Harry Veeder wrote:
Jed Rothwell wrote:
I think electric cars would be easier to implement than people
realize, and most of the concerns about limited operating range
are either unimportant, or they could easily be fixed. If the
world had run short of oil back in 1960, you can be sure we would
have implemented electric cars with battery exchanges by 1975, and
everyone would take it for granted.
- Jed
Anyone consider electric planes?
Lifters?
Harry
We are still a long way away from electric air craft with two
exceptions. Solar electric drones or airships and hybrid aircraft. If
EESTOR or one of the others can deliver a bettery then it is possible to
use it in either. Particularly if some smart chap with money [so I don't
qualify] can figure out how to craft a bettery that is also a high
strength 'structural girder'. Hint hint. Aircraft use most of their
power taking off and landing. At cruising their powerplants are running
at below optimal power. Energy banks would help by allowing the main
engines to be built for the cruising load. This also allows fuel cell
planes.
Air craft would be more fuel efficient if airports included taxi way
power boosters: that's a 'power truck' hooked up to the aircraft with a
break a way link that powers the plane right up to the point where the
pilot hits the throttle. Such vehicles are notoriously slow and fiddly.
Manual connections and a hand towed trolley is still standard. Solar on
the top of the fuselage and wings would also help power the
air-conditioning while the plane is waiting on the ground in the cue for
the runway. We will probably see both faster power trucks and solar
soon. They are the two available innovations to cut aircraft fuel costs.