8 ms·

Commentators thus far seem mainly interested in applications in cars, in the event this ever makes it out of the lab. Frankly, cars are not the big deal here.

• geff82 4y ago
  As a private pilot I am SO looking forward to finally be able to do away with piston engines and fly electric...
  • api 4y ago
    Has anyone experimented with hydrogen or natural gas fuel cells? They're cumbersome for cars but for planes the reduced weight would make sense. Weight doesn't matter as much for land transport. I know hybrids don't make as much sense for planes because the throttle range is typically 50-100% through a flight vs cars where you spend tons of time down at 10-15% throttle and need only bursts of power.
    • Full_Clark 4y ago
      Universal Hydrogen is outfitting a Dash-8 with one hydrogen fuel cell engine for a test flight in March (leaving the other engine unchanged as a Jet-A powered turboprop). If all goes well they'll convert the other engine to hydrogen fuel cell as well, and they hope to be operating it in passenger service by 2025. https://hydrogen.aero/product/ https://hydrogen.aero/product/ Seems promising because they don't have to fully design a new aircraft, they just have to get the new powertrain certified. Though the same end-customer airline (Air New Zealand) is also eyeing off some new-build battery-electric aircraft with 250nm range and 30 min recharge times. https://simpleflying.com/eviation-alice-first-flight/ https://simpleflying.com/eviation-alice-first-flight/
    • rgmerk 4y ago
      Airbus is experimenting with fuel cells for airliners; I believe the idea is to use the fuel cells for cruising and use gas turbines when more power is required.[0] Joby Aviation (the air taxi developer) also bought a company that's been working on a hydrogen fuel cell light aircraft. The power density of fuel cells density would make VTOL air taxis a whole lot more plausible (though you've still got a distinctly nontrivial hydrogen storage problem). [1] There's another startup called HyPoint working on fuel cells specifically for aircraft [2], though they haven't announced a whole lot recently. [0] https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airbus-fuel-cell-engine-rolls-royce-easyjet-engine-c2e-spc-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/airbus-fuel-cell-engi... [1] https://evtolinsights.com/2022/07/hydrogen-fuel-cell-company-secretly-bought-by-joby-accelerates-progress-towards-zero-emission-commercial-flight/ https://evtolinsights.com/2022/07/hydrogen-fuel-cell-company... [2] https://hypoint.com/ https://hypoint.com/
    • jillesvangurp 4y ago
      The problem with hydrogen is the volume, not the weight. It's 3x that of methane, which in turn is worse than aviation fuel. And that's in liquid form. Chilling hydrogen to near absolute zero to get it in liquid form requires some really heavy duty equipment. And keeping it there takes energy. Most hydrogen trucks use compressed gas instead. At around 200 bars, the energy density by volume is about 18x that of diesel. So, you need a huge tank for the same amount of energy. And also 200 bar means it needs to be a really strong tank. Hydrogen trucks aren't really competitive with battery electric trucks for this reason. You need a lot of infrastructure and you add a lot of weight and complexity to the trucks. The handful of hydrogen trucks driving around have in common that they are expensive, don't have a lot of range, and need to be supplied via an as of yet non existent distribution network for hydrogen. If you truck the stuff around, you need 18 trucks for every diesel truck to move the equivalent in energy. All that volume is a show stopper on planes. We're talking about huge planes that are mostly hydrogen storage tanks with not a lot of room for useful load. Or alternatively really heavy tanks that can keep hydrogen at close to absolute zero. A more likely use for hydrogen in aviation is to use it to produce synthetic fuels that are more dense and easier to handle. Huydrogen really sucks as a fuel. And it's not a particularly efficient battery either. Storing it is problematic. Transporting it is problematic. The vast majority of hydrogen today is produced and consumed in the same place for this reason. It's main role is as a raw material to produce other things (fertilizers, steel, etc.).
      • dgroshev 4y ago
        It might have its niche as season scale energy storage. It's pretty easy and cheap to store it in underground cavities, they are good enough for helium [1] which leaks even easier than hydrogen. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve
  • earleybird 4y ago
    For context, a gallon of gas carries about 33.4 Kwh, a Cessna 172 has a fuel capacity of 56 gallons. Topped up at take-off it's carrying the equivalent of 1.87 Mwh. That will take you about 1,200 km. I expect short range electric commuters will come first - similar to cars.
