The sound of aircraft overhead has been a tonic to some, and a major annoyance to others, since the earliest days of powered, heavier than air flight.
Personally, I like it. The sound of pistons popping or turbines turning mixed with the whoosh of air flowing around an airframe will get my face turned toward the heavens more often than not.
Then again, I spoke with a gentleman the other day who was very upset about the all-too-frequent airplane noise he’s subjected to at home.
Peculiarly, the gentleman making the complaint is a pilot. Even more odd, he was expressing his displeasure while at an air show.
As Honest Abe said, you can’t please all the people all the time.
That noise component may be changing, however — and sooner rather than later.
Electric powered aircraft, which are quiet to a degree many of us would find truly surprising, are on the verge of becoming mainstream. While we don’t see them in great numbers yet, they are very much on their way.
In the VTOL movement, Joby has developed an aircraft that is so quiet you can hold a conversation at a normal volume while standing just yards away during takeoff. No problem.
In the training environment, Pipistrel produces the Alpha Electro, which catches the eye, but not the ear. Designed to meet the needs of flight schools, change is in the wind, literally. The fuel and maintenance savings could be a real game changer in an industry that historically struggles with those costs.
In the high speed realm we have the Spirit of Innovation from Rolls Royce, which recently flew test runs that nudged up toward the 400 mph range. It’s fast, powerful, beautiful in every sense, and an absolute indication of what’s coming our way in the not-so distant future.
Electric powered transport category aircraft are on the drawing board and in the testing environment, too. Even a cursory glance at Airbus’ website tells the tale. Electric power is in our future.
As old and decrepit as I may be, the change is coming so quickly it is entirely possible that ground and air transportation will be largely powered by electricity in my lifetime.
Even the U.S. federal government, which is notoriously and perhaps beneficially slow to recognize trends, has promised billions of dollars to install electric chargers for automobiles across the nation. Theoretically, they’ll be adding half a million chargers.
This is in addition to the approximately 43,000 charging stations already installed by private companies, a number that doesn’t include the tens of thousands of outlets installed in the garages and carports of EV owners from coast to coast.
Yes, electrification is coming. It’s here. But the state of the development of aircraft, and the number of chargers available for cars and trucks is not the great limiting factor many of us believe them to be. Those problems will be resolved quickly and at a pace that increases exponentially in the coming years. As the old showman said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The problem — and it’s a problem virtually nobody in government is talking about publicly — is the supply of electricity to those charging stations, and homes, and hospitals, and businesses.
Imagine this: You have a pond that irrigates your farm, but your yields are slipping because you can’t get enough water to your crop. So, you put in hundreds of extra sprayer heads all over your acreage. That’s all well and good, but if you don’t increase the size of your pond, your pump, and the diameter of your irrigation lines, you won’t actually increase the flow of life-giving water to your fields. You’ll just be distributing the same amount of water, which was insufficient to the task, to a larger area. The result? Abject failure.
Roughly 60% of our current electrical power generation comes from natural gas and coal. Neither of those sources is renewable or clean. They produce power, certainly. But they take us in the wrong direction in the battle to tidy up our environment.
As the need for more electrical power becomes apparent, the need for less environmentally damaging methods of electric power generation will become ever more important.
Renewables are nice, but wind, solar, and geothermal only produce about 10% of our current draw. All renewables combined account for just 20% of our power production.
Admittedly, the solar panels on my roof produce more than I use on an annual basis, pumping additional free electrons into the grid for my neighbors to use. And that sort of thing will become increasingly common in the coming years.
But will it become so prevalent it will fuel all the cars, trucks, and airplanes being brought into the electrical realm? Not hardly.
Batteries will become increasingly important to us. You’ll probably have one attached to your home, if you don’t already. They’re available commercially for both individual homes, as well as utility sized installations that can replace the need for peaker plants, previously needed to fulfill short-duration, high demand periods of electrical useage.
The production of electricity will be critical for all of us, whether we live in rural or urban environments. The U.S. currently houses 241 coal-powered plants. On the other end of the spectrum we are home to only 55 nuclear power plants. Just two are currently under construction, with a lead time of as much as a decade to add a nuclear plant.
This is worrisome.
We have all been naysayers at some point, I suspect. Sometimes with good reason. Electric motors aren’t practical for aircraft. The batteries are too heavy. The range is too limited. The charging time is too long. Yet those issues are being addressed and corrected.
The real limitation on electric everything is the amount of electricity available to us and the environmental damage that production visits on the planet. Fortunately, we can correct that problem — if we have the resolve to do so.
Personally, I believe in us. A little less “can’t” and a little more “can” would go a long way right now. I’m hoping we all choose to push for a cleaner, safer, more abundant future — on the street and in the air.
What say you, reader?
Bill+Leavens says
The key to a fully electrified future as Jamie points out is having enough power available to charge batteries and operate everything that runs and flies. I firmly believe that key to that lies in small, modular reactors. They run 24/7. They don’t gobble up huge swaths of real estate. If they are cranked out on an assembly line, the cost will be far less per megawatt than the sixty-year-old behemoths that have served us so well. Consider this. Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. built some 3,000 huge Liberty ships that carried the war to Hitler. During that same period, we built 3,000 technically sophisticated B-29 bombers to carry the war to Japan. If we put the US on a war footing against climate change right now, we can build 3,000 small, clean, efficient reactors to run our world. If we power them with thorium, we can burn up a great deal of the plutonium and unspent fuel left by the legacy behemoth reactors. We can do this. Tell your Member of Congress to fund the necessary research, development, production engineering and deployment.
Mac says
You have it right. Remember, the goal is to Not have enough electricity. If it’s not available, you can’t kill the un-killable earth.
tom davis says
Bravo and amen!!
Joe Reid says
Electricity is good but not in my airplane. The range is ridiculously short. The usable weight would drop to next to nothing. The aerobatic gross weight would prohibit any aerobatics.
I fly and own(paid for) RV6. Full fuel I can fly well past my bladder and then a 15-minute fuel stop and I can do it again. Not with electric power. I can’t even fly the limit of my bladder not to mention a refueling stop is hours long. Import if the weather is involved, it could mean overnight. The operational cost are adding up with the first long cross-country flight. So much for the 100$ hamburger.
Now let’s talk cost of ownership.
I would have to give up my RV6 with a very good IFR panel and autopilot. (All Garmin) Being retired I cannot afford to spend 100k plus on a new airplane when I cannot sell my current airplane because no one would buy an airplane they couldn’t fly.
As for me, keep the gas power, if avgas goes away, I guess I will have to brew my own fuel, and tanker enough to get me home when I fly.
For the record; I am against the use of electricity to fly. I will not use it nor support it. If you want it great. I am all for you having what you want. After all this is America, the land of choices, just don’t force me to want your choices. Those are fighting words, just saying
Jim+Smith says
Anything that runs on batteries sucks
Joe Reid says
except for my flashlights, I couldn’t agree more
Alec Darby says
I am 74 and a retired A&P mechanic who worked for 51 years in the business. I am excited and thrilled about the advances in battery power for aviation and automobiles for that matter. However as the saying does there is no free lunch. I have cut and pasted an article that I found VERY interesting concering the battery. It is a little long but I believe it warrants a read from all of us.
There are embedded costs that really are not being addressed.
Battery Talk
The Shocking Naked Truth
by Bruce Haedrich
When I saw the title of this lecture, especially with the picture of the scantily clad model, I couldn’t resist attending. The packed auditorium was abuzz with questions about the address; nobody seemed to know what to expect. The only hint was a large aluminum block sitting on a sturdy table on the stage.
When the crowd settled down, a scholarly-looking man walked out and put his hand on the shiny block, “Good evening,” he said, “I am here to introduce NMC532-X,” and he patted the block, “we call him NM for short,” and the man smiled proudly. “NM is a typical electric vehicle (EV) car battery in every way except one; we programmed him to send signals of the internal movements of his electrons when charging, discharging, and in several other conditions. We wanted to know what it feels like to be a battery. We don’t know how it happened, but NM began to talk after we downloaded the program.
Despite this ability, we put him in a car for a year and then asked him if he’d like to do presentations about batteries. He readily agreed on the condition he could say whatever he wanted. We thought that was fine, and so, without further ado, I’ll turn the floor over to NM,” the man turned and walked off the stage.
“Good evening,” NM said. He had a slightly affected accent, and when he spoke, he lit up in different colors. “That cheeky woman on the marquee was my idea,” he said. “Were she not there, along with ‘naked’ in the title, I’d likely be speaking to an empty auditorium! I also had them add ‘shocking’ because it’s a favorite word amongst us batteries.” He flashed a light blue color as he laughed.
“Sorry,” NM chuckled, then continued, “Three days ago, at the start of my last lecture, three people walked out. I suppose they were disappointed there would be no dancing girls. But here is what I noticed about them. One was wearing a battery-powered hearing aid, one tapped on his battery-powered cell phone as he left, and a third got into his car, which would not start without a battery. So I’d like you to think about your day for a moment; how many batteries do you rely on?”
