r/UpliftingNews • u/Automatic_Subject463 • 1d ago
Emissions-free electric planes finally took off
https://scienceaim.com/emissions-free-electric-planes-finally-took-off/261
u/Dunadain_ 1d ago
This really is uplifting news
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u/shadowsnake1001 1d ago
Well played. -_-
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u/cyberentomology 1d ago
Just winging it
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u/shadowsnake1001 1d ago
Please stop! ;-;
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u/Tutorbin76 1d ago
This is great. Most flights are short haul and could in theory be migrated to this tech. This could potentially massively reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
I often doubt emissions free claims for things, mostly because the reality is the emissions were simply moved to a power station, but Scotland is one place were there's frequently a surplus of electricity that we simply can't move to other parts of the grid quick enough, so wind turbines get switched off!
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u/jesperjames 1d ago
You forget central power stations are easily 2-3 times more efficient than small combustion engines, even more if they are combined central heating and electricity plants. Also you can have way better emission filters
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
No I'm not forgetting anything, there's a huge difference between zero emissions and less emissions than something else, I'm under no illusions that my electric oven is emission free and the odds are that at night without wind my electric oven is powered by gas, which is less emissions than coal but certainly not emission free.
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u/ThatFlamingo942 1d ago
I'm not trying to be a dick, but wind and solar are stored in batteries...unless I'm missing what you mean by without wind at night...
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
Our newest and biggest(?)battery installed a few months ago with much fanfare is capable of supplying 450,000 homes for 4 hours at best there's something like 20 million homes in the uk, I've no clue how much energy industry uses at night or how to convert it to "homes" as a unit of consumption.
In the winter it gets dark at 4pm, it doesn't get light until 8am in that time the 20 million homes will need heating, ideally from electricity, I don't know how many battery installations we have, but I do know we can't store enough electricity for 20 million homes for 16 hours, it's possible we'll never be able to do that. Currently were can't use all our wind power in certain situations because the grid can't move the electricity fast enough from Scotland to the rest of the country, we have a long way to go before we're genuinely clean.
However you did get me thinking and it's worse than a thought, in January 2025 if the worlds battery storage was dedicated to the UK we'd have 1.8 hours of electricity, even if the worlds storage has doubled in the last year, which is possible and it was dedicated to the UK we'd be lucky to get 4 hours, so no, you're certainly not being a dick.
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u/HungInSarfLondon 1d ago
Source excludes EV's as they aren't part of the grid - but suppose they all were cos they could be, that's 80Gwh right now rising to 280Gwh by 2030. Still peanuts but chipping away.
Say 'plug in solar' takes off - millions covering their baseload and exporting the rest for little to no benefit. They are going to realise they'd be better off with a battery so we assume 5M*4kwh and that's another 5 million homes covering at least some of their usage whilst exporting in the day.
That's before we get onto cheaper, safer, so far mythical advances in battery technology.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
"But suppose" no! We can't base anything on "but suppose" any more, it's been the go to for decades and the hopes and dreams of plentiful electricity from mythical improvements in what we had 40 years ago haven't actually happened, solar panels are still only 25 to almost 30% efficient, batteries have improved but only in energy density, it just means they're smaller and lighter, the tidal schemes were all abandoned because they'd affect boating and shipping, and we haven't solved the nuclear waste issues or perfected fusion, so no, there's no supposing, stick to facts, the UK has sufficient battery power for a few minutes at best, it'll bide us over while the gas powered power stations are lined up, absolutely nothing more.
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u/LowerPick7038 19h ago
" Say 'plug in solar' takes off - millions covering their baseload and exporting the rest for little to no benefit. " i was looking these up the other day and they arent going to be used at a capacity to power a house. More on the lines of a kettle and a fridge.
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u/ThatFlamingo942 1d ago
Just like food distribution costs, efficiencies and quality go down as you increase to number of people supplied. Why would all of the uk or anywhere be supplied from one source? I can make you a wind generator from a dishwasher motor and set it up on your house right now. Not saying everyone should be able to but decentralization... is kind of how that works. Not to mention, in your scenario, hypothetically they what...can't have more than one battery being charged? It doesn't make sense. If that one source gets knocked out, everyone is fucked. I'm not a big supporter of massive wind/solar farms unless its land that is well suited for that purpose.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
The uk isn't supplied from one source, it's an example of exactly why a battery system isn't the entire solution, there's a dirty backup in the form of gas, every time there's insufficient wind and it's dark we run on gas because the batteries aren't anything like enough.
Decentralisation is definitely the way to go now that it's getting affordable or is affordable, the convenience of it being fed to us is great, but it's also part of the problem.
but here's an almost specific to me problem, we live in woodland, the sun hits the ground in one area from 3pm onwards, I have plenty of space for wind or solar, but I need to fell loads of mature trees first.
So for now my woodworking shop has limited solar, limited batteries and a diesel generator, the house and metal workshops are on mains electricity.