    • wyldfire 4y ago
      For the mass of 56 gallons of gas (~200kg) you could carry 240kwh of Li-air battery? Feel free to check my math, could've gotten it wrong.
    • tjmc 4y ago
      What's the conversion efficiency with a Cessna 172's ancient engine though? Batteries don't have to get that much better for electrics to dominate the training GA market. There's a Pipistril Velis Electro[1] that shares a hanger with my flight school. It can only fly for about 30 minutes + 30 mins reserve with 2 relatively light pilots. If it had a battery which allowed for 2 hours of flight you've now tripled your range - 1.5hours + 30 mins reserve. That would cover all ab-initio training. A battery like the one in the article would expand the range further to cross country capability and/or higher useful load, with the complete reconstruction of a piston engine every 2000 hours gone from the equation. Can't wait. 1. https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/products/general-aviation/velis-electro/#tab-id-2 https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/products/general-aviation...
    • cameldrv 4y ago
      The math is quite a bit better than those numbers would suggest. An aircraft piston engine is roughly 25% efficient, but an electric motor can be over 90%. A gallon of gas weighs about 2.7 kg, so the gas is about 12.3 kWh/kg. If we adjust this type of battery to account for the difference in efficiency, it is about 4.3 (equivalent) kW/kg. Ok, so that's still a factor of 3 worse. However, all the gas in the Cessna weighs about 336 lbs. The engine weighs about 250 lbs. A comparable electric motor is about 70 lbs. That gives you another 180 lbs, or over 50% more weight to fill with batteries. Now we're at about 50% of the useful energy of the Cessna. You can also factor in a little bit of gain from "regenerative braking" since the electric airplane can charge the batteries while descending. This may not make a huge difference in range for just point to point flying, but it does add some extra for flight training with lots of landings, and also provides some extra reserve in the case of a missed approach for example. All of that is to say that this doesn't bring the small electric airplane to parity with gasoline, but it's starting to much more credibly inch in on its turf.
  • taneq 4y ago
    There's an electric trainer plane flying out of our local light airport, it's very cool.
• nlitened 4y ago
  Airliners? Just give me a damn iPhone that reliably lasts a full day of work.
  • squarefoot 4y ago
    They could have made it years ago, but in advertising dominated by design, being thin wins over battery life any day.
    • silasdavis 4y ago
      Plenty of people would choose a fatter phone. Phones are thinner than wallets. I always assumed it was discharge heat surface. Phones are hotter than wallets.
      • ComputerGuru 4y ago
        Plenty of people would choose a thicker phone with better battery life if given the choice but companies have long fought to use it as a marketing feature and don’t want to draw attention to the compromise. The batteries themselves only dissipate heat relative to the charge/discharge rate/current but the total capacity would not change that.
        • com2kid 4y ago
          Everytime a company releases a big battery phone onto the market it fails to sell at significant volumes. Some people want huge battery phones, but most don't, consumers have been voting their wallets for over a decade now.
          • jjk166 4y ago
            When have you ever gone to get your phone replaced and have them ask you "do you want the model with the long battery life or the model that's thin?" The failure of niche competitors most people have never heard of is not consumers voting with their wallet, it is anti-competitive behavior entrenching established players.
• jojobas 4y ago
  This is a bit shallow a take. Current batteries may be wrangled to provide adequate range to cars, but it comes at a significant weight/volume knock-on costs. A large heavy battery requires increased weights of shielding and frame structure, it's almost exponential. Tesla 3 battery weighs more than its max payload.
  • rgmerk 4y ago
    Yes, that's all true. Lithium-air EVs could be significantly lighter and cheaper than current-generation EVs. But even if that doesn't happen EVs are going to represent the majority of new cars sold in the quite near future.
    • jtc331 4y ago
      “Quite the near future” means what to you? 2030? 2035? 2040?
      • rgmerk 4y ago
        The IEA, hardly the most adventurous of forecasters, guesses that, globally, 60% of new cars will be EVs by 2030.
    • ComputerGuru 4y ago
      Just bear in mind that, as of a couple of years ago, the average age of a car on the road was 12 years.
  • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    But still, electric cars work, and work well. I have an EV with over 400 miles of range. It may be heavy but that doesn't affect me much in my day-to-day. But electric propulsion really doesn't work well for tons of air travel cases, and a battery like this really would be transformative for those uses - that's how I interpreted GP's comment.
