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First test flight of largest all-electric aircraft used just $5 of electricity (arstechnica.com)

submitted 21 hours ago by supersquirrel@lemmy.ca to c/aviation@lemmy.ca

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 4 points 18 hours ago

I know it's cheaper but I echo the Ars commentors' pleas for MWh or MJ representation of energy consumption instead of peak power and USD(?).

Battery tech is very exciting and promising, and yes it's not the one-size-fits for all aviation, but I think over the next couple decades electric aviation can chip at one segment at a time. At present it seems feasible for island or remote regional shuttles. In the short term SAF will help mitigate emissions impact, but I can only imagine the day all-electric transatlantic flights become real in the way flights were in the mid 20th century, requiring multiple stops by the edge of Canada, via Iceland then onto Europe, or via Hawaii in the Pacific.

[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Very clickbaity numbers, no mention of how this compares to fuel cost for a similar flight taken.

[–] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca -2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

How is that relevant? It is WAY higher.

[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

How do you know without knowing how far the plane flew and how much electricity it actually used

[–] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca 0 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

It is very simple.

Electric engines are far more efficient than fossil fuel engines.
The generation of electricity from a large powerplant to charge an Electric Aircraft's batteries whether a fossil fuel powerplant or a sustainable energy one is going to be an order of magnitude more efficient than converting fossil fuels into energy in a minipowerplant on the airplane. This is a simple consequence of the efficiency of scale.
Electric Aircraft can maximally reduce the cost of energy by charging when the grid is oversupplied with electricity, this provides a capability to trade waiting time for reduced energy footprint/grid impact and in many situations the energy stored in an Electric Aircraft's batteries that can be used to then accomplish real work might have simply gone to waste if there hadn't been another battery hooked up to the grid.
The production of aviation fuel in particular is costly and energy intensive requiring discrete production infrastructure whereas the charging of a battery for an electric aircraft just takes normal old electrons like any old battery.

If the cost of using an Electric Aircraft is minimal, than comparing it to fossil fuel powered Aircraft isn't really relevant since the fossil fuel powered Aircraft is going to use far more energy and resources to accomplish the same amount of work.

That doesn't mean there aren't drawbacks to Electric Aircraft, but one of their undeniable advantages is that they are far less wasteful with energy use than normal Aircraft in a way that is difficult to compare directly with simple numbers.

How do you value alternative electricity production that is going to waste?

That is a question with a manifold of implications and it makes your question far more difficult to parse than you realize.

[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

You're not getting my point, I'm not disputing that electric engines are better or that this is great news.

Simply, $5 electricity means nothing and they should have used comparable measurements (e.g. kWh) and told us the height and distance flown so it can actually be compared. You keep saying things are far more or much less of whatever, I'd like some specifics from the test to understand how much better this technology is.

[–] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca -1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

You asked "how do you know that" and I answered you.

[–] db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago

Cool, welcome to lemmy. You're going to be fun to chat to.