Pipistrel $1.3M prize

[TTSS]

1. If I read ONE MORE article that describes an electric plane/car/boat/motorcycle as “zero emissions”, I’m going to find the author and strangle him/her.
2. 75% of our electricity is generated by coal and gas.
3. Therefore, electric planes/cars, etc. are coal-powered vehicles.
4. Electricity generation and transmission are perhaps 30% efficient (similar to a car engine). Therefor, electricity is NOT cleaner than burning gasoline.
5. Electric planes/cars, are not any more “Green” than a 2012 Ford Mustang.
6. The government likes electric vehicles for the same reason they like income tax withholding. It makes it easier to hide the taxes!
7. The cost of “going Green” is around $120 billion per year (1% of GDP). Get ready to pay 20 cents per kilowatt hour for the luxury of accomplishing nothing.

[Seerjfly]

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[mustangbuilder]

[Kyle Boatright]

1. If I read ONE MORE article that describes an electric plane/car/boat/motorcycle as “zero emissions”, I’m going to find the author and strangle him/her.
2. 75% of our electricity is generated by coal and gas.
3. Therefore, electric planes/cars, etc. are coal-powered vehicles.
4. Electricity generation and transmission are perhaps 30% efficient (similar to a car engine). Therefor, electricity is NOT cleaner than burning gasoline.
5. Electric planes/cars, are not any more “Green” than a 2012 Ford Mustang.
6. The government likes electric vehicles for the same reason they like income tax withholding. It makes it easier to hide the taxes!
7. The cost of “going Green” is around $120 billion per year (1% of GDP). Get ready to pay 20 cents per kilowatt hour for the luxury of accomplishing nothing.

I largely agree with your points, but IMO, the benefit is that coal powered vehicles don't consume petrol and/or its byproducts. I think that's good, because I'd like to conserve petrol for uses where electricity/coal is not practical.

Electric vehicles reduce our oil imports and trade deficit. That's good.

It is likely that there will be continued improvements in solar, wind, and other alternate sources of electrical generation. As that technology matures, I'd love to be able to run a reasonable portion of our transportation network on alternate energy, where economically justifiable.

IMO, the Pipstrel e-flight program is an excellent project to stretch the bounds of electric power.

[steveinindy]

IMO, the Pipstrel e-flight program is an excellent project to stretch the bounds of electric power.

As much as I get accused of being too negative about electric aviation, I would tend to agree with you there. Research is always a good thing as long as it is done in a valid and scientific manner.

That said, I am really getting tired of politically based threads like this on here. I'm reasonably certain that when the switch was made from whale oil to electricity, those with a stake in the whaling industry put out all sorts of negative commentary about their competition. Nothing new under the Sun.

[John Cotter]

If the US would move toward more solar/wind electricity generation, then the emissions of these type of vehicles begins to approach zero. Until politicos stop taking money from coal/oil/gas producers, nothing significant will change. The other thing that has to happen: citizens have to step forward and accept the new technologies. Yes it may cost a bit more in the present, but the payoff will come down the road when the cost to produce equals what we are paying today and we lower our environmental damage.

[Boeing B-17G 42-231465]

Always ironic how everybody is so against nuclear power, when coal plants put out 1,000's% more radiation than nuclear power. You get more radiation from your spouse in bed than you do a nuclear power plant. See going green doesn't require solar panels, or windmills, both produce limtied amounts of power, at high cost, and the latter kills thousands of birds - whats so green about killing our little birdy friends? See, natural gas is cheap, and cleaner than gasoline; with teh keystone pipeline, we'd have the natural gas to power fleets, and consumer vehicles over time. By replacing coal plants with nuclear ones, we have cleaner power, more power, and the ability to produce hydrogen so those fuel cells could actually work, and plug-in hybrids would work on a large scale too. This alternative energy they speak of in nonsense! There's no magic alternative to fossil fuels, it generates more power than any other fuel source, leave nuclear of course. Nuclear is the safest and best form of electricity generation, and those skeptics should know that the massive glowing orb in the sky just happens to be, along with that molten ball of metal under our feet, God's first nuclear reactors for us. The earth and sun give us more radiation than a nuclear power plant, so does a banana, or most anything on this earth that's alive, since everything that lives produces amounts of radiation. Eventually, gasoline will be replaced by natural gas (if all goes to plan), with natural gas powered-fleets and consumer vehicles; hybrid-electric natural gas vehicles and fuel cells will all be possible with the conversion to nuclear power.

