Jet fuel holds fifty times more energy per unit of weight than batteries, according to e-science magazine Inverse. They say you might have to replace Boeing 737 passengers with storage cells just to fly for one hour. Better electric batteriesbare not available yet. But could hybrid aircraft be the next step in the journey towards carbon-free flight?
How Hybrid Aircraft Could Reduce Emissions
Hybrid aircraft would use batteries in tandem with jet fuel, the way we team them with gasoline in hybrid vehicles. This would reduce carbon emissions, and be better than doing nothing.
For example, aircraft could taxi on battery power on the ground after landing. They could also boost performance during energy-sapping take-off and acceleration too. The unique weight-limitations of aviation might cause us to have to pause at that point.
However, hybrid aircraft could still play a useful role in smaller, regional turbo-prop aircraft with 50 to 80 passengers. These could take off and land at regional airports closer to passengers’ homes, while we waited for technology to catch up.
Future Electric Aircraft Technology to Watch
Sustainable aviation biofuels could reduce aircraft emissions by 80% according to Inverse. However, this would consume a large quantity of trees, contribute to deforestation, and compete with our food supply.
Synthetic aviation fuels are another possibility. Manufacturing them involves capturing carbon from the air, or other industrial processes and synthesizing it with hydrogen. But this process is complex and there are challenges to up-scaling it to commercial volume.
Hydrogen fuel is a third option we can produce from water using sustainable energy and electrolysis. However, we could need a lot of space to store the gas. Even the cooled liquid has a greater volume per unit of energy than aviation fuel.
Aircraft safety is another issue overlaying all these options. Air travel currently contributes around 3% of global emissions. But we could have three to five times more aviation emissions by 2050 than before the pandemic, if we do nothing about it.
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