Originally Posted by galaxy flyer

Insulting people—the sure sign of a losing argument.

GF

Originally Posted by rickair7777

Let's get started on the stupid...
Huh? You're kind of throwing "science sounding" terminology around loosely here but what you really mean is specific energy. Energy density matters, but it's not the show stopper.

The show stopper (as someone pointed out already) is chemistry, specifically electron valence energy. That's pretty fundamental based on known laws of physics. If you can re-write the laws of physics to change that, we won't need airplanes because we'll also have anti-gravity, levitation, FTL, and time travel.

Wrong. It can be economically viable if you remove all the political stupidy which creates (intentional) artificial impediments.

Modern plant designs would be even more economical than old ones... most operating plants in the US are the engineering equivalent of a '65 Ford. Also vastly safer too.

And "economically viable" by what measure? If it's that vital to save the planet from CO2, it's not unreasonable that (clean) electrical power might be a little more expensive than say coal.

Niche. Plenty of places to build it, but many folks really don't want those things all over the place. Also as progressives have to learn over and over again there are some engineering limitations on power generation... the places that need power are not necessarily close enough to places where windmills make sense (windy with few residents).

Profitable? If it were profitable, rich guys would be doing it to get even richer. It is quickly becoming technically more practical, and will obviously play a role.

But like wind, the best places to generate solar power (southwestern deserts in the US) are too far away from most population centers, ie it's not going to help new england much. High latitudes and/or cloud cover quickly reduce the utility of solar.

Grid capacity will actually have to increase unless controls are put in place because folks will want to charge their cars while at work during the day (peak AC use, peak industrial commercial use, etc). If you can limit car charging to night only, the current grid might suffice.

Nuke is much better than coal or NG. You just have to get around stupid people who are afraid of things they don't understand, and easily mislead by self-appointned wingnut counter-culture gurus.

H2 is not an energy source any more than a battery is. It's just a means of transporting and delivering energy (ie a fuel).

H2 is good because the only emission is H20... that's fine at sea level but actually bad in the flight levels where there's normally no moisture above the tropopause. If you put moisture up there it will produce a greenhouse effect like Co2.

There are engineering challenges, and of course. The only clear win for H2 is applications where you need specific energy at all costs, including low energy density. That's pretty much space launch, specifically deep space launch.

Not an energy source, just a system component. The nature of the fuel in question is what's significant. If the fuel makes sense, then fuel cells can make sense.

Not dead, it will be around forever

Huh???

You do realize that a capacitor is a kind of battery, right?

The higher capacity capacitors have the same chemistry limitations as other batteries.

Field capacitors are also limited by physics... if you try to use high voltage to increase energy storage, you need a lot of weight and space to contain that voltage. And you will reach a voltage which cannot be contained by practical volumes of material or spacing. With reasonable voltages, capacitors simply weigh too much (compared to practical fuels/energy storage systems).

That's really hard to quantify. If we let all of the wannabe rogue regimes just run amuck, there would be much broader economic consequences than just oil.

But eliminating most oil use would certainly be a good thing, in many respects. It just needs to be done in a coordinated manner so as not to code blue the global economy.

There's a clear niche for electric planes, and it can probably (barely) include small regional jet market.

Electrical airplanes are actually a fascinating engineering challenge because of all the various tradeoffs. All of which can be fined-tuned for the specific mission at hand.

But with batteries you're still limited to about 8% of the specific energy of Jet A, and that's at 100% chemical efficiency.

Chemical batteries are the best known portable storage technology for electrical energy. They can be improved, but there's a glass ceiling and we already know about what it is (1,000 KwH/Kg).

Frankly, lots of passion but pretty weak on basic science and engineering.

Originally Posted by JohnBurke

You are referring to me, but have attributed to me that which I did not say. You are a liar.

I said nothing about "electrical airplanes are hard." YOU said that. Speak for yourself, if you believe that you're capable. Don't put words in my mouth. I speak very well for myself.