    • shortcake27 4y ago
• chris_va 4y ago
  Yes, though try telling a pilot that their plane will get heavier as the flight goes along. (am a occasionally ga pilot and have been watching metal air batteries for a while)
  • fzzzy 4y ago
    That's astounding. Any good reading material on this phenomena?
    • barelyauser 4y ago
      I'm not sure what to tell you. It is chemistry of the battery itself..
    • Waterluvian 4y ago
      I think it’s because the way the battery works involves oxidization of the lithium. So the weight comes from collecting oxygen from the surrounding air as a form of rust.
      • alwayslikethis 4y ago
        Also the fact that lithium is a light element compared to oxygen, so the weight increases by quite a substantial amount.
  • btown 4y ago
    It is, however, quite easy to program a drone to compensate for this!
  • bilsbie 4y ago
    Actually that’s great! Considering takeoff is the most taxing part of flight.
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      It is normal for a long range airliner to take off with more weight than it can safely land with, necessitating a fuel dump if for some reason it needs to return to the airport shortly after leaving.
• akira2501 4y ago
  > the people who want to tow horse floats across the country at 70mph, for instance, or for lightweight electric sports cars Casually dismissing people who are likely using the road for commerce is not a great take. In particular, if you ever hope to legitimately electrify anything larger, you should probably consider this serving this segment as a useful precursor to more work. It seems to be a consistent knee jerk reaction to the idea that the current generation of electric automobiles just aren't a good "drop-in" replacement for the current fleet. We should solve that problem, not demean people who experience it.
  • mikeyouse 4y ago
    It was just a joke about the legions of boomers on FB complaining about these increasingly implausible reasons why an electric car won't work for them when they clearly would, and for those people who do have one of the rare legitimate reasons, they can just continue to use ICE vehicles.. A family member is constantly posting that nonsense, and whining about how he could never buy an EV since he hauls his boat. Nevermind that he hauls his 2,000lb pontoon boat 40 miles round-trip twice per year. The base model Hyundai EV could easily perform 100% of his towing requirements. He doesn't have a problem to solve, he just likes to complain and virtue signal. No amount of battery range will convince him to buy an EV because it has nothing to do with his complaints.
    • Dalewyn 4y ago
      >they can just continue to use ICE vehicles.. I think the problem is a certain noisy minority want to remove that option in defiance to reality.
      • adrianN 4y ago
        I never heard of serious suggestions to ban hydrocarbons from in general. We're not dumping R&D money into synfuels for fun. It's just that synfuels make no economic sense for almost everyone. Why would you want to pay 5x more per mile in a car with 10x more moving parts?
  • deleted 4y ago
• anakaine 4y ago
  Delivery drones: groan. The most compelling use of an advancement such as this should not be so that we can fill the air with constant noise pollution. Drones are loud, noisy, intrusive things, and really should not be a delivery vector in most places. This battery tech, with improvements, since the headline is aspiration and not factual, could well be used in commercial aircraft, vehicles, on boats including commercial vessels, or in plenty of other applications where the environmental benefits of having lighter, cleaner technology is important.
  • yarg 4y ago
    They've proved useful in Ukraine.
    • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      Concorde was also useful in general, yet thanks to sound breaking noise was not allowed to fly over land supersonic. Now imagine 4, 8 or bigger combo of flying vacuum cleaners in 3am. People are going to eat you alive.
    • 4gotunameagain 4y ago
      So should we develop everything using the criterion "will it prove useful in an active warzone" ?
      • SiempreViernes 4y ago
        As that criterion would sink most of the ad-tech industry, maybe it actually has some hidden merit? ;)
      • llamaLord 4y ago
        To be fair... a non-trivial percentage of the major breakthroughs in human science/engineering were developed to have some form of impact on an active warzone.
    • yourusername 4y ago
      So has 155mm Artillery, i'd also prefer that not be used in city limits.
• _hypx 4y ago
  No. Still way too heavy for airplanes. “Short-haul” is still 1,000 miles or more, and energy density is still too low to do that practically. Also, metal-air batteries gain weight as they discharge.
  • jillesvangurp 4y ago
    This would wipe out the GA market though. Small planes, small business jets, drones, etc. Most of these have ranges well below 1000 miles. Short haul is actually well below 1000 miles as well on average. Here in Germany, essentially all domestic flights are closer to 300-400 miles. Basically most 1-2 hour flights would be in scope for electrification. That's most of the aviation market.
