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posted by martyb on Thursday December 12 2019, @11:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the worlds-first-commercial-electric-beaver dept.

The Guardian is reporting;

The world's first fully electric commercial aircraft has taken its inaugural test flight, taking off from the Canadian city of Vancouver and flying for 15 minutes.

"This proves that commercial aviation in all-electric form can work," said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of Australian engineering firm magniX.

The company designed the plane's motor and worked in partnership with Harbour Air, which ferries half a million passengers a year between Vancouver, Whistler ski resort and nearby islands and coastal communities.

The recycled 62-year-old de Havilland Beaver seaplane is designed for short hops of 160 km or less, which represents the majority of Harbour Air flights. They're looking to save millions on costly maintenance and downtime. Harbour Air hopes to convert most of their airplanes after certification.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:51PM (7 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:51PM (#931426) Journal

    That electricity has to come from somewhere and since no one has the common sense to embrace nuclear it's certain that the bulk of that electricity was generated by fossil fuels.

    British Columbia and the US Northwest has massive hydroelectric power.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Shire on Thursday December 12 2019, @06:42PM (6 children)

    by The Shire (5824) on Thursday December 12 2019, @06:42PM (#931479)

    Massive hydroelectric power is still a tiny fraction of the grid. And hydro has no place to expand, virtually all viable hydroelectric locations have already been exploited.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:08PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:08PM (#931490) Journal

      Massive hydroelectric power is still a tiny fraction of the grid.

      I consider 9/10 to be a rather large fraction. [cer-rec.gc.ca]

      • (Score: 2) by The Shire on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:15PM

        by The Shire (5824) on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:15PM (#931496)

        BC Hydro is the main electric distributor, serving 1.8 million customers in most areas

        BC has a population of 5 million. At best Hydro is serving 30%.

        BC had the largest volume of electricity imports in Canada (9700 Mwh), from the Western Interconnection in the US which is 60% fossil fueled

        So yea, there's that too...

    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:26PM (3 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:26PM (#931498) Journal

      Massive hydroelectric power is still a tiny fraction of the grid. And hydro has no place to expand, virtually all viable hydroelectric locations have already been exploited.

      This is Canada, not the US. Quebec is almost exclusively hydro, with wind being built up. And yet we're still building dams. No coal-fired plants. Maybe a few peaking gas turbines ... and they'll be phased out for battery storage eventually because gas turbines are so expensive to run and maintain that they can't be used for main generation capacity.

      Nobody wants their kids sitting for an hour each way on a noisy diesel school bus. Nobody wants to sit on a diesel city bus when they can take one of our air-conditioned hybrids, or the newer all-electrics slated to come into service soon.

      Ask yourself why subways are electric. Not as noisy as diesels, and you're not going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Diesel-electric trains instead of diesel-only locomotives? Cheaper to run. Electric street and home lighting instead of gas from Sherlock Holmes' time? Cheaper, lower maintenance, easier to automate.

      Even gas stoves are going to have to go because of indoor pollutants.

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      • (Score: 2) by The Shire on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:38PM (2 children)

        by The Shire (5824) on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:38PM (#931505)

        BC imports power from the us. Hydro is truly a fantastic source of power, there's no question of that, but hydro alone doesn't do enough. You cannot expand hydro to meet an expanding demand for electricity, hydro is already doing as much as it can. Filling that gap will require another source of power generation and right now the only 24/7 sources of such power are fossil fuels and nuclear, neither of which are in the good graces of the climate alarmists.

        Flying electric planes, cars, and buses are great so long as the source of that electricity is also clean and efficient. I just don't see how even Canada, with all it's hydro, will be able to keep up without also going nuclear.

        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 12 2019, @11:40PM

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday December 12 2019, @11:40PM (#931569) Journal
          Most net exporters also import when its advantageous. Sometimes because of the way the market works, you can actually arbitrage the supply to make a profit selling it on. So of course you buy when you can match it with a sell for a profit. You'd be stupid not to. But the entity selling doesn't have a connection with the potential buyers, so they have to accept a lower price for their surplus.
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        • (Score: 1) by Goghit on Friday December 13 2019, @02:24AM

          by Goghit (6530) on Friday December 13 2019, @02:24AM (#931602)

          Old statistics. B.C. used to import power to meet domestic demand but hasn't needed to for some time. We still import power from the PNW when it is really cheap, conserving water in the reservoirs until the price increases then use the water to export electricity at a profit. We don't need to do this to meet local demand, but profit is profit.

          The Site C dam in the Peace River while controversial will bring on line a significant increase in power generating capacity, fueling our Teslas and allowing us to tell Alberta to take its tar bitumen tankers and get stuffed.