3 ms·
Not an expert, just the result of a Google search:Fuel has roughly 100x better energy density than lithium-ion batteries(both in weight and in volume), and batt
by petra 11y ago
Not an expert, just the result of a Google search:Fuel has roughly 100x better energy density than lithium-ion batteries(both in weight and in volume), and batteries improve pretty slowly. Before take-off , the weight of fuel is 25-47% of the aircraft's weight.
And since the propulsive efficiency of a jet engine is relatively high(rough search gives 45%-80%) an electric engine doesn't buy much here.
So this isn't really a question of money, but basic limits.
- flubert 11y agoYou may also be interested in aluminum-air batteries, which have better than 10 times the specific energy density compared to lithium ion chemistries. The downside is that they aren't rechargable, but that may not matter for flights (they are recyclable though). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery