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Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

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Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#141

Post by kwhitefoot »

kzrdude wrote: post #10

Norway is in an ideal position; a surplus from oil money and excessive access to hydro power. I would hope they can use their current oil prosperity to prepare for a hydro (and other green energy) powered future, in all kinds of new places. After I typed that I realized that the whole world could be said to be in oil prosperity still, so the same applies to us all: with less evenly distributed oil prosperity, and not…

> excessive access to hydro power.

Not at current levels of consumption and production.

We are about 98% hydro now and it's probably going down as more people use more energy.

But you are still correct, Norway is the ideal country to try this and it is an explicit aim of the government now to have all short haul flights electric by 2050. We already have electric ferries on the fjords, electric buses, and, of course, a lot of electric cars (more than 100 thousand electric cars in Norway now).

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#142

Post by kwhitefoot »

rlkf wrote: post #106
ubernostrum wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be interested in the Norwegian TV series "Occcupied": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okkupert The premise is that Norway develops thorium reactor technology and ceases all fossil-fuel production. And then is clandestinely and later openly invaded by Russia, with the blessing of other countries, to seize oil and gas production facilities and forcibly re-open them.

Off-topic, but still: There are several frightening realistic aspects with that series, but the key premise - that the U.K. would willingly allow Russia to take control over one of its energy sources - is so utterly bonkers that it spoils the rest.

> so utterly bonkers

You mean more bonkers than letting EDF and the Chinese do it?

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#143

Post by bewo001 »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #94
lumberjack wrote: post #48

It would make infinitely more sense to look into carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels that could be used in conventional turbofans. Some more material on this topic: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/26910/could-an-...

Another SE link of interest, how much electrical power needed to run a 747 engine: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/19569/how-many-... The consensus is ~90 MW. That's a lot of energy, electric air travel is certainly possible, but it will likely come at a severe cost to speed and endurance. If we are going to travel slowly would personally prefer autonomous airships.

When I last looked into this, I googled electric motors in the +30MW range and found that some gas pipelines use electric turbines of that power. These are massive, stationary engines which made me wonder if the weight of the motors might be an equally serious problem as the weight of the energy storage. Carbon neutral jet fuel really seems to be the simpler alternative.

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#144

Post by poulsbohemian »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #129
kzrdude wrote: post #10

Norway is in an ideal position; a surplus from oil money and excessive access to hydro power. I would hope they can use their current oil prosperity to prepare for a hydro (and other green energy) powered future, in all kinds of new places. After I typed that I realized that the whole world could be said to be in oil prosperity still, so the same applies to us all: with less evenly distributed oil prosperity, and not…

Washington state gets 90 or so percent of its electricity from hydro. It isn’t that unusual, there are already a few hydro states in the world besides Norway, and one or two thermal states as well.

Hello Sean -

It wouldn't surprise me if we were at 90% at one point, but at least according to this: https://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/habitat/planning/energy/hyd..., we're presently only at 75%. Your point still stands - we have a lot of hydro here, and an increasing amount of wind power, especially in Eastern Washington. I went to look into it because I'm always surprised how much of my own (Pacific Power) bill is from coal / non-renewable sources, given that I live within an hour drive to the Columbia and am surrounded by wind farms. I'm told at one point in history (1970s?) Grant county in WA and Umatilla county in Oregon had the cheapest power in the country and were on some kind of 99-year price freeze, all from hydro, but I don't know the specifics.

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#145

Post by seanmcdirmid »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #144
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington state gets 90 or so percent of its electricity from hydro. It isn’t that unusual, there are already a few hydro states in the world besides Norway, and one or two thermal states as well.

Hello Sean - It wouldn't surprise me if we were at 90% at one point, but at least according to this: https://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/habitat/planning/energy/hyd... , we're presently only at 75%. Your point still stands - we have a lot of hydro here, and an increasing amount of wind power, especially in Eastern Washington. I went to look into it because I'm always surprised how much of my own (Pacific Power) bill is…

It was great until the California energy crisis in the early 00s, then everything started breaking down as the grid acts to equalize pricing in the entire region. Still cheaper than California, not as cheap as it used to be :p.

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#146

Post by kwoff »

I'm not sure how on-topic this is, but this story/topic reminds me of the latest from Isaac Arthur called "Portable Power": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffXqcf48D9Q That's not about electric power per se, but maybe a nice context/background. If nothing else, in the first 2 minutes I learned something that I (who studied physics) hadn't even considered: that the electrical words "battery" and "charge" come from artillery terminology!

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#147

Post by ShorsHammer »

Hextinium wrote: post #139
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Megawatts is a power unit. To sustain 90MW for a 4hr flight you need a battery that can provide 360MWh of energy. Anyone care to do the numbers on how much a lithium ion battery would weigh to be able to deliver 360MWh, and remember if you want to use it more than once you can full charge no discharge it.

A standard lithium ion battery has between 100-265 Wh/kg if you need 360 thousand to 135 thousand kg of lithium ion batteries plus probably a few thousand for charging equipment. A a 747 has capacity for about 45k kg of fuel so a factor of 4 improvement is needed before that is comparable.

The energy density of most fossil fuels is still far beyond anything we've managed through incremental improvement on 1900's battery technology.

There's much more work to be done.

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#148

Post by Kimm0n0 »

vilmosi wrote: post #115
adventured wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US wind energy production has increased eight fold in 12 years. The US has greater wind energy production capacity per capita than Norway does for example. Hydro power is an impossible resource to perpetually manufacture more of. The US has heavily tapped out its potential in hydro. First it's difficult/undesirable to manufacture a new source of hydro once you reach saturation, and second it's arguably a terrible ide…

Wouldn't a country with vast access to hydro power be inclined to not invest in wind? And why cherry pick wind power anyway?

It is not cost-effective to build much wind power in Norway, because of excessive cheap hydro power. Statoil and Statkraft build them in UK, where the price and subsidies are more favourable.

Re: Airbus and Boeing are exploring the viability of electric planes

#149

Post by zeusk »

cm2187 wrote: post #113
zeusk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, my point being - there is no gain in electrifying that part and more risk in cases you mentioned.

Well yes, noise.

Hah, nope.

https://www.broward.org/Airport/Community/Documents/Stage3an...

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