• hinkley 4y ago
  Trucking is still unsolved. This tech would probably start there. It’s entirely possible that a battery generation will cross industries due to process improvements.
  • jillesvangurp 4y ago
    Unsolved as in several products on the market that you can buy that are class 8 trucks? It's a solved problem. Batteries are heavy but a few tonnes of battery on a vehicle that is designed for 40 tonnes is not a problem. Battery cost is a much bigger problem for trucks. A mwh of battery would deliver awesome range. But most commercial trucks come with something closer to a quarter of that. I think the Tesla semi actually comes close to a mwh. But it's an outlier. The reason for this is cost, not weight.
    • alwayslikethis 4y ago
      I think a much better solution is by electrifying highways, so the trucks don't have to carry too much battery (or can just use a much smaller amount of diesel) as they move. Usually the main limiting factor for truck range is the sheer weight of the batteries. The more weight you add, the less you can carry due to laws on maximum truck weights. Electrifying roads with overhead cables can be a more economical solution and does not rely on any non-existing technology.
      • adrianN 4y ago
        If you spent the money to electrify roads, you might as well just build rails to lower friction. And perhaps chain multiple trucks together to reduce air resistance as save labor costs.
      • Animats 4y ago
        It's working in Germany.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
      • jillesvangurp 4y ago
• jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Drones and general aviation are obvious markets. Batteries like this will initially be limited in supply and expensive. So targeting them at niche markets makes sense. There are already a few certified planes flying and a few drones that are getting close to that. E.g. the Beta that flew in the New York area last week. And there will be a lot more in a few years. Current state of the art is a usable but not very long range for electrical planes. 200-250 miles seems to be the maximum range currently and some planes barely get to 100 miles. Something that not everyone seems to grasp is that planes expend a lot of energy going up but then a lot less cruising from A to B and they can actually recover some energy going down. So, increasing the battery capacity without increasing the weight means you extend the cruise phase of the flight. The take off energy expense is kind of a constant that is mostly dependent on the weight. Doubling the capacity might extend ranges to more than double what they are currently. A 1200 wh/kg aviation battery would more than quadruple current ranges. That's nice of course if you can get to 1000+ miles. But a more logical thing to do would be to cut the weight by e.g. half and still more than double the range. Also, current electrical planes sacrifice a lot of their maximum takeoff weight for batteries. Losing half that, increases their useful payload size and utility considerably. You can turn a four person plane into an eight person plane, for example. And still extend the range a little too. I think Elon Musk called out 400wh/kg as the threshold that he considers as a minimum. This more than triples that. More than because of the outlined effects on cruise.
• elihu 4y ago
  Honestly I think most aviation should just go away. There are legitimate reasons for people and high-value cargo and mail to use planes to get places in a hurry, but I'd rather people treat plane flights as a rare luxury rather than a routine thing. The energy costs are enormous, and civilization is kind of in a wile-e-coyote-ran-past-the-cliff-edge-but-hasn't-looked-down situation with respect to climate change. Electric aviation might be a huge improvement over burning kerosene with respect to CO2 emissions, but also reducing how much we rely on planes would go a long way too. I don't see electric air taxis being a good thing in almost any situation -- they're tremendously inefficient and they make a lot of noise. Air taxis for emergency responders might be an acceptable tradeoff. If someone can come up with a good way to run a large airliner off of batteries in a practical fashion, then by all means I think that's worth doing, but I feel kind of obligated to be a wet blanket on the idea of the aviation industry suddenly revitalizing itself and everyone flying everywhere just because they can.
  • mongrelion 4y ago
    > I'd rather people treat plane flights as a rare luxury rather than a routine thing. Trains would definitely be key here. However, for migrants living in another continent, it becomes impossible in several scenarios to go back to visit their beloved ones.
  • imeron 4y ago
    What’s the co2 hit of aviation compared to the total?
    • elihu 4y ago
      EPA says it's about 8% of the transportation total, which is actually less than I would have thought. By comparison, light vehicles are at 57%. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-...
  • cornholio 4y ago
    That's just a very practical way to ensure aviation remains a polluting and oil guzzling industry for perpetuity. Since the economic and political elites of the world (in the broad sense) are the clients of aviation, there is just about zero chance they will allow the field to be dismantled for environmental reasons, especially since they have come to relly on it in the global competion.