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First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

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Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#131

Post by Dylan16807 »

variaga wrote: post #118
mcsb4 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the potential energy requirement to lift up a certain amount of weight, and dividing by energy density and volume of current battery tech does not lead to a working jet any time soon. E=mgh E=(1kg * 9.81m/s^2 * 10.000m) / 3600s = 27.25Wh. Tesla currently is at around 260Wh/kg thus roughly ten times the amount of potential energy needed to get to 10.000m altitude. I'd assume that till 2030 we get to ~500Wh/kg by imp…

>Tesla currently is at around 260Wh/kg thus roughly ten times the amount of potential energy needed to get to 10.000m altitude. That's the energy - assuming 100% efficient conversion of battery power to altitude - to lift _only_ the battery to altitude (and then immediately fall back down). Actual engines are nowhere near that efficient and you'll presumably want to lift the rest of the airplane too. Then you have to…

> Batteries need a ~40x improvement in their specific energy density to make sense as an energy source for aircraft that depend on thrust for lift.

I don't know how I can say "no" strongly enough.

If you only need 500km of range, it does not matter a single bit that jet fuel would increase your range from 1000km to 5000km. (Or 100km/180km/5000km respectively, if you want to talk about more contemporary batteries.)

Two things matter. Is the range good enough? How much does it cost? Jet fuel should not even be considered when answering the first question.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#132

Post by 0xffff2 »

fragmede wrote: post #117
0xffff2 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really just comes down to energy density and the fact that batteries weigh just as much when you land as when you takeoff, whereas you burn off most of your fuel over the course of a jet-powered flight. Those two things together mean that as you increase the size of your aircraft, batteries take up a bigger percentage of your available weight budget. It's pretty much a smooth curve, with the breakeven point depend…

Pedantically, the batteries do weigh less when depleted. Not enough to make any sort of difference, but E=MC^2. We're talking micrograms for a battery the size used here. Doesn't invalidate the point that electric airplanes can't work effectively with current lithium-poly battery technology though.

You're right, that's so pedantic it's really not worth mentioning.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#133

Post by sansnomme »

mrpopo wrote: post #123
eloff wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can accomplish the same by producing the jet fuel using electricity. Realistically this will likely involve methane (natural gas) extracted from the ground and water, but it could one day be carbon neutral using captured carbon. The trick is to use clean energy like nuclear of renewables. There was an article on HN just recently about doing that with portable nuclear generators like those used on ships, this could…

> All we need to do is make it carbon neutral and our existing aviation tech won't even need to change. Except making it carbon neutral will require enormous amounts of energy, shift the price up, and make aviation available only to the richest among us. Aviation industry may keep existing, but will need to scale down.

If you don't keep the scale, it would never get cheaper. Airlines struggle with profitability as-is, no point imposing additional undue burden.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#135

Post by nradov »

nine_k wrote: post #126
mrpopo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All we need to do is make it carbon neutral and our existing aviation tech won't even need to change. Except making it carbon neutral will require enormous amounts of energy, shift the price up, and make aviation available only to the richest among us. Aviation industry may keep existing, but will need to scale down.

If the fuel is synthetic anyway, uh can be made better than kerosene. Also, we have a huge amount of free nuclear energy, daily delivered from Sun, about 1 kW / m². It is nit stable enough for electric baseload, but, depending on the process, may be adequate for fuel synthesis. North of Sahara may become a primary source of jet fuel, given its vast amounts of insolation, cheapness of the land, and access to seawater.…

Better than kerosene how? You're not going to get higher energy density without increasing safety risks.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#136

Post by tim333 »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #95
Robotbeat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. It's easier to scale up. You get more efficient. Scaling up an electric motor is not particularly hard. Some of the largest machines in existence are electric. Power is not a challenge for electric. In fact, this electrified seaplane has much more power (560kW) than the original radial piston engine one (336kW), and even more than the turboprop conversion (510kW). A LOT of very confident people on t…

I'm not saying it's impossible to make a 5, 10, 15 seater all-electric work. I'm saying a 100 passenger all-electric will never fly without a revolution in battery tech. You say "just increase mass of the vehicle which is battery". If you read about this airplane you find that since they are using batteries with an appropriate safety rating for aviation, they've used all the space and mass already: "this eBeaver isn’…

>I'm saying a 100 passenger all-electric will never fly without a revolution in battery tech.