He paused for a full minute which gave us time to count our batteries. Then he went on, “Now, it is not elementary to ask, ‘what is a battery?’ I think Tesla said it best when they called us Energy Storage Systems. That’s important. We do not make electricity – we store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid. Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?”
He flashed blue again. “Einstein’s formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five thousand pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.”
He lit up red when he said that, and I sensed he was smiling. Then he continued in blue and orange. “Mr. Elkay introduced me as NMC532. If I were the battery from your computer mouse, Elkay would introduce me as double-A, if from your cell phone as CR2032, and so on. We batteries all have the same name depending on our design. By the way, the ‘X’ in my name stands for ‘experimental.’
There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.
Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium.
The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.
All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flashlight or two from an old ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery’s metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.
In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle batteries like me or care to dispose of single-use ones properly.
But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive embedded costs.”
NM got redder as he spoke. “Everything manufactured has two costs associated with it, embedded costs and operating costs. I will explain embedded costs using a can of baked beans as my subject.
In this scenario, baked beans are on sale, so you jump in your car and head for the grocery store. Sure enough, there they are on the shelf for $1.75 a can. As you head to the checkout, you begin to think about the embedded costs in the can of beans.
The first cost is the diesel fuel the farmer used to plow the field, till the ground, harvest the beans, and transport them to the food processor. Not only is his diesel fuel an embedded cost, so are the costs to build the tractors, combines, and trucks. In addition, the farmer might use a nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas.
Next is the energy costs of cooking the beans, heating the building, transporting the workers, and paying for the vast amounts of electricity used to run the plant. The steel can holding the beans is also an embedded cost. Making the steel can requires mining taconite, shipping it by boat, extracting the iron, placing it in a coal-fired blast furnace, and adding carbon. Then it’s back on another truck to take the beans to the grocery store. Finally, add in the cost of the gasoline for your car.
But wait – can you guess one of the highest but rarely acknowledged embedded costs?” NM said, then gave us about thirty seconds to make our guesses. Then he flashed his lights and said, “It’s the depreciation on the 5000 pound car you used to transport one pound of canned beans!”
NM took on a golden glow, and I thought he might have winked. He said, “But that can of beans is nothing compared to me! I am hundreds of times more complicated. My embedded costs not only come in the form of energy use; they come as environmental destruction, pollution, disease, child labor, and the inability to be recycled.”
He paused, “I weigh one thousand pounds, and as you see, I am about the size of a travel trunk.” NM’s lights showed he was serious. “I contain twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside me are 6,831 individual lithium-ion cells.
It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each auto battery like me, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just – one – battery.
He let that one sink in, then added, “I mentioned disease and child labor a moment ago. Here’s why. Sixty-eight percent of the world’s cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?”
NM’s red and orange light made it look like he was on fire. “Finally,” he said, “I’d like to leave you with these thoughts. California is building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco, and they intend to power it from solar panels and windmills. They claim this is the ultimate in being ‘green,’ but it is not! This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. Let me tell you why.
The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.
Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades. Sadly, both solar arrays and windmills kill birds, bats, sea life, and migratory insects.
NM lights dimmed, and he quietly said, “There may be a place for these technologies, but you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions. I predict EVs and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing them become apparent.
I’m trying to do my part with these lectures. As you can see, if I had entitled this talk “The Embedded Costs of Going Green,” who would have come? But thank you for your attention, good night, and good luck.”
NM’s lights went out, and he was quiet, like a regular battery.–
Bill+Leavens says
That was a remarkable analysis. Thanks. Nope, batteries may not be the ultimate answer. Small, modular reactors can also make hydrogen by cracking seawater. Shall we be looking there for an efficient portable fuel?
Alexander Szabo says
Who is Bruce Haedrich, the source of this remarkable analysis? An electrical engineer? Physicist? Energy expert? Economics professor at a renowned university?
Suggest others do a google search: “Bruce Haedrich is a former U.S. Air Force and commercial airline pilot. Over the years he has published several social commentary blogs, financial newsletters, and a series of ‘how to’ booklets. Despite that technical writing, he has always had a KEEN INTEREST IN FICTION IN WHICH HE NOW WRITES EXCLUSIVELY.”
Not exactly a reliable source…
Solar Believer says
Hello Mr. Beckett: you write
“Admittedly, the solar panels on my roof produce more than I use on an annual basis, pumping additional free electrons into the grid for my neighbors to use. And that sort of thing will become increasingly common in the coming years.