[Floatsflyer]

As much as I get accused of being too negative about electric aviation, I would tend to agree with you there. Research is always a good thing as long as it is done in a valid and scientific manner.

That said, I am really getting tired of politically based threads like this on here. I'm reasonably certain that when the switch was made from whale oil to electricity, those with a stake in the whaling industry put out all sorts of negative commentary about their competition. Nothing new under the Sun.

Hey Steve, don't want to burst your idealic bubble, but everything is politics, everything is political because of competing interests and differing points of view, correct or incorrect, intelligent or ignorant. Non-BS is what we should all be striving for. The pure definition of politics is the allocation of scarce resources. And speaking of scarce resources, fossil fuels from this good Earth will be tapped out in about 100 years from now so our reliance on oil must be replaced quickly by new innovations and technologies in new energy sources that are taking place now and into the future. Our continued existance as human beings is dependant on it. You could look it up!

[steveinindy]

don't want to burst your idealic bubble

LOL You don't know me well at all if you think I'm at all idealistic.

The pure definition of politics is the allocation of scarce resources.

Actually, that's the definition of economics as well.

Non-BS is what we should all be striving for.

That's what I was getting at but then one side or the other contests the evidence and it goes right back to being a massive swirling cloud of ****.

so our reliance on oil must be replaced quickly by new innovations and technologies in new energy sources that are taking place now and into the future. Our continued existance as human beings is dependant on it. You could look it up!

Oh, I agree completely. I just don't believe that we are going to see electric aircraft replacing internal combustion engines anytime soon (except for the extreme low end of the ultralight and light sport bug smasher crowds). We are far more likely to come to rely upon biodiesel or something like that. However, making such suggestions tends to turn into the "Keep your ethanol out of my gas! Y'all hear? *shotgun being racked*" sort of debate. I try to stay away from alternative fuel discussions as much as possible in circles (such as this forum) where I know the slant is distinctly "conservative" (said as a moderate Republican). It just does not end well.

[tdm]

Barring any unforeseen rapid advances in the energy density of batteries, I agree with the majority of posters here. I think all electric aviation is not currently practical nor does it appear to soon be practical. But I don't think the current powerplant technologies utilized in general and even commercial aviation represent anything resembling an apex of development!

Internal combustion engines, turbine engines, and even fuel cells could all benefit from combined cycle (combined power and power) additions, if the weight of such a recovery cycle could be made practical. With the rising price and likely future scarcity of high octane gasolines, general aviation engines burning diesel (taking Diamond aircraft's approach with the DA42), or even burning natural gas or methanol could become practical.

And with commercial aviation, any increase in the thermodynamic efficiency of a high burn efficient turbofan, combined with aerodynamic improvements, such as contra-rotating fan and pitch control fan, I think could pay for their development costs quite nicely, especially with today's fuel prices.

All electric control systems, however, on larger aircraft combined with increasingly powerful batteries, I think are ready to replace hydro-mechanical servocontrols, right now and with current technology. (Clever electromagnetic shielding and redundancy would have to be engineered in of course, for safety.)

Overall, I hope, (and expect, (perhaps (probably) over-optimistically)) that the average general/small commercial aviation aircraft manufactured 15 years from now will be vacuum/pneumatic/hydraulic system free, completely solid state glass instrumentation, all composite airframe, and not a vor or adf in sight. And with an extremely efficient cheap natural gas burning combined cycle FADEC engine. (Now I'm dreaming..)

Or we will still be flying aluminum avgas burners..