Simple the Flux Capacitor and household trash.

Obraik:

 

Technofreak:
I've long held the view that when nuclear fusion is perfected then we have access to abundant cheap power and hydrogen will be cheap to produce. At this time I believe hydrogen will become the energy of choice. Wether or not we have nuclear energy in New Zealand will be irrelevant. We will follow what the rest of the world does.

 

 

 

Exactly. Which is why it won't be hydrogen for transport. At least land based transport.

 

 

 

The rest of the world seems to have no plans to embrace hydrogen for transport. We have two car companies that have what are basically prototype hydrogen vehicles while other companies (VW, Honda, Scania, etc) have stopped working on fuel cell vehicles. We also have less than 1000 filling stations across the world. Meanwhile, BEV uptake is accelerating - more and more companies are giving deadlines for when their vehicles will be all electric. Once people get a BEV I don't see them wanting to switch back to the centralised fuel source model - why would they when it's so much more convenient to do it at home?

 

EDIT.

I'm not so sure the rest of the world has given up on hydrogen.  Honda are still talking about fuel cells vehicles in this recent article Honda EV commitment

VW and Scania (which is owned by VW) have pulled away from fuel cells but that doesn't mean hydrogen isn't in their future. This article talks about Scania's joint venture to use a High Pressure Direct Injection (HPDI) hydrogen fuel system Scania and Westport Fuel System will cooperate in hydrogen research project

This article is about some of the current hydrogen developments including companies like Daimler Benz and Volvo Hydrogen might still make sense 

I'd suggest the accelerating BEV uptake you mention is being driven by emissions regulations and the current lack of a better alternative rather than by what may ultimately be the best technology long term.

The convenience and ability to charge at home is not universal. In many parts of the world and even in a lot of parts of New Zealand cars are parked outside and on the street rather than inside or close to a charging point. It's not possible/practical for a lot of people to charge at home. There will remain the need for a centralised fuel source even for BEV's.

Handle9:

 

2030 is the likely date for short haul to be commercially viable. There’s a lot of work for airports to be prepared for commercial flight, most of them have a long way to go just on scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and don’t have the infeeds for significant electric flight.

 

You're saying ten years away. I'll go as far to say that it will be much much longer than that before we see electric aircraft replace turbo prop aircraft on short haul routes

The companies like Heart Aerospace that currently have plans for commercial electric aircraft are dreamers in my opinion. No mainstream aircraft maufacturer I'm aware of is putting serious efforts into electric shorthaul or regional aircraft. This is for good reason, they know the futility of it as things stand right now.

Heart talk about projected range but I doubt there's been any consideration given to the other energy requirements of your typical turbo prop aircraft. Things like the pressurisation systems, cabin heating/cooling, and the de-ice and anti-ice systems. All of these systems use energy.

The battery health monitoring systems will have to be 100% accurate. When I have 1000kg of fuel aboard I know almost to the minute how long that fuel will last. How long will I have for each flight on an electric aircraft as the battery degrades?

As the battery ages the aircrafts usablity also decreases as longer routes will be unable to be attempted.

One big handicap for an electric aircraft is that the battery weighs the same full or empty. For most commercial aircraft, payload is traded for range. If you want travel further you reduce the payload and conversly to carry a bigger payload you have the ability to reduce the fuel load assuming the mission profile allows for that. With an electric aircraft you are stuck with all of the battery weight whether you need it or not.

I'm pretty confident there won't be an electric regional aircraft available for me to fly during my career and I'll be very lucky to see a commercially viable one in my lifetime. 

gzt:

Yeah Nah.

Great concept. For it to work commercially it needs to be all weather capable. The first thing that comes to mind is how airframe icing will affect it, primarily how are they planning on preventing icing in the inlets to the ducted fans. They mention all sorts of trick stuff but dont address this issue.

Also in my opinion the idea we will all be able to zoom about like the Jetsons is totally flawed.

We already have the capability to do this sort of air transport. It's called a helicopter. You don't see them zipping around the skies like the Jetsons for good reason and the same reasons the likes of Lilium will most likely fail. Battery/electric technology is not the enabler for this type of aircraft.