But will it become so prevalent it will fuel all the cars, trucks, and airplanes being brought into the electrical realm? Not hardly.”
————————————–
Ahem. Please do a LITTLE RESEARCH on solar power. I say “little” because that’s all I’ve done. I’ve heard Elon Musk say twice that all we need is about 100 square miles of solar panels to POWER THE ENTIRE United States.
He said things like “if you take the square footage of the land around a nuclear plant, the fenced-in area, remove the nuke plant and put in solar panels, the panels would create more electricity than the nuclear plant does.”
Yup. He said “It’s mathematics–each square foot of solar panel creates X amount of electricity.”
He jokingly said to put that solar field out near the “four corners,” because there’s nothing out there, no people to bother, etc.
Solar alone is WAY enough to power everything, amen.
To heck with the naysayers.
JimH in CA says
and what do you use when the sun sets….?
A nuclear plant will operate 24/7/365[ minus maint. ] and needs refueling very 10-20 years.
Alexander Szabo says
Fellow aviators,
I must say I am greatly dismayed to see all the negativity about the opportunity for electric planes and the general hopelessness of technology to halt the climate crisis (i’m not going to bother addressing the assertions that it’s not real).
Ironically reminds me of that quote, “If God had meant for man to fly, He would have given him wings.”
Frank says
Al,
We had an Al Szabo at UPS. Are you a relative of our Al Szabo?
Thank you for your optimism!
Frank
Alexander Szabo says
Hi Frank,
I’m afraid he’s not likely related, but hope he was a nice guy nonethless!
Miami Mike says
Electric airplanes are coming, and personally, I hope they arrive soon. No more expensive, flammable, carcinogenic gasoline, no more 50 hour oil changes (and lots of waste oil to be disposed of), no more oil leaks, blowby, heck our aircraft don’t even have PCV valves which were on cars 50 years ago. No more vibration, 5,000 hour TBOs in which you change two ball bearings and you are good for another 5,000 hours, FAR less noise, no carb ice (no carbs!), no CO leaks from cracked mufflers and cracked baffles, no more turbochargers, fuel injectors, a whole PILE of stuff we won’t need any more.
Batteries are getting better and better, they can be recycled as power packs for home use (Nissan is already doing this), and are charged by solar cells – no pollution.
Infrastructure will be a problem for a while, but consider the infrastructure necessary for gasoline and especially the dedicated infrastructure needed for Avgas and Jet A. First, you have to get the crude oil out of the ground, often buying it from countries who really aren’t our friends. Then it goes into supertankers which burn high sulfur “bunker” oil because it is really cheap, but it is really nasty. These supertankers have a service life of about ten years and then get scrapped in India or Bangladesh. They also tend to leak and run aground (Exxon Valdez, anyone?).
Then you get to the refineries, which are big, dirty, dangerous industrial complexes and when they get taken out of service, the ground is thoroughly contaminated. Once refined, the gasoline is delivered by tanker trucks, which adds more pollution and traffic, and we haven’t even USED the product yet. Avgas and Jet A have their own dedicated pipelines and tanker trucks to avoid fuel contamination. We have another problem – TEL is made by ONE company on the planet – that is a single point of failure for our entire supply of Avgas if they go out of business.
Electricity is distributed by wires – at 186,000 miles a second – with zero pollution. It is made by solar cells, wind farms, nuclear power plants (which are highly regulated and run a lot better and a lot more carefully than the one Homer Simpson works in), or on natural gas, which is an interim solution. Coal power plants are terrible polluters, and are being closed down.
People will buy electric cars because they simply work better than gasoline cars, and mid-range electric cars are expected to reach price parity with mid-range gasoline cars in the next two years. Electric cars cost MUCH less to run and to maintain, and frankly, most people don’t care what their car runs on, gasoline, electricity or pixie dust.
Electric airplanes will be going the same way by the end of this decade. They’ll be quieter, smoother and faster than gasoline powered airplanes – remember we won’t have much cooling drag, which accounts for up to 30% of the total drag! (Thank you Jim Bede for this figure.) They will also have higher service ceilings because an electric motor doesn’t care that the air is thinner at altitude, it will make full power from sea level up to where the air is so thin the propellers won’t work.
Sure, there will be waste byproducts from electrification, but if you look at the waste byproducts we have and make RIGHT NOW from supporting internal combustion engines, they don’t begin to compare.
