The little tech firm gunning for an airspeed record
Electric flight for commercial passenger service will <i>never</i> happen at commercial passenger scale.<p>Why? Energy density.<p>Lithium ion batteries store 0.8 MJ per Kg which is fifty three times worse than kerosene.<p>Before you say &quot;oh well but battery tech is getting better every day&quot; - NiMH, a technology now well over forty years old, is about 0.4MJ per Kg. Forty years of battery research has...doubled battery capacity per weight. What seems to be state of the art in commercial battery technology - LG&#x27;s NCMA - is only about 15-20% ahead of what&#x27;s in use right now.<p>It gets even more depressing when you realize that Lithium Ion is only barely getting to be one order of magnitude better than lead-acid batteries, a technology that has largely gone unchanged in over a hundred years. We need to have batteries that are a five-fold improvement from what lithium ion brought versus lead acid.<p>You also need a massive amount of power during takeoff and landing. GE&#x27;s GE90 made about 18MW of power. The most current passenger get engine, the GE9X - produces thrust levels close to the original Soyuz rocket.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Energy_density#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:Energy_density.svg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Energy_density#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:Ene...</a><p>Kerosene hangs out along with other liquid hydrocarbons as the most energy per weight fuel available to us, around 43MJ&#x2F;Kg. LNG is a bit better but still in the same ballpark; hydrogen is a three-fold improvement but is a net-negative fuel requiring far more energy to produce than it provides, and a royal pain in the ass to handle. It&#x27;s safe because it dissipates so rapidly - but the shit loves to permeate everything. Including metal, which usually becomes brittle in the process, something severely incompatible with aviation.<p>Lithium ion battery packs? Barely coming off the Y-axis.<p>Oh, and the aviation industry can&#x27;t even figure out &quot;lithium ion battery packs for the electrical bus.&quot; Fires from said batteries in both Boeing and Airbus are surprisingly common.