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Norway Tests Tiny Electric Plane, Sees Passenger Flights by 2025 (reuters.com)
Norway tested a two-seater electric plane on Monday and predicted a start to passenger flights by 2025 if new aviation technologies match a green shift that has made Norwegians the world's top buyers of electric cars. From a report: Transport Minister Ketil Solvik-Olsen and Dag Falk-Petersen, head of state-run Avinor which runs most of Norway's airports, took a few minutes' flight around Oslo airport in an Alpha Electro G2 plane, built by Pipistrel in Slovenia. "This is ... a first example that we are moving fast forward" toward greener aviation, Solvik-Olsen told Reuters. "We do have to make sure it is safe - people won't fly if they don't trust it." He said plane makers such as Boeing and Airbus were developing electric aircraft and that battery prices were tumbling, making it feasible to reach a government goal of making all domestic flights in Norway electric by 2040.
Whatâ(TM)s the longest flight in Norway? 15 miles? big deal
He said plane makers such as Boeing and Airbus were developing electric aircraft and that battery prices were tumbling, making it feasible to reach a government goal of making all domestic flights in Norway electric by 2040.
Battery prices aren't the big problem. Battery weight is the problem when it comes to aviation. Even the best battery tech we have today has a rather poor power to weight ratio. I see no evidence in this article that they have solved that problem since that would require a breakthrough in power density for batteries.
Note that the plane they show has a takeoff weight of 570kg which allows for basically no cargo or passengers. For comparison the EMPTY weight of a Cessna 170 is an almost identical 573kg and it has a takeoff weight of 864-1000kg.
SPACE FORCE
Trump will save us from illegal bad hombres with the wall, illegal Norwayers in their electric planes, and MOST IMPORTANTLY those evil BUGS from Klendathu.
Trump 2020
Make space great again!
Battery powered Zeppelins are obviously the answer.
All those people taking pictures, and not one fucking video, with real sound, not some stupid Euro-trash beat "music"! That's fucked up!
Battery weight is the problem when it comes to aviation.
Simple. Keep the batteries on the ground and run a cable up to the plane.
To say nothing of the low wing loading, it won't be able to fly in any significant wind. Not that a Cessna 170 flies through hurricanes.
Also they expect passenger service by 25...That gives them 7 years to get something commercially viable done and type approved. I doubt the EU's version of the FAA is that quick.
Also looks like enough room for a gas engine in the nose, isn't one of the points of electric engines that they're smaller and can give improved front visibility? I think this is a conversion, like a Tesla roadster 1.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
“This is a start
Wait... instead of making this thing cheaper and better, have other surface transportation options, or just encourage people to not live so damn far apart... you want to make jet fuel more expensive?
That sounds like a massive failure of environmental policy. Why make things people want and make their life enjoyable more expensive, so only the rich can afford them? If this is actually a policy of the Green party, and not just one wingnut, I'll never vote for them, ever.
It's a prototype, and not the only one. Siemens is developing one (which suffered an unfortunately fatal accident a week or two ago).
Obviously there will need to be improvements in battery technology, just like there were for cars.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
LI-Ion/LI Polymer batteries don't have quite the power/weight of conventional fuel, but it's perfectly acceptable for low-performance airplanes even now. The issues are more economic - the initial cost, the cost of time on the ground charnging, and safety - like the tendency to burst into flames for no adequately-explained reason.
That's right, the wind sees the plane flying and does a quick calculation and if the wing loading is light, whenever the plane tries to fly fast it seizes it and slows it down.
In Norway, electricity is way cheaper than jet fuel. They are the leading producer of hydroelectric power in European markets.
Because of this, if electric planes become relevant, Norway could insert itself as a major air traffic hub for other European travel. Electric planes would route through Norway to refuel less expensively.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
“This is a start ... but we have to make jet fuel a lot more expensive,”
Artificially competitive.
Battery weight is still the problem.
One off-the-wall idea: make the plane's wings and fuselage out of batteries/energy-storing material. The batteries will still be heavy, but then at least you get the rest of the airplane "for free".
(Disclaimer: I have no idea if that is even remotely practical)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
lithium batteries are well known to be incredibly dangerous if damaged in any way. What might have been a run-of-the-mill encounter with turbulence could end up being a total casualty event.
Nope, no thanks. I want the pilots to at least have the opportunity to set down a plane. Being incinerated in a lithium fire at 40,000 feet just because of something like turbulence is not appealing at all.
Battery weight is the problem when it comes to aviation.
