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NASA, Google Award $1.35M For Ultra-Efficient Electric Aircraft

Posted by Soulskill on from the earning-green-by-being-green dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA today awarded what it called the largest prize in aviation history to a company that flew their aircraft 200 miles in less than two hours on less than one gallon of fuel or electric equivalent. Their aircraft is the Taurus G4 by Pipistrel-USA.com. The twin fuselage motor glider features a 145 kW electric motor, lithium-ion batteries, and retractable landing gear."

1 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Lithium Ion by ickleberry · · Score: 0, Troll

    So instead of paying for fuel you end up paying about the same in 'wear' on your battery pack. You might think "but it's good for the carbon footprint, environment, reducing the peak oil problem, etc" but it isn't.

    The money you spend on the battery pack goes to fund the fuel for the large diesel engines used to help get the raw materials out of the ground in Bolivia, shipping and so on. End of life Li-Ion batteries cannot be easily recycled into new Li-Ion batteries either. So really they'd be better off making a plane that runs off ethanol (but not corn ethanol, production of this stuff is woefully inefficient), ordinary petrol or not bothering with building the plane until a more sustainable form of battery or capacitor is on the market.