3 ms·

Seems like marketing hype to me. An 8-hour transatlantic flight requires something like 600MWhr of energy. That's about 75MW, which is in small nuclear reacto

by nvy 4y ago

Seems like marketing hype to me. An 8-hour transatlantic flight requires something like 600MWhr of energy. That's about 75MW, which is in small nuclear reactor territory.

kolinko 4y ago
Closer to 200MWh - jet engines are ~30% efficient
rgmerk 4y ago
Not every flight is transatlantic. These batteries, if they deliver on the advertised specs and aren’t too expensive should make short-range electric aviation possible. The electric air taxis that Joby and others are working on suddenly have a lot bigger margin to work with, as do electric regional airliners.
Epa095 4y ago
Replacing transatlantic flights is out of the question (for batteries for now). But there exists shorter routes, and according to this list [1] on Wikipedia, the busiest route in the world is 449km long. That's probably also not doable now, but maybe in some years? For the first years it will probably only be a few wierd, short routes in rich countries like Norway with 110% financial support from the state. But when they can safely fly 5-600km there is a actually quite a number of routes with a lot of passengers out there. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_ai...
fwlr 4y ago
The US very nearly built a 60MW nuclear reactor for use in airplanes after their scaled down design at 2.5MW was successfully built, ran, and tested. This was done in the 1950s and, incidentally, required inventing molten salt reactors. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment (They actually planned to go all the way to 350MW, which could theoretically run a transatlantic passenger jet with 2,000 passengers, assuming it’s even possible to build such an airframe.)

3 ms·

Seems like marketing hype to me. An 8-hour transatlantic flight requires something like 600MWhr of energy. That's about 75MW, which is in small nuclear reacto

by nvy 4y ago

Seems like marketing hype to me. An 8-hour transatlantic flight requires something like 600MWhr of energy. That's about 75MW, which is in small nuclear reactor territory.

kolinko 4y ago
Closer to 200MWh - jet engines are ~30% efficient
rgmerk 4y ago
Not every flight is transatlantic. These batteries, if they deliver on the advertised specs and aren’t too expensive should make short-range electric aviation possible. The electric air taxis that Joby and others are working on suddenly have a lot bigger margin to work with, as do electric regional airliners.
Epa095 4y ago
Replacing transatlantic flights is out of the question (for batteries for now). But there exists shorter routes, and according to this list [1] on Wikipedia, the busiest route in the world is 449km long. That's probably also not doable now, but maybe in some years? For the first years it will probably only be a few wierd, short routes in rich countries like Norway with 110% financial support from the state. But when they can safely fly 5-600km there is a actually quite a number of routes with a lot of passengers out there. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_ai...
fwlr 4y ago
The US very nearly built a 60MW nuclear reactor for use in airplanes after their scaled down design at 2.5MW was successfully built, ran, and tested. This was done in the 1950s and, incidentally, required inventing molten salt reactors. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment (They actually planned to go all the way to 350MW, which could theoretically run a transatlantic passenger jet with 2,000 passengers, assuming it’s even possible to build such an airframe.)