So? That means (for the time being) it'll only work for very light planes, and/or short hops. Trips like Amsterdam -> London, which iirc is something like 15 or 20 mins actual flight time. Plenty of short flight routes like that around the world. And of course that's only the beginning as battery technology improves.
That said: personally I think it's a shame we're not seeing more electric ships. For that application, weight is a non-issue. And moving masses through water is a very energy-efficient manner to move anything around, so energy contents is also less of an issue than for cars or planes. Well at least we have electric bicycles... :-)
You don't know ANYTHING about aerodynamics do you? It is obvious.
Go back to you 'die in prison' trolling. When you try to be smart, it's just pitiful.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
oh the humanity
PLEASE don't get your batteries through Samsung!
Sure batteries are heavy, but if you can physically fly an electric plane from point A to point B on batteries, then the only important remaining question is whether it's cost effective.
Norway is a country about the size of Montana, with relatively cheap electricity which is more than 99% from hydropower- and wind-generated, and a domestic carbon emissions trading system. Since short haul flights are particularly carbon intensive per distance traveled, an electric plane would generate a lot of valuable carbon credits.
So if electric flights are physically and economically feasible anywhere, Norway is the place.
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Apparently people today do not know ANYTHING happen before web-search-era.
Italy's Finmeccanica (now Leonardo) build few aircraft with electric thrusters on the wings and a generator on board. They drop the project because:
- reduced load capacity
- more complex maintenance
- too much heat in the fuselage, cockpit included
- too much ventilation problem in the fuselage
- ZERO practical advantage
I suppose a small touristic plane today can run on battery but why? It will far more expensive, limited and give nothing in exchange.
No, it's not "perfectly acceptable", it's marginally tolerable for self-launching gliders. Given technology going into production in the next decade, electric flight will maintain itself as a stunt. Nothing close to production shows any potential for meeting certification requirements for instrument or commercial flight. For a perfect day in a private flight, 30 minutes of reserve power is fine. For commercial service, de-icing and 2 hours of flight reserve, including a climb back to altitude, is required. de-icing takes about 1/4 of the net power generation capacity (including thrust, not just electrical) for most aircraft. Electric aircraft are a nice marketing stunt, greenwashing on the taxpayer's dime. Hybrid fuel-electric propulsion has possibility, but not inside a decade.
Physics is a bitch, and she rules.
I doubt the EU's version of the FAA is that quick.
Norway is not part of the EU
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I think the quad copters are making the battery the frame itself, could probably do the same here
Obviously there will need to be improvements in battery technology, just like there were for cars.
That understates things quite a lot. Batteries will have to have a HUGE increase in power density to make them feasible for commercial aviation. Sure we can make some really light research vehicles but one doesn't have to be an aviation engineer to do the math on how much lighter batteries will have to get to make electric planes feasible for anything practical.
It's worth working on the problem but until batteries become a LOT lighter than they are it's going to be a dead end.
Most new ships already are diesel-electric with electric motors in azimuth thrust pods.
The problem for "electric" ships is that it takes megawatts of power to move them, I'm guessing even covering the top of a container ship with solar panels wouldn't provide sufficient power to make more than 1-2 knots, if that.
Norwegians afford to be "green" because they have amassed about a trillion dollars (or krones) of wealth... BY PUMPING OIL AND GAS from the North Sea.
Teslas and other electric cars are subsidized massively by the government so it's affordable for the average Göran.
I wanna also have a government who can subsidize my virtual signaling!
Kisses!
Sure batteries are heavy, but if you can physically fly an electric plane from point A to point B on batteries, then the only important remaining question is whether it's cost effective.
It's not whether you can fly a plane. It's how much CARGO that plane can carry between points. Right now batteries are too heavy to permit any meaningful amount of cargo to be carried and therefore they are economically noncompetitive.
Since short haul flights are particularly carbon intensive per distance traveled, an electric plane would generate a lot of valuable carbon credits.
Before you worry about carbon output you need to get the cost per kg of cargo (including human cargo) to rough parity. Right now we can make electric planes that can get themselves aloft but they are useless because they cannot carry any meaningful amount of cargo. Once the cost per unit of cargo is somewhere vaguely close fossil fuel powered options THEN we can start bringing carbon credits into the discussion.
Don't get me wrong I'm all for electric planes but the physics and economics involved aren't forgiving on this point.
