxegen atom and pollution is created. Hydrogen is not necessarily a pollution free fuel. In a fuel cell yes, it could be...theoretically (it isn't pollution free today) (how much pollution would be generated creating the hydrogen... that is a different story). In a scramjet or other engine... plenty of pollution.
2. Scram jets have been around a while. Have you ever attended a Combustion symposium? Its a big conference held every four years on combustion; at every one for decades there have been quite a few papers on scramjets. The problem isn't getting one to work, its the HUGE spikes and drops in acceleration. Acceleration spikes from +150G's to -50G's and back again. Anyone want to guess what this does to a passenger? Anyone want to guess what this does to any cargo that isn't a solid chunk of metal?
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1. Jet engines, including scramjets, work by "squeeze bang blow" the bang is where you add the fuel. In this case the squeeze is supplied by the velocity of the aircraft. The "blow" is simply due to volumetric expansion of the heated gas creating thrust as the air exits the back of the engine. Fuel creates heat, heat breaks the nitrogen tripple bound, the single nirtrogen atom finds an oxegen atom and pollution is created. Hydrogen is not necessarily a pollution free fuel. In a fuel cell yes, it could be...theoretically (it isn't pollution free today) (how much pollution would be generated creating the hydrogen... that is a different story). In a scramjet or other engine... plenty of pollution. 2. Scram jets have been around a while. Have you ever attended a Combustion symposium? Its a big conference held every four years on combustion; at every one for decades there have been quite a few papers on scramjets. The problem isn't getting one to work, its the HUGE spikes and drops in acceleration. Acceleration spikes from +150G's to -50G's and back again. Anyone want to guess what this does to a passenger? Anyone want to guess what this does to any cargo that isn't a solid chunk of metal?