Remember, people used to mock automobiles “Get a horse!”, but the “waste products” from horses made cities almost uninhabitable in the summer. Those horses also died after about 100 miles of “use” and then you had to dispose of them, too.
We don’t use horses for serious transportation any more, cars are much better. In a few years, we won’t use gasoline cars any more, simply because electric cars are much better. Electric airplanes won’t be far behind. You can accept progress or you can get run over by it.
Mac says
You sir are the problem.
JimH in CA says
…and it will be decades before there is an electric powered ‘Cessna 172’.
The motors and controllers are capable now….[ btw, they will be water cooled, as will the battery. ]
Oh and the battery will need about 550 kWhrs to match the C172.
[ I won’t do the math here ].
Today that battery will weigh 5,000 lb [ ref Tesla 100kwhr @1,000 lb ], which is 2x the gross weight of a C172 !. So, an 18x improvement in energy density is needed….not likely in the next few years.
Then, there is the problem of chargers. A fast dc charger capable of 200-250 kw, so it will take 2+ hours to recharge…IF the FBO will spring for the $50,000 to install one, and the local grid can handle it.
Miami Mike says
Mac, I would not presume to tell you what to drive or fly. It is really none of my business.
I will buy an electric car (or two) when the numbers make sense, and they are coming very close to doing so. The TCO (total cost of ownership) and reduced hassle factors make it worth my while to go electric.
I’m 75, so global warming and sea level rise are essentially only of academic interest to me. It won’t be my problem.
As to government conspiracies, I really don’t think they are smart enough to actually successfully conspire to anything. Do not attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
The US Army is in a “5 by 5 by 5” program right now. Their goal is to increase the capacity of batteries by five times, reduce the cost of batteries to one fifth, and do it within five years. Progress in electronics is very fast, progress in gasoline engines isn’t because the gasoline engine is a mature technology. There aren’t likely to be any huge breakthroughs.
If humans have no effect on global warming or cooling, I haven’t lost anything by converting to electric. If we do, I’ve made my small contribution to improving things just a bit. Either way, i won’t be sorry to see some of my gasoline and diesel vehicles go away.
Joe Reid says
do you actually own an airplane?, and fly it out of the pattern?
Let’s you and I fly from the east coast to the west coast. I will fly my gas burner and you fly your electric.
I will be there in 2 days, and I can go IFR if needed. You sir will I doubt be there in a week. My cost per hour will be half of yours too.
William MacIntyre says
I regard the Cessna 182 as a minimal practical private plane. It has a range greater than 1000 miles … your equivalent electric plane will need LOTS of Batteries… takeoff should be interesting. Prepare for the woods in the electric airplane! Energy density is a cruel limitation . There is a very long way to go. If a battery can be built that has an energy density equal to that of gasoline i fear it will be subject to sudden (and extremely catastrophic) failure. Good Luck.
Mac says
Sorry about the miss spelling of their and partial words. Did not proof read prior hitting send. But you get the point.
Just read, think, and don’t let someone convince you of things that don’t make sense.
Please think and don’t buy what the control freaks are selling. They will always have all the electricity and fuel they need. Al Gore, Amazon, Microsoft, ect.
Mac says
We are missing the point. It’s not a matter of making enough electricity, it’s the irrational thought that we, humans, an control the global temperature. If the Government is involved, there is always a hidden agenda. Don’t believe what they say.
The human made global warming believers, and some are scientists want to control your life. There goal is not to make enough electricity, it’s to make less, much less. If the electricity is not available you can’t use it. If you can use it you can’t pollute. Get it. If there is not enough electricity available, the Government can control (ration) it. 100% control.
Shutting down coal fired power plants is like throwing your water away while crossing a desert, stupid decision.
We as humans have 0 control over the climate. It’s stupid to think we can influence something as massive as our earth, solar system or galaxy.
The warming and cooling cycle as been happening long before humans have been around
Sea levels have been rising for 18,000 years. If someone, hypothetically would have built a house at present days Pacific shore location, the sea shore would be 20 miles west. But the sea level can’t rise much more because there is not much more ice to melt.
Then global cooling starts. If you think global warming is bad, just wait for the cooling to start. There goes all the farm land in Canada and half of the USA. Along with the world population from freezing and starvation.
Whew, I have had enough of this
JimH in CA says
Mac,
I 100% agree with the political ‘climate crisis’ and the CO2 issue, but I didn’t want to mix that in with the aviation discussion.