That may be true, but industrial sectors do not advance if they do not *attempt* to create these things. They need to refine the aircraft to suit the current physical restrictions as a starting point, THEN you get to take another step and another and another. Eventually an industry matures and you have a product that is fit for the consumer market en masse. .. but none of it happens without the first steps of development.
LI-Ion/LI Polymer batteries don't have quite the power/weight of conventional fuel, but it's perfectly acceptable for low-performance airplanes even now.
Not if you plan to carry any cargo they are not. And since cargo cost per unit distance traveled is by far the most important metric for their success we aren't anywhere close to commercial viability right now. Current battery tech is just too heavy for economic viability right now and that doesn't look likely to change in the near future. Battery power density will have to increase substantially.
The issues are more economic - the initial cost, the cost of time on the ground charnging, and safety - like the tendency to burst into flames for no adequately-explained reason.
While those are all important things to consider, THE primary metric that matters is cost per distance traveled of a kg of cargo. Everything else is secondary.
*Sigh* you're right, I know nothing of your aerodynamics, but I DO understand the capricious and often spiteful personalities of the wind gods.
On a flight of less than 500 km, a quarter of the energy is used in the takeoff, so some kind of ground to aircraft power transfer is something you might actually consider for the very start of a flight. Maybe not a cable, but possibly an electric catapult, or supercapacitor "drop tanks".
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Physically flying a plane from A to B is the first step. People have been doing that for years.
Then there is the question of margins can it fly from A to B with enough redundancy and energy reserves to satisfy the safety authorities for commerical flights?
Then there is the question of payload, can it fly from A to B while carrying the required payload?
Then there is the question of speed, can it meet the time requirements?
Then there is the question of weather, can it fly from A to B in most weather conditions or only on a still dry clear day?
Then there is the question of if it can do all of the above at the same time?
Only when it can actually do the job does it make sense to consider whether it is cost-effective or not.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
What could possibly go wrong with widespread deployment of that?
The US has around 1.1 - 1.3 fatal accidents per 100K miles for general aviation. For comparison, motor vehicles have about 1.2 deaths per MILLION miles.
General aviation includes larger planes like bizjets, basically everything except airliners & freightliners, so you can be sure the accident rates is much higher for tiny planes, e.g. several tens of thousands of miles per death. Even if automated control reduced the accident rate some, that's still crazy high.
I think I'll just stick to cliff diving.
I'd up this as 'Funny' if I had anymod points ;-)
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
Drop them mid air as they are used. I mean if the battery prices are tumbling...
You can tell.
On a flight of less than 500 km, a quarter of the energy is used in the takeoff
Do you have a citation for this factoid?
The best I can find by Googling is that the 25% figure is true for "short" flights, where "short" is undefined, thus rendering the statement stupid and meaningless. For a REALLY short flight, 100% of the fuel is used for takeoff.
Lithium is one of the lightest elements. Better cell packaging designed for aviation should go a long way in addressing weight and safety issues.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Norway isn't big enough to have their own commercial aircraft industry.
Where will they fly in/out of? Those are the regulations they will live by.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Never mind that battery powered vehicles aren't green. The mining process for lithium is incredibly carbon intense, then there's the toxic waste, and the fact that it isn't economical to recycle the batteries. Welcome to the world of snake oil.
Large long distance aircraft is where electric airplanes will shine. Jet airplanes cannot fly over a 100,000 feet easily because there isn't enough air for the engines. Electric aircraft don't have that limitation and the greatly reduced wind drag is a gigantic win for speed and efficiency.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Who are you trying to convince?
People that know are laughing at your dumb ass.
People that don't?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
New battery and motor technology enables things that weren't practical then. It's worth another look.
>- ZERO practical advantage
One major advantage is that electric aircraft can fly at far higher altitudes where jet engines don't work and where the wind drag is greatly reduced.
Greed is the root of all evil.
LI-Ion/LI Polymer batteries don't have quite the power/weight of conventional fuel,
Not by a long shot. Jet fuel is around 42.8 MJ/kg, and LiPo batteries are around 1.8 MJ/kg. So you need around 24 kg of LiPo batteries to equal the energy in a kilogram of jet fuel. LiIon is even worse, with 0.875 MJ/kg, meaning you need about 50 kg of LiIon to equal a kg of jet fuel.
Petroleum products are insanely energy-dense things, and they allow for extremely quick recovery of all that energy. Most nuclear, and things like diesel, allow for more energy (orders of magnitude in terms of nuclear) density per kg but it is a lot harder to extract the energy quickly - like needed when climbing.