Cost and practicality are the big stumbling blocks. I can't see the cost being affordable for the average person.

Noise is one big issue which they have addressed but I doubt the noise levels will be down to the levels that you or I would be happy to have one of these arriving and departing from the neighbours place. The Martin Jetpack uses a ducted fan and it's not quiet. Yes, It uses an ICE but most of the noise is coming from the fan. No doubt Lilium have acheived noise levels several orders less than the Jetpack but it likely still won't be quiet enough.

There's also the downwash created during the hover phase. Just take a look at the dust etc that gets lifted when a helicopter hovers. You cannot avoid it, it is a function of the weight you're lifting. Sure the distribution of the thrust with all the ducted fans will mitgate this but it will still be an issue. 

The downwash and noise issues will mean they will generally operate from a designated area, aka, helipad. They wont be door to door in a lot of cases. 

Technofreak: No mainstream aircraft maufacturer I'm aware of is putting serious efforts into electric shorthaul or regional aircraft.

Obraik:

Handle9:

You are confusing personal cars with transport. Hydrogen is going to be a hugely important fuel for industrial and commercial applications. If a commercial site has very peaky load profiles and significant onsite decarbonised generation hydrogen is an excellent fuel.

There's going to be a mix of energy sources, just as there is today. It's certainly not going to be one size fits all.

Not really. I don't see commercial transport in New Zealand switching to Hydrogen either. 

Ideally, New Zealand needs to move away from relying on longhaul trucks for getting goods from one city to another. That should be done via rail. Not only would that cut emissions if we fully electrify the main lines but it will reduce wear and tear on the roads.

gzt:

Technofreak: No mainstream aircraft maufacturer I'm aware of is putting serious efforts into electric shorthaul or regional aircraft.

AirBus is running a serious and significant in-house research and development effort covering many bases:

https://www.airbus.com/innovation/zero-emission/electric-flight.html

Their competitor, Boeing have a different strategy investing in multiple electric flight startups. Boeing looks the less serious of the two.

The mainstream manufacturers have their toes in the water with all sorts of experimental stuff. ATR are experimenting with all electric systems for the likes pressurisation and heating cooling etc which are all presently bleed air operated. Heart Aerospace will likely have to develop these systems from scratch as well as all the other development and certification work they need to do on their ES-19. 

If you go to the Airbus site you will see the E-Fan-X project has been stopped. They don't say why but it's pretty good guess that there wasn't enough promise to warrant further spending. No doubt they still learned useful stuff. Even then that was only an experimental hybrid project (one engine electric the rest JetA1).

There might be some serious research going on into electric propulsion but no mainstream manufacturer has announced plans for or is putting serious efforts into an electric aircraft to enter the market in the forseeable future.

gzt: I'll take a little longer to address your points above. For now I'll just add that -

Not long ago similar things could be said about electric cars - all of this changed rapidly when a new entrant with new technology and a new vision entered the market - Tesla.

I keenly await your reply. I'm always interested to hear another point of view.

I will say we already have the vision, we have new entrants, we don't have the technology, at least not yet.

This breaks down the economics of electric air travel, factoring in existing subsidies which already apply to conventional airlines. US-based, but still relevant.

Google tells me a 737 engine:

Calculations based on typical thrust and speed at takeoff which returned a figure of about 15–20MW or 20–27,000 horsepower

Gurezaemon:

 

This breaks down the economics of electric air travel, factoring in existing subsidies which already apply to conventional airlines. US-based, but still relevant.

 

 

 

That video was linked in another thread.

I'll repost my comments I made then.

A very superficial look at the costs. Fuel and maintenance costs will be a lot more than suggested. Battery life is going to be a major issue. Battery degradation in a car just means more frequent fills, battery degradation in an aircraft means not being able to get to the destination. There will be very stringent testing requirements about capacity, this will cost money. The costs of maintaining and overhauling airframe components will still be there. (While engine maintenance costs will reduce, airframe and airframe systems maintenance is a significant cost that doesn't go away.)

Cost of ownership will be vastly greater than double the current costs. The Cessna's will be at residual value. They are 40 years old. The new aircraft will have a significantly higher capital cost.