Mac says
Sorry about the mix but I couldn’t help myself, hi,hi
Steve says
You all have made a variety of statements that reflect some correct data based facts and some that are only based on your hopes or desires (more emotional than fact-based). Most of the problems mentioned are very real, but as a resource scientist I can assure you, two of the greatest threats to this desired future are not adequately covered.
One, the lesser of the two, is the horrendously large waste created by such a renewable energy future batteries are NOT going to be easily or totally recycled and the waste disposal requirements are going to be massively problematic. Even ignoring the growing problem associated with disposing “timed out” windmill blades is growing exponentially.
Two, the greater concern, is that there are simply not enough mineral resources in the world to create the system generators and necessary power grids to even achieve what the USA would need. More importantly, in an environmental sense, the mining that would have to be accelerated on known and likely reserves would require overruling or removing every environmental safeguard we presently have in place(and such mining requires massive amounts of energy). Hardly the Utopian Future we all might desire!
Steve+Pankonin says
Bingo !! That has been my comment for quite awhile. Infrastructure and it;s development is the real stumbling block. You can develop all the electrical vehicles you want , but without the grid to support it ???. You need to consider the enviromental impact that creates also. Just making those blades for the windmills is an example,
Jim Carter says
It isn’t just the production of electrical power that may soon be overwhelmed, but getting it from the plant to the consumer (toaster) is quickly going to become a weak point. Upgrading the “pipe” in your watering system in this case is going to be at least as expensive and much more intrusive as creating more clean generation. There are many consumers in our country that live in home with insufficient capacity to support electric vehicles, there are still a lot of homes with less than a 100 amp service. Even as those homes are upgraded completely at the homeowners’ expense, the local infrastructure to provide power to the last transformer on the line must also be improved – along with the transformer in a lot of cases. Our electrical network from plant to toaster was not built out to support this new demand yet no one is discussing where the money or time will come from to make it so.
I have just over an acre of “common area” greenspace behind my townhome, but can you imagine how neighbors will react when a few of us start using this grassy area to land or depart in our VTOLs? The public may be willing to support electrification of aviation – as long as it isn’t in their backyard. That’s yet another hurdle we have to jump.
Robert says
As good pilots fully understand, there are no problems but only solutions. Electric motors on aircraft are a great opportunity to change the shape of, and the performance of, an aircraft. Yes, batteries are heavy, expensive, and inefficient. But onward to the end goal of the best, we can be. If you own an electric vehicle, install solar so you can charge it locally thereby offsetting the load on the system. Simple solution, and aligned with your goal. As far as the junk old batteries, some entrepreneurial spirit will figure out how to recycle and profit from them very soon.
Let’s be positive and solve the problems along the way, just like navigating, small corrections along the path as we travel.
Mark says
This is the kind of fairy dust wishful thinking that is getting this country in trouble.
JohnW says
Actually Mark, I believe what Robert is saying is that America is the land of innovation and entrepreneurialism and can accomplish and innovate now the way we did when ‘fairy dust” thinkers like the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, Bill Gates etc did their thing and the many American workers behind their genius.
It’s the deep polarization of our politicians that is getting this country in trouble (on both sides)
Pilot dude says
Here’s the battery recycle guru:
Co-founder and CEO: JB Straubel
Prior to founding Redwood, JB spent 15 years at Tesla as Co-Founder and CTO where he built one of the best engineering teams in the world and, among many topics, led cell design, supply chain and led the first Gigafactory concept through the production ramp of the Model 3. JB had a direct role in both R&D, team building and operational expansion from prototype cars through to mass production and GWh-scale.
https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/about
Richard says
This article addresses a legitimate problem, the generation of electricity without pollution or use of nonrenewable energy resources. Until solar power can somehow be harnessed directly in the quantities needed, it seems that nuclear energy might provide the biggest ‘bang for the buck’. Yet, one unspoken problem is demand. Demand is directly related to population size. Ideally, keeping the population at its current size or smaller would keep demand constant or reduce demand. Underlying demand is the other problem inherent in the private ownership of material goods. No one in their right mind wants to have his or her goods stolen or removed. And unfortunately, there are all sorts of individuals (called criminals locally) who wish to increase their wealth by, basically, stealing. Which in turn leads to war, or in the business environment, competition. Economically, preparing for war be it between two individuals or two countries, is a very expensive, low to no return on investment solution. Interestingly, the onset of wars occurred at the same time that agriculture changed human society from small hunting/gathering communal ownership to large, stratified-by-occupation societies in which communal ownership gave way to private ownership of goods (with the attendant need to protect those goods from anonymous persons or groups of persons–a situation which didn’t exist in the small tribe where everyone “knew” everyone and significant assets were communal.) Ultimately, it appears that the technical solutions to achieving a high standard of living will require humans to learn to behave in such a manner as to reflexively prevent hostile aggressions to one another, achieving the ideals set out by the founders of the United States. We certainly have our work cut out for us!