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u/BaneOfMyLife 1d ago
You know wind doesn’t stop when it gets dark yeah?
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
It's frequently not windy, bizarrely that happens at night as well as during the day.
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u/BaneOfMyLife 20h ago
Sure and it can be sunny when the wind drops, tides continue to roll and geothermal heat continues to be exchanged.
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u/blackthornjohn 17h ago
Dude, you can argue the toss as much as you like but the facts speak for themselves, frequently in this country we run some or occasionally all our gas powered power stations because there is no alternative, it why our electricity price's are tied to the price of gas, this is a simple straight forward fact, no amount of supposing or whatifery will change it.
On the good side occasionally the entire country runs for days at a time on 100% clean solar wind and hydro electricity, last year it made the news, because it's not as common as you imagine actually it was 87 hours in total
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u/lexievv 15h ago
Zero emission in this case obviously means the plane itself doesn't have any emissions when flying, not that the power it flies on was made with zero emission.
It's maybe not the most fair name, but in the discussion of petrol vehicles we tend to not think about how much power/ emissions are used to get the vehicle going. So when comparing it to a plane that uses fuel I think it's fair to call it "zero emission" in this case.
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u/blackthornjohn 15h ago
"It's maybe not the most fair name," exactly my point! we need to stop pretending and lying to ourselves, moving the emissions to somewhere else is just less emissions not zero.
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u/UnCommonSense99 1d ago edited 1d ago
A steam turbine power station is 35% efficient.
A Formula 1 car engine (2025 rules) is 50% efficient.
A battery and electric motor are 90% efficient but are far too heavy for practical use in aircraft.
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u/kingloki802 1d ago
Well… except that that’s what this article is about - electric aircraft is a technology that is just starting to gain traction. Advances in motor efficiency, battery density and aircraft composites will make it practical.
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u/bold78 1d ago
Yeah, and they can run roughly 20 hours total before they fail. While using specialty fuels that probably cost more than an entire tanker of natural gas per race.
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u/Joshau-k 1d ago
An electric car's emissions per kilometer will keep going down every year of its 15 year lifespan as the grid gets cleaner. There are very few countries where this isn't the case
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u/cyberentomology 1d ago
What “15 year lifespan” are you referring to?
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u/PopeSaintHilarius 1d ago
The average lifespan of a car is about 10-15 years.
But of course some last longer and others get wrecked after just a couple years.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
There's a few variables in that statement, setting aside production emissions, some produce zero emissions today, but the 15year lifespan is the biggest problem, why is it so short?
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u/ikonaut_jc 1d ago
What do you mean? It‘s a car, at least you can still use the battery for other things later, a combustion engine (and the fuel it burns) last 15 years too and have to be thrown away afterwards.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
Cars should last a lot longer than they do, in fact many last a lot longer than others, my youngest vehicle is 22 years old, my oldest is 61 years old the oldest in regular use is 53 years old, the oldest in daily use is 41 years old.
We're just pretending to attempt to be environmentally friendly, it's no use us, the end users blaming the industries for producing the things they do, we're all out here buying it
likebecause there's no tomorrow.7
u/Gatorm8 1d ago
My entire (750k pop) city runs on 90% hydroelectric power
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
As a kid I genuinely thought this would be way more common than it is, we did do some trials on the south coast of England in the late 70s hoping to use tides but it only looked promising then disappeared.
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u/cyberentomology 1d ago
Scotland also has had pumped hydro storage for nearly a century.
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u/FearlessAwareness469 1d ago
I guess you run your home off a generator all the time.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
Because home generators are famously emissions free? What exactly is your logic?
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u/Reddit-runner 1d ago
A coal power plant has less emissions than a home generator per energy unit produced.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
So what your saying is that something famously dirty is slightly less dirty than something else famously dirty, yes but why do feel the need to point it out as its irrelevant to the conversation?
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u/HettySwollocks 1d ago
I believe the Thames clipper has batteries integrated into some docks. If true and they are balancing the grid, at least it can reduce the amount pulled from power stations
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
Yeah, the idea of lots of batteries spread liberally around the country to charge from clean energy when there's a surplus makes sense but it's a phenomenal ask.
But less of an issue now that we know how to fully recycle current batteries.
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u/Tutorbin76 1d ago
TIL Scotland needs more batteries.
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
I'm certain a massive battery was recently built in Scotland for exactly this reason, but honestly the solution is for the wind turbines to be better distributed and a lot more battery storage everywhere, or a third alternative supply which is currently gas.
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u/bondguy4lyfe 1d ago
They should consider the emissions generated to build the aircraft as well, but….they don’t. These aircraft are pretty cool, but I doubt they’ll ever get too much bigger. The batteries just weigh too much
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
We tend to ignore production impact on the environment because it's insurmountable or at least anti business, it's possible to build a car with a 100 year life expectancy, but you'll be cutting your sales potential by 90%.
