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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.
(Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 12 2019, @04:13PM (3 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Shire on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:01PM (2 children)
BC Hydro serves about 1.5 million of the 5 million customers in BC. And 60% of that is fossil fuel generated power imported from the US western internconnect because hydro is seasonal and can't maintain the load on its own.
And lets be honest - the entire population of BC is smaller than most US cities and their urban surroundings. And being heavily mountainous, it's a special case where hydro is an important source of energy, but it's in no way a thing that can be pushed out globally.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 12 2019, @08:00PM (1 child)
BC is a BIG net exporter of electricity [biv.com].
Electricity doesn't have to be exported globally - just to the US border and beyond. Or consumed locally, as in this case, displacing fossil fuels.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dw861 on Saturday December 14 2019, @05:23AM
I once went on a tour of the BC Hydro Burrard Thermal plant in Port Moody (before it was closed). They burned natural gas during periods of peak load, because it was comparatively fast to turn "on" and "off".
On that tour I learned quite a few interesting things. I was quite surprised to hear that late at night, when demand for elec is low, BC hydro closes all of their dams and lets water accumulate behind them. When they do that, they purchase cheap electricity from Washington State's Hanford nuclear plant (which can't be turned off).
Then, the next day during peak times when electricity is in high demand (and expensive), they open up the dams and produce as much electricity as they can. If they have excess, so much the better. They take a lot of profit selling that power "back" to the US at a premium.
Depending on when Harbour Air recharges their batteries, those might be nuclear-powered float planes.