"The opportunity to ride in an all-electric airplane, the first in the world, is a pretty big seller"

Uh, oh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan


David

Will believe it when I see it. Seems to be more of an ongoing April Fool's Joke than reality. If I have to eat my words, I prefer Ketchup vice mayonnaise....

That thread title had my sick mind going in a completely different direction for a while... I need to consult.

Anyway, that would be an interesting thing to see. I hope it works, although I suppose flight planning will have to be done a lot more carefully with only 1 hour worth of juice.

Completely ridiculous. How much of the Beaver's payload is used up carrying batteries? How is producing electricity with fossil fuels at a power plant with the inefficiencies of energy conversion, transmission, storage (batteries) and additional infrastructure more efficient or less polluting than an burning fuel in an ICE?

If we put everyone on the grid, has anyone come up with a practical plan to provide the electricity? As it is right now, 63% of electrical power in the U.S. is from fossil fuel powered power plants. Unless we go to nuclear, none of the alternatives to fossil fuel are viable.

Francoflier wrote:

That thread title had my sick mind going in a completely different direction for a while... I need to consult.

If it’s any consolation, you were not the only one

stratclub wrote:

(...)
If we put everyone on the grid, has anyone come up with a practical plan to provide the electricity? As it is right now, 63% of electrical power in the U.S. is from fossil fuel powered power plants. Unless we go to nuclear, none of the alternatives to fossil fuel are viable.

Dear stratclub,

I have to disagree on this point. The alternative energy sources of solar and wind have achieved a spectacular growth and simultaneously a spectacular cost reduction. Here in Central Europe (not the windiest nor the sunniest place around...), it is now possible to produce electricity for prices as low as 60USD/MWh. This is clearly competitive to coal and nuclear plants, in particular if we consider new built plants. The new nuclear plant in the UK (Hinkley Point) is calculating with about 140USD/MWh, for comparison.

In the US, there is plenty of great areas for wind and solar farms, so there is a great opportunity to reduce pollution.

Best regards,
Hendric

flyingturtle wrote:

"The opportunity to ride in an all-electric airplane, the first in the world, is a pretty big seller"

Uh, oh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan

Series Production (FF: 2003):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lange_Antares
https://www.lange-aviation.com/en/produ ... antrieb-e/

stratclub wrote:

Completely ridiculous. How much of the Beaver's payload is used up carrying batteries? How is producing electricity with fossil fuels at a power plant with the inefficiencies of energy conversion, transmission, storage (batteries) and additional infrastructure more efficient or less polluting than an burning fuel in an ICE?

If we put everyone on the grid, has anyone come up with a practical plan to provide the electricity? As it is right now, 63% of electrical power in the U.S. is from fossil fuel powered power plants. Unless we go to nuclear, none of the alternatives to fossil fuel are viable.

It’s just a matter of developing alternative energy sources

Solar, wind, biofuels and yes nuclear all need to be developed and expanded then
their true potential will pay off

WIederling wrote:

flyingturtle wrote:

"The opportunity to ride in an all-electric airplane, the first in the world, is a pretty big seller"

Uh, oh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan

Series Production (FF: 2003):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lange_Antares
https://www.lange-aviation.com/en/produ ... antrieb-e/

Ah, thanks!

(I've seen the Airbus E-Fan fly in Berlin a few years ago.)

thepinkmachine wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

That thread title had my sick mind going in a completely different direction for a while... I need to consult.

If it’s any consolation, you were not the only one

It reminded me of an act I saw at a strip club once, while bird dogging in Northern Ontario many many years ago. Some things one can never un-see.

flyingturtle wrote:

WIederling wrote:

flyingturtle wrote:

"The opportunity to ride in an all-electric airplane, the first in the world, is a pretty big seller"

Uh, oh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan

Series Production (FF: 2003):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lange_Antares
https://www.lange-aviation.com/en/produ ... antrieb-e/

Lange Aviation is interesting as it uses the same cells that Airbus uses in its
A380 emergency door integral activation/opening system.
The cells are the precursor type to those now used in the A350 LiIon batteries.

MY argument at the time why Boeing botching the 787 Batteries design in such a way
was not inexperience but feckless and unnecessary.

stratclub wrote:

Completely ridiculous. How much of the Beaver's payload is used up carrying batteries? How is producing electricity with fossil fuels at a power plant with the inefficiencies of energy conversion, transmission, storage (batteries) and additional infrastructure more efficient or less polluting than an burning fuel in an ICE?

If we put everyone on the grid, has anyone come up with a practical plan to provide the electricity? As it is right now, 63% of electrical power in the U.S. is from fossil fuel powered power plants. Unless we go to nuclear, none of the alternatives to fossil fuel are viable.

The costs associated with conversion, transmission, storage, etc. generally tend to be better for electric propulsion than ICE for a variety of reasons:

1. Power plants are more thermodynamically efficient than small distributed ICEs
2. It's cheaper to move power through high-tension lines than trucking fuel

One huge advantage of electric mentioned in the article was parts count and maintenance, which makes the e-planes cheaper, more reliable, and quieter.

Regarding your point about where the electricity comes from and making it better, BC is 94% renewable for electric, and the US is rapidly moving towards a better energy blend with wind power cheaper than coal. In fact, electric vehicles are a great mix for wind power, as they can charge when there's a surplus of wind energy to dampen peaks and troughs. This means that the "long tail pipe" argument will fade as energy production becomes cleaner. To your point, I think we'll have to look at nuclear for some of this, there's nobody saying that further investment is not needed.

I'm glad that this is being worked on for short haul. Long haul will be trickier due to energy density problems with batteries.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/indu ... ive-energy
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... nergy-maps

Perhaps direct-hydrocarbon or metal-air fuel cells are more suitable for larger or longer ranged aircraft.

This needs to be done to an old Dash 7.

Being a small four engine aircraft it is ideal for a 500nm range electric aircraft using todays tech

stratclub wrote:

Completely ridiculous. How much of the Beaver's payload is used up carrying batteries? How is producing electricity with fossil fuels at a power plant with the inefficiencies of energy conversion, transmission, storage (batteries) and additional infrastructure more efficient or less polluting than an burning fuel in an ICE?

If we put everyone on the grid, has anyone come up with a practical plan to provide the electricity? As it is right now, 63% of electrical power in the U.S. is from fossil fuel powered power plants. Unless we go to nuclear, none of the alternatives to fossil fuel are viable.

Large power plants are quite efficient at extracting energy from fossil fuels. Much more so than small combustion engines. There are losses associated with transport and storage, but electric motors are so efficient at transforming electricity into movement that the whole chain is still more efficient than the small ICE solution, especially if you include the losses associated with transporting the fuel in both cases.

This means that if you decided to power everything on Earth that moves with electric motors tomorrow and decided to power it all with fossil fuel fired power plants, you'd be burning less fuel than today.

And, of course, as said above, electricity can come from multiple sources, and the answer in the future will likely lie in the diversification of these sources, along with the multiplication of smaller production sources.