Electric airliner ?
Discussion
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
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
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.A larger version of this maybe.
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)
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)
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 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)
Airbus are developing a concept electric airliner (aimed at around 2050).
http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/innovation-citiz...
http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/innovation-citiz...
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?
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.http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/s...
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.
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.
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.
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