I don't think you're right from an engineering point of view. Just multiply the aircraft size and battery number by some amount. For example:

>In September 2017, U.K. budget carrier EasyJet announced it was developing with Wright Electric an electric 180-seater aircraft to be developed by 2027. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/09/easyjet-and-wright-ele...

Though all battery aircraft whether micro drones or A380 size will have a limited time they can stay up. Electrics currently seem limited to an hour or so whereas jets can do 16 hours now.

There seems quite a lot of potential on short routes <300 miles though using present batteries. (eg. London Paris or LA San Diego).

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#137

Post by Gibbon1 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #131
variaga wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tesla currently is at around 260Wh/kg thus roughly ten times the amount of potential energy needed to get to 10.000m altitude. That's the energy - assuming 100% efficient conversion of battery power to altitude - to lift _only_ the battery to altitude (and then immediately fall back down). Actual engines are nowhere near that efficient and you'll presumably want to lift the rest of the airplane too. Then you have to…

> Batteries need a ~40x improvement in their specific energy density to make sense as an energy source for aircraft that depend on thrust for lift. I don't know how I can say "no" strongly enough. If you only need 500km of range, it does not matter a single bit that jet fuel would increase your range from 1000km to 5000km. (Or 100km/180km/5000km respectively, if you want to talk about more contemporary batteries.) Tw…

A good way to think of this is as a venn diagram. If an electric plane has 1000km of range then it overlaps with jet aircraft. And probably also cars, buses, and trains. I think of friends that live in the middle of Nebraska. If you want to take a plane first you drive three hours to Omaha. If electric aircraft were cheap enough perhaps they would come out ahead flying to Denver instead.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#138

Post by semi-extrinsic »

beefield wrote: post #87
deepspace wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: https://www.skiesmag.com/news/harbour-air-makes-history-with... From the article: > What certainly hasn’t been done before is to fill a Beaver’s cabin with lithium-ion batteries, taking the plane to its gross weight. As a technology demonstrator, this eBeaver isn’t carrying passengers — there isn’t room — and will only have a 15-minute endurance with a 25-minute reserve.

Sorry, you seem to be quoting a bit selectively. From the same article: > These are batteries that NASA is using, but they’re not batteries that we’d use if we were going to try and make it economical to fly today, because they’re very low in watt-hours per kilogram

On the other hand, it's not like NASA was trying to get the lowest energy density possible. They were trying to get a li-ion battery pack with acceptable safety margin. And for this I understand one of the biggest factors is to have sufficient space between cells that a thermal runaway in one cell cannot spread.

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#139

Post by konspence »

jjoonathan wrote: post #103
eloff wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can accomplish the same by producing the jet fuel using electricity. Realistically this will likely involve methane (natural gas) extracted from the ground and water, but it could one day be carbon neutral using captured carbon. The trick is to use clean energy like nuclear of renewables. There was an article on HN just recently about doing that with portable nuclear generators like those used on ships, this could…

Or biofuel. Plants are good at capturing atmospheric CO2 and the resulting biomass can be turned into fuel using well established technology. If it's nearly suitable for cars I suspect it's even more nearly suitable for aviation on account of the lower volumes and higher margins.

Already underway[1]. It's completely viable, it just needs investment and commitment.

[1]: https://www.alaskaair.com/content/about-us/sustainability-re...

Re: First all-electric seaplane takes flight in B.C.

#140

Post by ska »

pedalpete wrote: post #102
ska wrote: post #64

Some perhaps useful context: Harbour air operates the worlds largest sea plane service, the majority of it between Vancouver (city) and Vancouver Island (mostly Victoria). They are a perfect test bed for this, as the in air time is about 15-20 min for most routes. (less 100km/60m ). So while electric is a long way from long haul domestic routes, let alone international, I could see it taking over specific services li…

I wouldn't count out international so quickly. Once they've got Victoria sorted, it would be great to see them extend down to Everett, Washington to link up Seattle. It's 68 miles from Vancouver to Victoria, 98 Miles Vancouver to Everett. Theoretically, they could fly out of White Rock to reduce that distance as well.

Yes I didn’t mean to exclude short haul international.
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