{"id":7766,"date":"2017-10-18T20:49:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T19:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7766"},"modified":"2017-11-06T18:18:42","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T17:18:42","slug":"electric-aircraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7766","title":{"rendered":"Electric aircraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flea<\/p>\n

One thing we thought as impossible when we wrote our book<\/a> was the idea of electric aircraft.\u00a0 This was for one very good reason.\u00a0 The weight of the batteries would preclude (with a conventional aircraft design) anyone getting in the aircraft as well as the batteries.\u00a0 After all kerosene has a much higher energy density than batteries.\u00a0 Up until now the only electric aircraft has been the solar impulse<\/a>.\u00a0 This aircraft can hardly be described as a future passenger aircraft design.\u00a0 Its really a solar demonstrator.\u00a0 However it really looks like this might be about to change (or at least start changing).<\/p>\n

Battery technology is currently dominated by Lithium ion technology.\u00a0 This type of battery is found in all the devices you probably use, plus electric cars.\u00a0 This technology is rapidly improving but suffers from a couple of problems.\u00a0 The first is that the energy density is relatively low.\u00a0 The second is the electrolyte is flammable (hence the problem with certain phone manufacturers phones blowing up).\u00a0 This second problem need not preclude Li ion batteries being used on aircraft (after all kerosene is highly flammable) but the first drawback does.<\/p>\n

To have true electric aircraft you would need a lighter more energy dense battery.\u00a0 There is a contender, Lithium sulpher.\u00a0 These currently have about 3 x the energy per unit weight compared to their Li ion cousins, but could be 10 x as high.\u00a0 This apparently makes the problem less insuperable and one airline is saying they could have electric short haul aircraft flying within a decade.\u00a0 This still raises some issues for me.\u00a0\u00a0 Firstly electrifying all the economy is in one way easy.\u00a0 All the infrastructure already exists.\u00a0 Or almost all of it.\u00a0 The electricity still has to come from somewhere.\u00a0 The second is that aircraft cause nuisance to those who lave around airports, although much of this nuisance is noise which presumably would not be a problem with electric aircraft.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing we thought as impossible when we wrote our book was the idea of electric aircraft.\u00a0 This was for one very good reason.\u00a0 The weight of the batteries would preclude (with a conventional aircraft design) anyone getting in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,31,1],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-7766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-transport","category-travel","category-uncategorized","tag-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nElectric aircraft - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7766\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7766\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7766\",\"name\":\"Electric aircraft - 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