José Serra says
You’re correct, Mr. Mike L
Larry says
You are spreading false information with respect to the use of natural gas to generate electricity. Beyond the fact that the US is sitting on huge amounts of it, it is very efficient when used in modern high efficiency systems.
At my summer home near Oshkosh, I have a furnace that is SO efficient that the “chimney” is a 2″ pvc pipe running out the side of the house. When the furnace is running, it gets warm … that’s it. Most of the effluent is water vapor. Doesn’t get much more efficient than that … in the 90+% range.
We DO agree that the electric grid in the US is NOT up to the task of electrification of everything. And electric airliners … ain’t gonna happen. Hybrid systems … maybe. When I lived in Kalyfornya, the tree huggers managed to shut down almost all the nuclear reactors. They wanted wind generators to do the task. So in the Mojave desert and near Palm Springs, tens of thousands of ’em were erected. Now the tree huggers are moaning that birds are being killed, the noise is objectionable and views are being spoiled. These people want the impossible until they plug in their toasters and there ain’t any ‘juice.’
Unless and until the US establishes a comprehensive LONG term plan to generate reliable electrical generation 24/7/365 … the notion that electricity is a panacea is not going to work. Even my non-technical wife looks at huge farm equipment and says, “How the heck are they gonna electrify those?”
Fred g says
The problem w natural gas is the methane ( 24 times the greenhouse effect as carbon) leakage from the wells as well as the fracking chemicals that ultimately end up as a long term threat to ground water.
There are available alternatives- we just need to exploit them!
Roland says
Very well said, Larry. Unless people get over their misconception that nuclear power is bad we will never successfully go all electric. In the interim the only reasonable solution in aviation has to be hybrid power. Cost and efficiency is viable with hybrids in the short term.
Jamie Beckett says
Larry;
I appreciate your verve in defending the efficiency of natural gas, but your suggestion that I’m spreading false information is…well, false. I made no mention of the efficiency of natural gas. I merely said it was neither renewable or clean. That is true. Unless you consider “renewable” to be on a timeframe of millennia, or “clean” to suggest the burning of any fossil fuel results in something other than poisonous gases (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide) being emitted.
We’ve got a long way to go along this road with plenty of issues to resolve along the way. Being honest and truthful about the options is of paramount importance.
I hope we can continue in that manner as we develop solutions to all our problems.
JimH in CA says
CO2 is NOT a poisonous gas, At very high concentrations is is harmful to humans…ie, Apollo13.
However plants [ food crops], need a minimum of 200 ppm to survive, and the current levels of 400 ppm are increasing food crop yields by 15%+ .
There are strong data that shows the CO2 does not affect global temperatures.
Burning nat.gas is much cleaner than burning coal…. CO2 and water vapor, vs soot, and radioactive elements.
Larry says
I’ve read articles that the increases in atmospheric CO2 HAS increased crop yields which — in turn — is feeding an ever growing world population.
Burt Rutan did a 1 hr YouTube video on the subject of CO2 being the big bad monster of climate change. He says that the largest generator of CO2 is water vapor coming from the oceans. So we’re chasing our tails around trying to minimize CO2 yet the oceans are fighting us.
Near Oshkosh, there is a HUGE ethanol plant which takes in trucks worth of corn and uses massive amounts of electricity to turn it into ethanol to mix with gasolene. So where did that electrical energy come from … trees ??
CF says
“…‘clean’ to suggest the burning of any fossil fuel results in something other than poisonous gases (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide) being emitted.“
Jamie,
First, even combustion of ethanol will produce “poison” carbon dioxide.
Second, you breath and depend on “poison” (not to mention corrosive) gases all day, every day of your life. “Poisonous” is essentially a matter of concentration, hence the tongue-in-cheek adage that “dilution is the solution to pollution”. If you haven’t done so, do some research on the effects of too much oxygen (or even water, for that matter). In terms of percentages, OSHA defines the minimum acceptable oxygen concentration to be 19.5%, while the maximum allowable is 23.5%. So, as carbon-based, oxygen-consuming organisms, the range from not enough oxygen to too much is a mere 4% point swing and it is probably worth noting that on a typical day you are breathing somewhere very close to 21% O2. So you spend most of your life a mere 2% from O2 overdose.