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It also means it will work for a "commuter" plane with a few - maybe as many as a dozen - passengers. Airports right now are not constrained by the size of the planes coming in, they are constrained by the number of planes coming in. Take a single small jet (like an Embraer 175 with 75 passengers) and break it up into 6 or 7 flights. You now have to have 6 to 7 times the gate capacity, service capacity, etc. Not at all feasible.
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How about direct power transfer by induction through the runway?
If they're contemplating commercial flights in seven years, they must believe the answer to all these questions is "yes" -- for the routes they have in mind.
For example Oslo and Bergen are the largest cities in Norway. Because of the rugged topography it takes (according to Google) seven hours to drive or take the train between them, even though they are only 160 nautical miles apart. That's like flying from LA to Fresno, except the road distance for that trip is only half of Oslo-Bergen.
I think they can probably predict with reasonable confidence whether in ten years they have the technical capacity to fly passengers and personal items between Oslo and Bergen or Oslo and Trondheim, taking the normal safety margins into account. But it's never, ever safe to make predictions about prices that far in the future.
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Would have to be lead-acid batteries so we could have a Lead Zeppelin.
I seem to remembver reading it in WorldWatch Institute related to a sub-500 km flight. That's 270 nautical miles, which exceeds the flight distance between any of Norways three largest cities.
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Norway, maybe Alaska, Africa, Australia, or other regions where there are sometimes relatively short distances "as the crow flies" but nothing much between departure and arrival points. Prop-driven aircraft are too slow for long distances and it's hard to see how fast ground transportation in denser areas won't be preferable for a long time. So only good for medium-to-short distances over sparsely-populated areas or those with major geological barriers.
"Both Falk-Petersen and Solvik-Olsen said they had been on strict diets before the flight."
Aye, no issues there.....
Solar Zeppelins! They've got the surface area for a bit of that anyway. (Assuming a breakthrough in cell weight)
Battery recharge rate is a problem too.
Cars spend most of their time at a small fraction of their max power in flat areas, and benefit from regenerative braking in hilly areas. They often spend long times parked.
None of that is true for a commercial aircraft. The article is just virtue signaling. The actual makers of the aircraft seem to be developing a tech demonstrator for private aircraft, which is a different proposition. It looks like they've got a working really light aircraft that has significant operational limitations. That'll set them up for taking advantage of new battery tech as it arrives, but it's not a pathway leading to any sort of useful commercial aircraft unless you're wanting to really torture the definition of useful. (probably two orders of magnitude improvement are needed - mobile devices and increasingly electric cars will gradually pay for improvements, though you can't predict breakthroughs)
If the goal is to reduce consumption of fossil fuel, then this would apply to petroleum-fueled aircraft as well. Catapult them into the air electrically and save a lot of liquid fuel.
Catapult launch!
I bet that figure actually includes climbing to cruise altitude. Microwave power beaming would also be a death ray...
Um, Norway. That's what the article said.
An electric airplane has very little spare energy to run A/C or heating, and very little payload to allow installation of decent insulation. So of your mooted markets none really work.
It's a prototype, and not the only one. Siemens is developing one (which suffered an unfortunately fatal accident a week or two ago).
Obviously there will need to be improvements in battery technology, just like there were for cars.
My back of the envelop calculations say that you need somewhere around two 100x increase in battery energy density to replace dead-dino engines. Further back of envelope says that we need around another 300 years or so of continuous battery improvements at the current rate of improvements to reach that 100x increase in density.
I don't think these engineers thought this through - it doesn't even work as proof of concept because we already know that batteries can provide enough energy to float a plane in the sky. They just do it for a 100th of the time,is all.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Let's look at an actual, working aircraft.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Range of 400km from a 56kWh battery. 2 passengers. Scale up, a small passenger aircraft with 1MWh battery seems quite reasonable. At a modest 300W/kg That's about 3,300kg, not at all excessive for a small passenger aircraft.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Solar might have some problems at Tromso (69N) in Winter as the sun doesn't rise above the horizon around the Winter Solstice. In fact it probably won't work all that well anywhere in Norway in December. Maybe they can ask the passengers to pedal.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Mag-rail launch system! :D
Here is a link to WorldWatch. They only say "short" flight. They later mention "500 km" but don't say if that is what "short" means. They use other weasel words: "as much as" 25%.
Googling around to other sites that mention "25%", it seems they are actually talking about the take-off AND CLIMB to full altitude. I certainly believe that could account for 25% of a short flight's fuel consumption, since it can also account for 25% of the distance covered.
