Avinor’s electric plane [image credit: inhabitat.com]
More ‘net zero’ tomfoolery. Batteries are heavy and unlike fuel don’t allow the plane to lose weight during flight, meaning harder landings or lower carrying capacity. Meanwhile biofuel still emits carbon dioxide, which is supposed to be what the climate obsession is about.
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Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has today announced a dual boost to the UK’s nascent low carbon aviation sector, confirming the formation of a new ‘Jet Zero Council’ and the award of fresh funding for green fuel specialist Velocsys, reports BusinessGreen.
Shapps used his appearance at the daily coronavirus press conference to announce the moves, which he said would support the government’s vision of a “greener transport future”.
Building on the recent confirmation the government is to invest £2bn in new active transport infrastructure, Shapps said the challenge was “to make transport – currently our biggest emitter of greenhouse gases – part of the solution, not the problem”.
He added that decarbonisation was particularly difficult for an aviation industry that has faced an “impossible few months” as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
“Yet, despite the obvious challenges, there’s a real determination within the industry to have a greener restart,” Shapps said. “So we’re bringing together leaders from aviation, environmental groups and government to form the Jet Zero Council. This group will be charged with making net zero emissions possible for future flights.”
He added that the government’s goal was to demonstrate it was possible to undertake flight across the Atlantic, without harming the environment, “within a generation”.
. . . [skip to closing paragraphs] . . .
A raft of airlines and airports have announced net zero emissions targets in recent years, while at the same time aerospace companies have ramped up investment in new clean technologies.
However, there is considerable debate over how feasible it is to decarbonise aviation, especially for long haul flights.
Successful test flights have demonstrated that small planes can operate with batteries and electric motors, but it remains a huge technical leap to deliver low emission jet aircraft.
Engineers are optimistic hydrogen fuel cells and electric motors could one day combine with conventional jet engines to deliver low emission hybrid planes, while biofuels also offer a route to curbing aviation emissions.
But experts have warned that biofuels are currently considerably more expensive than conventional jet fuel and are not yet available at scale.
As such, airlines are stepping up investment in nature-based carbon offset programmes – an approach that remains controversial with many environmental campaigners.
Full report here.
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Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it! and commented:
Biofuels for aircraft require inordinately huge areas of land to fuel even relatively short flights. Until these fuels can be produced in factories with accelerated bio-technology they are just not a viable option.
There could be a niche market for very short haul, lightweight flights using batteries etc.; but not viable scaled up to commercial levels.
@cognog2: Haven’t you noticed? EVERYTHING is possible nowadays – from what Microsoft and the MSM politoco elites Gov etc “Make your Dreams come alive” – Just don’t DO IT in my Dreams ( Nightmares actually ) – those stupid people. When are they EVER going to learn about the REAL WORLD.
In the real world, the latest development in electric planes is next to useless:-
‘The e-Caravan — built with “2019 batteries,” according to Ganzarski — could carry four to five passengers a range of just one hundred miles. By the time MagniX receives FAA certification for its electric propulsion system, which the company expects by the end of 2021, he believes the aircraft will be able to carry “a full load” that distance.’
Small lightweight personal electric planes for 1 or 2 people might just about be able to compete with a car for transport, but as soon as you get into commercially viable passenger and cargo carrying – no chance.
E-planes may be trickier to control…
Oops. Hope everyone got out safely.
“He believes the aircraft will be able to carry “a full load” that distance”
Wow! – But considering the standard Caravan carries up to 13 people, or could carry “four to five passengers” for over 1,000 nautical miles, that sort of performance deficit is hardly anything to get excited about…
TB – yes, both pilot and single passenger walked away.
‘nascent low carbon aviation sector’
Nah. It hasn’t been born yet.
‘award of fresh funding for green fuel specialist Velocsys’
But Velocsys will be happy to take your money.
Tourist and certainly the military require speed. Electric motors will only allow propeller planes. They can not reach the speeds of modern jets of around 850 km/hr. In my younger days prop-jets where the new and faster planes the Electra I think managed about 350mph or nearly 600 km/hr but it needed fuel injection to drive the turbines. Electric motors work for drones but have only a limited range with very limited carrying capacity. In the long term it maybe be possible for a nuclear reactor to provide heat in a Brayton cycle such as a turbo jet particularly in very large planes.
In my younger days magical thinking used to be attributed to taking LSD. Now all it takes apparently is a whiff of CO2!
Did they corner the market in pixie dust and unicorn farts, or are they relying on wishful thinking?
The whole idea is stupid, especially for commercial long haul flights, with the idea born from groupthink rather than any grounding in reality.
They got 2Billion to make this happen. For 2 billion I can make anything happen, while the money lasts. The greatest contribution the Watermelons have made to the people of the world is to waste vast amounts of money to prove these things don’t really work out.
All of these schemes are terribly wasteful of energy and material to get reduced effectiveness in their function. But as long as people are willing to put up money to waste, someone will be willing to do the work…pg
At what point does the money wasted on all these pipe dreams around the world become significant? Its the modern equivalent of Alchemy, trying to overturn fundamental physical laws solely by wishful thinking.
It is actually a case of basic maths. A certain amount of lift is required to get the aircraft off the ground. That lift is achieved by driving airfoils (and lifting bodies) through the air sufficiently fast. The lift rather obviously has to be sufficient to lift the aircraft off the ground and to a safe cruise height. Lift is obtained by the work of moving the air and that causes drag which is proportional to the lift. The propulsion therefore has to overcome the drag to the extent that the required lift is achieved. This is normally done using propulsion that accelerates air behind the aircraft and uses the reaction to drive the aircraft forward. The drag at the required lift and the efficiency of the engines in providing thrust allows calculation of the required energy. Sorry but these are relatively immutable.
Then the energy can come from fuel oils which have a high energy density or from batteries which have a very low energy density. So to provide enough energy for a flight the source should be as energy dense as possible. Batteries are low energy density and very heavy for the energy they produce and are the same weight discharged as charged, Aviation fuel has a high energy density and as it is burned the aircraft gets lighter.
There is currently no way that an electric aircraft (and there are many of them) will be more than toys until batteries have an energy density significantly higher than aviation fuel.
Slovenian electric aircraft becomes ‘world-first’ to receive certification by European Union Aviation
The two-seater aims to become the first step towards the commercial use of electric aircraft
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Not exactly transport for the masses – maybe for the missus.
“EASA type certified its engine as the ‘first electric engine‘.”
I’ll give Mavrokefalidis the benefit of the doubt because English might be a second language, such that he doesn’t know the difference between and ‘engine’ and a ‘motor.’
The problem at least in the USA is that the 14 Code of Federal Regulations part 135, aircraft flying for hire and reward, requires that aircraft flight plan to land with either 30 minutes endurance or 45 minutes endurance (dependent on destination weather conditions). This allows for a missed approach and retry followed by a diversion to a nearby diversion airport.
Electric aircraft generally takeoff with 30 minutes endurance. So as a prototype or as a private aircraft they are allowed to fly. As a commercial venture they currently do not meet sensible regulations on being able to safely land if the destination is not safe – say under a heavy thundershower.
Landing weight being the same as take-off weight is an obvious millstone round the neck of electric air travel.