The future is electric propulsion for all human transport…
Certainly. But not as long as the electricity is produced the way it is now. It makes absolutely no sense to charge an electrical car (or aircraft) with electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. It is far more efficient to burn those fuels directly in the car (or plane). And regarding nuclear power: After half a century of using it, nobody has come up yet with a good idea of how to dispose safely of the nuclear waste. Germany (who decided to quit nuclear electricity after the Fukushima catastrophe) faces astronomical costs – there is not even a good estimate of the order of magnitude involved – for permantent “burial” of the wastes accumulated over the last 50 years.
I have a few friends, who were fighting at that front and BMW had a lot influence in the destruction of Früstenfeldbruck.
Honestly, if I worked for BMW, I would have fought that airport, too. What is my interest in a GA airport as a car maker? Surely less important than a race track for my cars. Can’t blame a corporation in capitalism for pursuing its goals.
Another one is hydroelectric storage plants. We have lots of them but unfortunately the german subsidy on renewables distorted the market in a way that made operating those plants a loss.
Yes, there were two big mistakes: the subsidies went mostly into the worst of all renewables (solar power) and second it was opened ended. The demand was overwhelmingly big and the electricity prices skyrocketed. However, hydroelectric power is coming back, it is seen as an important technology to store peak wind/solar power. In the short term, the exponential growth in renewable energy in Germany has created market distortions — when both wind and sun are strong, we have negative (!!!) electricity prices in Europe. Hard to believe. Over time it will play out well I believe. There’s always friction when trying to do something new and in a democracy, government policies are not easy to implement, by the time they trickle down to the market players, they will most likely be distorted.
The risk is that German household energy bills, by my brief exposure, are roughly 2-3 times what I pay in the US, and rising.
An advantage in the long run. It creates an environment where innovation pays off and it does create economic growth. People here buy new fridges and TVs, solely because they’re more energy efficient. Old cars were faced out almost entirely because you simply no longer have the right to drive them in metropolitan areas (and the definition of what is metropolitan has expanded down to villages by now). Of course is all Big Government and nanny etc. which most Americans despise 
Tesla S will kill it in Europe. Absolutely kill it. Logic tells me that if it’s a runaway success in the US, then it should be 3x more of a success in Europe with 3x higher fuel prices. And with the supercharger stations, Musk is also supremely placed to be able to charge for energy to other car makers. He’s like Standard Oil all over again. I could foresee a future where Tesla will be the biggest car maker and transport energy provider in the world. I’m not joking.
You own stock? Tesla make nice cars but they certainly don’t have unique technology. The supercharger model is a great marketing thing and gives them a lot of first mover attention but giving away electricity for free is not a sustainable business model (1 kWh is roughly 0.3€ in Germany and you need almost 100kWh to fuel up a Tesla Model S with the big batteries). Europe has now agreed on a single DC fast charging standard called CCS (combined charging system) and all carmakers (of which every single one is like 1000 times bigger than Tesla) invest in it. The Japanese standard Chademo is common in the Netherlands and there are already combined CCS/Chademo chargers. Eventually Tesla will do CCS in Europe just like they added 3 phase AC for Europe. Today, Germany has 1400 public chargers with 22kW and Tesla has I think 6 superchargers. There are 14 CCS but that number will increase significantly this year. Tesla is good for driving adoption of the electric car but it is just one player. I would have bought one if it didn’t have this sledgehammer approach with low tech laptop batteries.
But not as long as the electricity is produced the way it is now. It makes absolutely no sense to charge an electrical car (or aircraft) with electricity generated by burning fossil fuels.
So hybrid makes even less sense then.
Using a internal combustion engine (18%), a generator (85%), an accumulator (Li ion) 85, an electric engine (85%) which gives a 11% total efficiency of the fossil fuel burned we call AVGAS.
Not to mention the energy costs of refining (15%) and distributing (?) the avgas…
Electric vehicles could play a big part in smoothing the load to the grid, by avoiding charging at peak times or even feeding back. This would make renewable energy more viable, and also increase the percentage of the vehicles’ power supplied by renewable sources.
So hybrid makes even less sense then.
For aeroplanes, absolutely. (Single engine) Aero engines typically operate in a range between 65 percent (cruise) power output to 100 percent and are optimised for best efficiency at something like 75 percent. So they are very close to this optimum already. A car is very different. It’s engine generates between 10 percent power (drifing along in city traffic) and 100 percent (overtaking on a country road) and is rather inefficient most of the time. A hybrid with a small engine that runs at a constant optimum power with a battery buffer for peaks and pure electrical drive for short distances can make the overall package a lot more efficient. The extra weight of the hybrid system is not such a heavy penalty in a car than in a light aircraft.
And regarding nuclear power: After half a century of using it, nobody has come up yet with a good idea of how to dispose safely of the nuclear waste.
I mentioned that in one of my posts above – the physics has been done now and early plant design work is in progress by two groups. The amount of energy contained in the existing waste dwarfs the amount of energy extracted from it so far.
Re avgas, I think the most productive use of private R&D resources at the moment will be to modify higher powered GA engines for certification on unleaded fuel like the small ones, preferably auto fuel. Gasoline engines are the best technical solution for GA, and the non-technical problem is that GA has never been affordable due to low standard of living, taxation etc in some parts of the world, so dedicated fuel distribution is therefore limited. The weight and complexity penalty for reduced octane will be tangible, but relatively small.
Don’t mix power % with efficiency%. Even the best turbocharged stationary engine is around 22%, the thermodynamical limit is 37%.
Compare it with a modern natural gas power plant (60%).
Don’t mix power % with efficiency%.
I don’t. Your optimum car engine can run at 22% efficiency only at one given point/rpm. It will run at less than half efficiency for the rest of the time, averaging maybe 15% efficiency. A hybrid car will run at those 22% all the time, thereby cutting the consumption by about one third compared to the conventional one (which is also the figure that my colleague claims after driving a hybrid for a year).
Compare it with a modern natural gas power plant (60%)
These are now really close to the thermodynamic optimum. But power distribution losses and charging losses in the batteries will bring the overall efficiency down to normal petrol car values again. A hybrid powered by a natural gas turbine would be a good solution…
Don’t mix power % with efficiency%. Even the best turbocharged stationary engine is around 22%, the thermodynamical limit is 37%.
Compare it with a modern natural gas power plant (60%).
Sorry, those numbers are not correct. A modern petrol engine in a car has 36% efficiency at its optimum point (typical 50% RPM), a modern car diesel engine 43%. The big 2-stroke ship diesels have up to 52% efficiency. The large 2-stroke diesel is the most efficient ICE we know.
Compare it with a modern natural gas power plant (60%)
They can have a lot more if you make use of the heat. Over here, you are legally required to use district heating (Fernwärme) when available. If you burn fossil fuels, best do it in large stationary optimized plants.
Let’s just for a moment ignore the power storage hurdles we still face, and assume there are new batteries available that will store the power equivalent of the gas I have in my Aerostar. In that case, based on expensive California energy costs I could in my retrofitted Aerostar see:
1. Charged at high peak: Fly for $33/hr compared to todays $176
2. Charged at low peak: Fly for $22/hr compared to $176. And if I flew in Europe, I would be able to fly for the above compared to $364/hr in fuel costs.
As you can see, this is a savings of the magnitude of between 5 to 15 times compared to today. That has the potential to grow GA substantially. So electric is not the enemy here, it’s the friend of aviation.