Meanwhile, though too much of your “poison” carbon dioxide is certainly a bad thing, too little is as well, both on an individual biological level and on a global ecosystem level.
Third, I sincerely hope that you aren’t so naive as to honestly believe that the federal government miraculously saw this “trend” and got ahead of it. What you broadly refer to as the the federal government doesn’t do anything that Congress doesn’t first give it money and instructions to do. (Guess how I know…) What you see isn’t trend following, it is trend creation, at great taxpayer expense, and at the direction of those who seek to create (and benefit) from that trend. Surely, as someone actively involved with AOPA, you recognize the activities of lobbyists and their pet politicians?
All that in mind, I’ll mention a few other old adages “all things in moderation”, “there are two sides to every coin”, and “always consider the source”.
Larry says
After I wrote my piece, I noticed in the picture of the “green” home with PV collectors on the roof that the right side of the chimney had two 2″ PVC pipes sticking out of it. That’s EXACTLY what I was saying that I have on MY home. One takes in outside air for combustion and the other exhausts the small amount of pollutants from the gas fired furnace. Whoever owns that home already knows what the most efficient way to heat it is.
Depending upon the need, not all alternative methods of providing it will work. For heating — at this time — natural gas is the best.
If the Government really wanted to make things efficient, they’d force the creation of electrical consuming appliances to run on 12 or 24 volts OR 110 vac. In that way, energy generated by PV cells could be stored in batteries and delivered directly to the low voltage requiring devices. Chief among these would be lighting. At this time, LED bulbs have to convert 110 vac to a lower DC voltage internally. I could foresee a time when all lighting in a home COULD be generated from PV sources and batteries.
But moving back to airplanes — and unlike electric cars — much of the energy needed is required to combat the gravitational forces. A car doesn’t have that problem. They ONLY have to overcome the friction in wheel bearings, in the motor and of wind friction.
Mike L says
Good article, BUT there’s a little problem it didn’t address. What about the batteries that will soon be exhausted? In Europe , I’ve read where junk yards are filling up with electric vehicles because it’s too expensive to replace the batteries. So they junk their old electric vehicles and buy new for somewhere around the same price. I can see that battery reclamation centers will soon be the norm or the land will be tainted with lead and other poisonous metals. Politicians love to fix things that aren’t broken and create new problems with programs that aren’t thought out very well.
Fredg says
VW is currently constructing a massive battery recycling plant. The used materials are valuable and will be recycled as more become available when they wear out.
Naysayer says
And how much does that recycling process add to the true total lifecycle cost of all those batteries? Also, I wonder how much non-useful, perhaps even toxic waste remains afterwards?
Jim Macklin ATP/CFII says
Flight schools can operate with 3 hour maximum endurance with an airplane.
BUT
With recharge time the plane needs several hours until the next student ….So interchangeable battery packs as well as charging stations and the grid needs 5 times current capacity.
A commuter can recharge while at work but a flight school needs to be able to fly the airplanes in the fleet 5 students per day. FAA long x-c requirements might limit training unless spare batteries were at school satellite airports.
Earth’s climate has been changing for a billion year before there were humans.
Maybe the goal of the environmental crowd is to reduce human world population to less than a billion?
Glenn Swiatek says
Spot on about the wait time to recharge. In commiefornia blackouts due to heat and / or wind are the norm in summer now, fwiw. No gas automobiles will be allowed to be sold after 2030. Good luck with that “ transition “.
“ Maybe the goal of the environmental crowd is to reduce human world population to less than a billion? “
Are you aware the initial earth day was Lenin’s birthday ? Do you think it is a coincidence ?
Make a small investment in your time to educate yourself of the origins of “ critical theory “. You’ll run across the name Herbert Marcuse. Dig a little deeper and before that was a guy Antonio Gramsci. Their objective was world communism. You can not overthrow a stable society. The objective is clear, the intentions are known, the fruit of the methods are in front of your eyes currently. Some say the fangs are out, I would agree.
Somehow I doubt after that nirvana is achieved, government will no longer be necessary, eh ?
But in the mean time, electric planes are a nice distraction.
As an aside, did you read Kelly Johnson’s memoir , “ More than My Share Of It All “ ? If I remember correctly he stated his team of Engineers and Technicians that developed the SR-71 numbered 400. See how many engineer’s are at Joby Aviation in Norcal. But KJ didn’t have a web site that may be a little exaggerated. His men delivered.