"Norway is not part of the EU"
True, but Norway as it turns out currently uses the EU aircraft safety certification agency (EASA) to certify aircraft.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Especially when magnesium batteries are further along in their development, smaller e-planes will be most feasable. email keultjeshatgamail for details or contact me if you wish to post these details on slashdot.
<VOICE type="Emily Litella">
Oh, that's very different. Never mind!
</VOICE>
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Actually nuclear energy is pretty easy to extract, so easy that it tends to happen all at once with a big boom. The nuclear reactor is mainly there to slow it down enough to be useful.
Amongst commonly used Li-ion battery chemistries, lithium cobalt oxide has the highest energy density. Cobalt is the next-door neighbor to iron in the periodic table. In the future, we may see lithium sulfur batteries, which are better. But it's still nowhere near hydrocarbons, which consists of some of the lightest elements: O, C and H.
One kg of jet fuel contains 42.8 MJ of energy. To match that, you would need 23 kg of LiS. If a jet normally carries 5 tons of fuel, now it needs to carry 115 tons of batteries. And since a jet can't simply take off with so much extra weight, it must either replace what it was carrying - passengers and luggage - with batteries, or fly a route that's only 3% as long.
It's not even remotely practical. An airplane's wings and fuselage are made out of a combination of high strength-to-weight materials and clever geometry. Batteries have pretty much zero structural strength, and seriously restrict what sort of geometry you can use.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Well, it's generally frowned upon to NOT land with your all your passengers intact. Of course, that does eliminate the need to worry about frequent flyer miles...
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It may not be excessive but it's certainly not light, either ... and a 400km range is total shit. For that distance you're better off driving or taking the train. Especially since the speed of the plane apparently tops out slower than I can go on the highway.
Such a plane might be able to find some niche market somewhere but it's certainly not going to replace the aircraft in use today.
If they're contemplating commercial flights in 7 years, they're out of their minds. Norway isn't exactly known for it's sunny skies and temperate climates. These planes might be able to transport a few people with minimal luggage a short distance on a warm day ... but as soon as you add de-icing requirements into the mix you've now cut your range to half or less of the original distance.
It seriously makes no sense at all. Given the range and speed limitations of these aircraft they would be far better off just focusing on electric cars instead.
It's an even bigger issue for landing weight. Most aircraft can be much heavier on takeoff than on landing, which isn't an issue because they burn weight in flight. In emergency situations they can dump fuel in order to reduce weight. With batteries your takeoff and landing weight is the same, so now you have an even lower takeoff weigh than you normally would.
You forget a couple of things. First, while jet fuel is energy dense, jet engines are horribly inefficient compared to an electric propeller. Second, this is supposed to be the kind of an aircraft that used to have piston engines (relatively small, slow flying, low altitude) and as we know from cars, piston engines are replaceable with electric engines and even if it results in heavier cars, the bottom line is still sound.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
(Assuming a breakthrough in cell weight)
I think you might find that the cells are fine. The packaging sucks, though.
Ezekiel 23:20
Jet fuel is around 42.8 MJ/kg, and LiPo batteries are around 1.8 MJ/kg.
So in mechanical terms, it's about 17 MJ/kg anf 1.6 MJ/kg post-engine, respectively?
Ezekiel 23:20
To say nothing of the low wing loading, it won't be able to fly in any significant wind.
You start by saying the weight is a problem and then you complain about the low wing loading? You can't have it both ways, you know?
Also looks like enough room for a gas engine in the nose, isn't one of the points of electric engines that they're smaller and can give improved front visibility? I think this is a conversion, like a Tesla roadster 1.
Who would have thought... a small Slovenian company, rather than designing an entire plane upfront to see if electric is viable, retrofits a standard plane with an electric engine and proceeds to testing. It's almost like companies had budgets...
Personally, I'll be happy when I can skydive on electric power. This is technically and economically feasible with current tech: http://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/4/3/45
IIRC Pipistrel is working on an electric 4 seater and 8 seater. The latter would be very interesting to small skydiving clubs.
The 2 seater is ideal for flight training.
Use an autorotating propeller for slowing down the fall and charging the battery somewhat. Power the propeller for the last bit to make a soft landing in a predetermined place.
Not simple, but maybe not impossible either.
But jet engines are not very efficient (I don't have the numbers, but far below 50%), while brushless electric motors are 85-95% efficient, driver electronics included. Anyone not taking this into consideration can be dismissed.
