Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
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Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#2I would be curious whether electric planes significantly reduce the carbon footprint of flying. My intuition is that you wouldn't be dumping CO2 and H2O (both fairly potent greenhouse gases) directly into the upper atmosphere, so it would be a huge win, but I am neither a climate scientist nor an aerospace engineer, so maybe I'm missing something.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#3So basically, once we get technology that doesn't exist yet, we may get vehicles that take advantage of that technology.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#4I would be curious whether electric planes significantly reduce the carbon footprint of flying. My intuition is that you wouldn't be dumping CO2 and H2O (both fairly potent greenhouse gases) directly into the upper atmosphere, so it would be a huge win, but I am neither a climate scientist nor an aerospace engineer, so maybe I'm missing something.
Like electric cars, they have that nice abstraction layer where you don't _have_ to depend on fossil fuels. Just provide solar charging!
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#5Li ion batteries still have a LONG way to go in energy density compared to Jet A kerosene.
Jet A, about 43 MJ/kg. Lithium ion, <1 MJ/kg.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#6Li ion batteries still have a LONG way to go in energy density compared to Jet A kerosene. Jet A, about 43 MJ/kg. Lithium ion, <1 MJ/kg.
Plus, you shed weight as you burn the former.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#7Li ion batteries still have a LONG way to go in energy density compared to Jet A kerosene. Jet A, about 43 MJ/kg. Lithium ion, <1 MJ/kg.
Plus, you shed weight as you burn the former.
True, but you also shed a lot of weight by ditching the large jet engines, and you can distribute it more efficiently as well.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#8I would be curious whether electric planes significantly reduce the carbon footprint of flying. My intuition is that you wouldn't be dumping CO2 and H2O (both fairly potent greenhouse gases) directly into the upper atmosphere, so it would be a huge win, but I am neither a climate scientist nor an aerospace engineer, so maybe I'm missing something.
Like electric cars, they have that nice abstraction layer where you don't _have_ to depend on fossil fuels. Just provide solar charging!
And where some of your footprint is fossil-based, industrial-scale scrubbers are a lot easier to install on the ground than loft into the air.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like electric cars, they have that nice abstraction layer where you don't _have_ to depend on fossil fuels. Just provide solar charging!
And where some of your footprint is fossil-based, industrial-scale scrubbers are a lot easier to install on the ground than loft into the air.
Or generate your fuel at each airport (algae), convert to biodiesel, and then dump into your tanks as usual.
Batteries may rule on the ground now, but we're a long way off from liquid fuel getting tossed aside in the sky.
Re: Electrifying flight: very different aircraft may end up taking to the sky
#10Li ion batteries still have a LONG way to go in energy density compared to Jet A kerosene. Jet A, about 43 MJ/kg. Lithium ion, <1 MJ/kg.
Yeah, battery technology really needs to improve. In fact, there needs to be some revolutionary discovery in order for electric planes (and a lot of other awesome things) to be feasible...