That item conveniently omits to mention that Cape Air are taking delivery of brand new gasoline powered aircraft with plans of having up to 100 new piston aircraft. https://www.flyingmag.com/story/aircraft/cape-air-100-tecnam-p2012/ 

and 

It's that value against the replacement cost for a new aircraft is what I was getting at. A 40 year old 402 will cost about $300,000USD plus or minus, a new Tecnam P 2012 $2.6 million USD, nearly 9 times the capital cost. I expect any equivalent EV aircraft to cost as much if not more. The capital costs figure in that video are way out of line.

Also battery life will be an issue. Compared to an EV car the battery life in an EV aircraft being used for IFR flight (as in the video) is much more limiting. In the likes of the Pipstrel endurance isn't as much of an issue and a battery that has an hours endurance, even a bit less will cut the mustard.

For IFR flight the legal endurance requirements are fuel (energy) for the taxi to the take off point, to fly to your destination (A to B) plus 10%, then to an alternate airfield ( B to C) if there is one required, plus 45 minutes. An alternate destination will be a requirement on many flights and sometimes this can be further than the original A to B flight.

For arguments sake the A to B time is 60 minutes and the B to C flight could be up to 60 minutes. You need a minimum of 171 minutes (2 hours 51 minutes) of battery energy plus taxi time at the start of the flight. Lets say the battery is good for 3 hours when it is new. With a 10% degradation it will no longer be suitable.

At that time it will need to be replaced even though on the face of it, it will still have plenty of useful life left. The cost of electricity may be cheap but the cost of batteries will more than make up for that.

Technofreak:

 

Gurezaemon:

 

This breaks down the economics of electric air travel, factoring in existing subsidies which already apply to conventional airlines. US-based, but still relevant.

 

 

That video was linked in another thread.

 

I'll repost my comments I made then.

 

A very superficial look at the costs. Fuel and maintenance costs will be a lot more than suggested. Battery life is going to be a major issue. Battery degradation in a car just means more frequent fills, battery degradation in an aircraft means not being able to get to the destination. There will be very stringent testing requirements about capacity, this will cost money. The costs of maintaining and overhauling airframe components will still be there. (While engine maintenance costs will reduce, airframe and airframe systems maintenance is a significant cost that doesn't go away.)

 

Cost of ownership will be vastly greater than double the current costs. The Cessna's will be at residual value. They are 40 years old. The new aircraft will have a significantly higher capital cost.

 

That item conveniently omits to mention that Cape Air are taking delivery of brand new gasoline powered aircraft with plans of having up to 100 new piston aircraft. https://www.flyingmag.com/story/aircraft/cape-air-100-tecnam-p2012/ 

 

and 

 

It's that value against the replacement cost for a new aircraft is what I was getting at. A 40 year old 402 will cost about $300,000USD plus or minus, a new Tecnam P 2012 $2.6 million USD, nearly 9 times the capital cost. I expect any equivalent EV aircraft to cost as much if not more. The capital costs figure in that video are way out of line.

 

Also battery life will be an issue. Compared to an EV car the battery life in an EV aircraft being used for IFR flight (as in the video) is much more limiting. In the likes of the Pipstrel endurance isn't as much of an issue and a battery that has an hours endurance, even a bit less will cut the mustard.

 

For IFR flight the legal endurance requirements are fuel (energy) for the taxi to the take off point, to fly to your destination (A to B) plus 10%, then to an alternate airfield ( B to C) if there is one required, plus 45 minutes. An alternate destination will be a requirement on many flights and sometimes this can be further than the original A to B flight.

 

For arguments sake the A to B time is 60 minutes and the B to C flight could be up to 60 minutes. You need a minimum of 171 minutes (2 hours 51 minutes) of battery energy plus taxi time at the start of the flight. Lets say the battery is good for 3 hours when it is new. With a 10% degradation it will no longer be suitable.

 

At that time it will need to be replaced even though on the face of it, it will still have plenty of useful life left. The cost of electricity may be cheap but the cost of batteries will more than make up for that.

 

Thanks for the input - I hadn't seen the other thread. 

Technofreak