Sure, but it's a working prototype that actually flies and covers those kinds of distances. As a proof of concept it shows that the battery to range ratio isn't so far out that we will need "100x" improvements in battery life.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Why isn't it a pathway? I seem to recall reading that the Wright Brothers started with a very small plane...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
it is happening https://electrek.co/2018/03/05...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
On top of that, the electric motor should allow the aircraft to take off more quickly, climb faster and be more efficient in ways (air intakes, drag etc.) that offset against its added weight. And of course the aircraft can be charged from renewable sources and has less mechanical parts so the operating costs should be lower.
Your information is about 10 years out of date.
Aluminum alloy wheels on a conductive runway strip.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Power density won't improve much.
Yeah that's kind of my point. We have a pretty good idea what sort of power density is theoretically possible with the chemistries we are working with and the possible improvement simply isn't big enough. There could always be some sort of unexpected breakthrough but we can't depend on that. I think we'll see some progress and it wouldn't shock me to see electrification of some aspects of commercial aircraft but I don't think we are going to see a commercially viable electric aircraft with significant cargo capacity any time soon. The physics is well understood and pretty inflexible.
So "just" a 10:1 ratio in energy density?
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You're absolutely right and I stand corrected. I ran the numbers and its silly.
A rough calculation from different direction is that a modern airliner's engines produce something like 200 megawatts of power, You would need the equivalent of several thousand Tesla car battery packs to fly a few hours.
Even if you make that work, there would be no room for payload and the cost would be prohibitive.
Greed is the root of all evil.
For a little hobby plane, sure. But it doesn't scale the way you think it does, and you're missing a lot of stuff that would have to be added to larger aircraft. Anti-icing systems alone would require a massive improvement in battery tech, or a massive increase in weight to supply the needed energy. Add in presurization, climate control, and radar, and you're pretty much back at your "100x improvement" starting point.
Or I guess you can ditch all that, and only fly on sunny days for short distance at under 10,000 feet altitude. Which would make them useless for 99%+ of the routes currently being flown.
personally I think it's a shame we're not seeing more electric ships.
You need megawatts, as another poster pointed out. For large cargo ships, they should be nuclear based.
Life is not for the lazy.
It is my opinion that developing solar conversion of carbon dioxide to a hydrocarbon as is being done today with breakthrough costs for sure dropping as this becomes more efficient, the use of organic fuels to power aircraft will be carbon neutral and batteries therefore will not be needed at all. Of course multiple methodologies are always a safe bet but I would put my money into carbon capture and conversion. This technology is utterly necessary for the survival of our species and in the meantime the Luddites that have prevented the building of nuclear power plants especially thorium based safe reactors are our enemies for survival. We need a multifaceted approach to solar energy capture and as well geothermal and yes, nuclear as we transition from using oil but even with oil if the carbon released is converted albeit at high costs than petroleum, we will be able to produce a safer environment. In the US unfortunately there is an administration of morons with ignorance and a short term mindset. They are in essence the clear and present danger to the planet. I hope Americans see this and vote these cavemen out next time around.
Aluminium-air is at ~5 MJ/kg or so.
Ezekiel 23:20
In Trumpian America, we build coal-powered planes.
#MAGA
It's a great one-time-use battery. You have to completely rebuild the battery when it's discharged. Zinc air is also very high, but single use (typically seen in completely-in-canal hearing aids). Aluminum air has very good density, but really isn't suitable because of the rebuild requirement. So you'd have to remove the entire battery pack, and put a new one in, at each "refueling". And you're still well below jet fuel. It's REALLY HARD to find something that contains as much easily-released energy in such a small mass/volume as petroleum fuels.
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I know it is a primary cell. I think it just shows that perhaps not all is lost for secondary cells regarding the potential to improve. Of course you'll never reach jet fuel levels but I think the issue is practicality. For many applications, even the worse weight of batteries could be offset by the benefits of having fewer mechanical stuff to maintain and repair. Perhaps just not in airplanes... Unless something like powering airplanes from the orbit becomes feasible. Or even from the ground on large landmasses.
Ezekiel 23:20
Yeah, it's going to take a major, MAJOR breakthrough in battery storage (nearly a magnitude increase over LiPo) to become viable. Otherwise you can use batteries for small commuters, but that exacerbates the issue with not enough capacity at airports. Bump up the number of flights by even a factor of 2 - let alone 5 or 10 - and essentially all airports are gridlocked. We need to figure out how to fully replace jet fuel in terms of energy per kW and liter, and then electric planes become viable for mass transit use.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!