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from the airline-spelled-backwards-is-enalpria dept.
[...] Assuming these electric aircraft could be built, would they actually lower emissions? At present, no. Given the average emissions involved with powering the US grid, the emissions involved with powering an electric aircraft (including losses during transmission) would be about 20 percent higher than those generated by a modern, efficient jet engine. That doesn't mean they'd be entirely useless from a climate perspective, though. Once the additional warming effects of aircraft are taken into consideration, the electric aircraft comes out ahead by about 30 percent.
Future considerations complicate things pretty quickly, though. The price of renewable energy is expected to keep dropping, which will make renewables a larger part of the grid, lowering the emissions. The authors estimate that the vast majority of charging will take place during daylight hours—the peak of solar production—as well. Assuming future solar production leads to a discount on electric use during the day, it could help the economics of electric aircraft; currently, they only make sense economically with fuel at about $100/barrel.
How all of this would affect air travel is very sensitive to the capacity of future batteries. The authors estimate that an effective range of about 1,100 kilometers would allow electric aircraft to cover 15 percent of the total air miles (and corresponding fuel use) and nearly half the total flights. That would raise the total electricity demand by about one percent globally, although most of that would affect industrialized nations. Upping the range to 2,200 kilometers would allow 80 percent of the global flight total to be handled by electric aircraft.
Zeppelins still don't seem to figure into the answer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Lester on Saturday December 15 2018, @12:23PM (2 children)
Yes, that is the peak of oil that I linked. But from a practical point of view, if driving from home to work cost 100$, you don't have gas for car.
And medicine. Many drugs use chemicals components from crude. That is why shortage of oil it will be nightmare, and it is stupid just burning it. But as long as there is champage on the ice, let's party, toast and drink.
Nuclear power is expensive [wikipedia.org]It is a huge investment, that you may recover in years, that means financial costs. It costs to manage the waste. it costs to dismantle it. No private company wants to build a nuclear power plant, and those have done it, have swindled the government (o the citizens), many of the hidden costs are assumed by the government (waste, financial, assurance, security for years after dismantlement).
Now there are about 450 nuclear plants in the world. You need 7 years to build one. Are we going to build 4,000 before 2050? I don't think so. Second. Uranium is as limited as fossil fuel. According with this [wikipedia.org]at the current rate we will run out of Uranium in 135 years, if you build 4,000 nuclear plants it will last 13,5 years.
Nuclear plants are not profitable.
Well I'm in Spain, we have 220V. Since 1960, I think.
I' not very optimistic about transition. None wants to give up conveniences. Problems look far and politicians are not going to promise sacrifices today, for a better tomorrow. And if they do, we will not vote them.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Saturday December 15 2018, @06:55PM
Most of the US is 240 also, but split phase ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-phase_electric_power [wikipedia.org] ). High energy devices like whole house central AC/heat pumps, water heaters, dryers. 120v is for 2.5kw devices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:17PM
4,000 nuclear plants will not appear overnight. We have at least 30-50 years to transition to fusion plants. We have no time left to drag the feet. Gather physicists, explain the problem to them, task them, finance them. There is no other way - we need remaining oil for chemical works, we will run out of Uranium soon, and solar/wind cannot power huge demands of steel furnaces and aluminum plants (the power must be delivered non-stop, otherwise metals solidify forever.)