Electric airliner ?

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Discussion

J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,287 posts

199 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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With all the talk of electric cars, what is the possibility of an electrically powered airliner ?

What happens when the fossil fuels run out, cars are sorted, but planes seem to rely on burning huge amounts of fossil fuel with no alternative.

Can electric motor be built to produce enough thrust ?

Even assuming it could, I am guessing it would need more than four double A batteries ?

Based on this is the future for plane fuel just some synthetic Avgas ?

I know the Americans and Russians had a go with nuclear powered ones in the 50s but dont see that being a popular option biggrin

marksx

5,052 posts

189 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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The amount of energy required to power an airliner is massive.

Without some revolutionary new technologies for storage and generation, I can't see it being feasible.


AlexC1981

4,904 posts

216 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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How about airships/blimps where the entire gasbag is made up of, or covered with curved, flexible solar panel? Never needs refuelling.

A larger version of this maybe.


IforB

9,840 posts

228 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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Not in my lifetime.


Krikkit

26,500 posts

180 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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AlexC1981 said:
How about airships/blimps where the entire gasbag is made up of, or covered with curved, flexible solar panel? Never needs refuelling.

A larger version of this maybe.
I wrote a paper on this at uni, it's a very do-able concept. One of the biggest costs is going to be filling the thing with Helium once it's a rare and expensive element again.


anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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A 747-400 has a fuel capacity of 215,745 litres!

Kerosene has a specific energy of 37.4 MJ/litre

So a fully fuelled 747 has pretty much 8100 GJs of energy on board!

You'd need about 74,000 Nissan leaf batteries to hold that much energy (and they would weigh over 14,000 tonnes!). That's going to make getting off the runway quite difficult....



(in reality, air transport will have to move to synthetic hydrocarbon or Biofuels when oil runs out)


J4CKO

Original Poster:

41,287 posts

199 months

Monday 28th September 2015
quotequote all
Max_Torque said:
A 747-400 has a fuel capacity of 215,745 litres!

Kerosene has a specific energy of 37.4 MJ/litre

So a fully fuelled 747 has pretty much 8100 GJs of energy on board!

You'd need about 74,000 Nissan leaf batteries to hold that much energy (and they would weigh over 14,000 tonnes!). That's going to make getting off the runway quite difficult....



(in reality, air transport will have to move to synthetic hydrocarbon or Biofuels when oil runs out)
Or a really, really long extension cord biggrin

hidetheelephants

23,778 posts

192 months

Monday 28th September 2015
quotequote all
Max_Torque said:
(in reality, air transport will have to move to synthetic hydrocarbon or Biofuels when oil runs out)
This, although whether fuel cells+leccy motors will ever supplant gas turbines is an interesting diversion.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Monday 28th September 23:36

eldar

21,614 posts

195 months

Monday 28th September 2015
quotequote all
Krikkit said:
I wrote a paper on this at uni, it's a very do-able concept. One of the biggest costs is going to be filling the thing with Helium once it's a rare and expensive element again.
Hydrogen, plenty of that. Has the odd drawback, though..



ninja-lewis

4,226 posts

189 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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Airbus are developing a concept electric airliner (aimed at around 2050).

http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/innovation-citiz...

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Monday 28th September 2015
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Airbus electric plane, which crossed the channel. I would be surprised if I didn't see an electric airliner in my lifetime.

Simpo Two

85,151 posts

264 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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Even if it was possible, what would the top speed of an airliner with electric ducted fans be?

DuraAce

4,240 posts

159 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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davepoth said:
Airbus electric plane, which crossed the channel. I would be surprised if I didn't see an electric airliner in my lifetime.
Flying commercial routes, carrying cargo and passengers (let's say 100+ for sake of discussion)? I really can't see that in our lifetime.

Yes there may well be flying electric planes of some size /sort but as a viable alternative to current jet airliners?

maffski

1,866 posts

158 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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hidetheelephants said:
Max_Torque said:
(in reality, air transport will have to move to synthetic hydrocarbon or Biofuels when oil runs out)
This, although whether fuel cells+leccy motors will ever supplant gas turbines is an interesting diversion.
The US Navy has been working on jet fuel from seawater. Not efficient but if you happen to be in the middle of an ocean with a nuclear powered aircraft carrier it has potential.

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/s...

tuffer

8,849 posts

266 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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We could build a huge network of very tall gantries and then have overhead power like they do on trains.......

JuniorD

8,616 posts

222 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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Back in the day they thought a coal fuelled ship would sink with the amount of coal required to cross the Atlantic.

The idea of elecric aircraft is cool, but I reckon it would be 50+ years I before a commercial airliner. Though I suspect we'll still have plenty of liquid fuel options then too.

Simpo Two

85,151 posts

264 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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JuniorD said:
Back in the day they thought a coal fuelled ship would sink with the amount of coal required to cross the Atlantic.
It would have done! Early steam engines were so inefficient that ships physically couldn't carry enough coal for a crossing.

Foliage

3,861 posts

121 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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J4CKO said:
What happens when the fossil fuels run out,
We have 1000s of years of fossil fuels left, but that's an aside since we can also build engines that can burn vegetable oils.

But that doesn't get round the fact that we are spewing noxious gas into the atmosphere, whether mmgw is a thing or not.

Electric airliners would be a rather big challenge, a better approach would be to address shipping & industry first.

Private citizens and aircraft are the least of the problem.

williamp

19,217 posts

272 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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Only with inflight refuelling. Like this:



Chuck328

1,580 posts

166 months

Tuesday 29th September 2015
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williamp said:
Only with inflight refuelling. Like this:


scratchchin All those years of dodging those thunderstorms coming to an end....... biggrin