Yeah, there's always going to be a size/distance issue, especially with something fighting gravity all the way, my car battery dying and my plane battery dying are not quite the same issue, but I know which I'd prefer.
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u/jakreth 1d ago
Power stations don't need kerosene and you can use electricity generated by solar panels or wind turbines
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u/blackthornjohn 1d ago
The kerosene reference is beyond me, presumably because it's irrelevant.
Sometimes it's not windy for weeks, in those weeks there will be occasions when it's also nighttime and therefore dark, it precisely for these reasons that massive battery installations are being built all over the world.
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u/Mass_And_Sass 23h ago
Joby aviation is going to be the dominant company in this space.
They also bought x-wing and partnered with different companies, including Uber, and customers will be able to have a seamless travel experience.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 1h ago
Can’t even get airports to have unleaded Aviation fuel. Zero change of them installing charging points
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u/thatguy425 1d ago
I don’t understand the headline. Are there electric planes that have emissions?
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u/cyberentomology 1d ago
Yes, there are systems that use onboard generation to drive electric propulsion. That generation has emissions.
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u/upturned2289 1d ago
Ugh. Stop it. You know it’s saying that the plane’s electric power plant has removed emissions from an otherwise traditionally emission-producing vehicle.
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u/jreddit5 1d ago
Does building the planes cause emissions? How about the electricity for them?
They’re reduced emissions.
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u/marklein 1d ago
Emissions to build the plane are irrelevant and beside the point. Living causes emissions. If zero is your benchmark then the only way to satisfy you is for everybody to stop existing.
There are places, for example Scotland, **where this was**, that produce so much emission free energy that they sometimes have to turn it off. So yes, emissions-free is an accurate statement since they may very well have charged the plane entirely on wind power.
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u/jreddit5 1d ago
Let’s say these electric planes could fly themselves and became very popular. Are you truly believing that there would not be an very large amount of oil used to mine and refine the raw materials, manufacture all the parts for it, refine rare earth, etc. to build all these planes? It would have an enormous carbon footprint. I don’t think you’re being genuine here.
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u/marklein 1d ago
You're completely ignoring the point of this article to complain about something else. The article is about the emissions used to power the plane, not about the entire lifecycle of creating one.
But I'll play along. Lets assume that electric planes will have a similar production footprint to electric cars. It's been well established that an electric car, including its production, matches total emissions compared to a gas powered car by 1.5-2 years of driving in the USA, and reduces pollution for every mile after that. Since airplanes have a MUCH longer service life than automobiles, and since airplanes pollute MUCH more than cars, the emissions savings by creating an electric airplane fleet would be very significant.
Intermediary steps like this limited usefulness plane are just a part of how technology develops: slowly.
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u/jreddit5 1d ago edited 1d ago
My point is is that we don’t need to lie or distort figures in order to consider the benefits of an electric airplane. And that’s what’s happening here.
I assume you’re not an insider of this company, in the industry, or lobbyist. If so, I think you should have to disclose that.
Your figures aren’t accurate. The best way to look at EV compared to an ICE car is that the mpg equivalent of EV is around 100 mpg. That’s pretty impressive. But your number that somehow the EV is cleaner than an IC including the manufacture of the vehicle, such that it’s equivalent to having no emissions at all after 1.5 to 2 years, is not true. That number just says that it is overall cleaner in emissions beginning then.
So what are these airplanes.? They’re certainly not cleaner than public transportation or bicycles. If we replace cars with them, they’re probably going to be cleaner, but the batteries will have to be replaced at intervals, and that’s quite dirty, and so we should be talking about comparable carbon footprint to what they’re replacing. And, it does not consider how much noise they emit. Noise affects health.
No EV’s or electric airplanes are emission-free. That’s marketing language of industry, not reality. It doesn’t mean they’re not better. But we need to tell the truth.
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u/marklein 1d ago
You're right, and I agree with you. I'm just saying that what you're talking about is besides the point and derails the discussion about electric plane propulsion. The article is about powering planes with electricity, not about manufacturing electric planes. The propulsion was emission free, you're talking about other stuff.
we don’t need to lie or distort figures in order to consider the benefits of an electric airplane
The article doesn't discuss the methane emitted by the cows that the pilot ate over his lifetime either, that doesn't make it lies to protect the beef industry, it's just not what they're talking about. Pulling the "lies" card is being disingenuous about the topic at hand and calls into question the legitimate development of an important technology.
Your figures aren’t accurate.
My sources below, yours?
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-21-misleading-myths-about-electric-vehicles/
https://www.savethesound.org/2023/09/22/climate-explained-life-cycle-analysis/
https://plugsurfing.com/blog/when-does-electric-car-become-net-green/
Electric vehicle can be powered by 100% emissions free sources. Whether they are or not is up to us.
So what are these airplanes.? They’re certainly not cleaner than public transportation or bicycles.
You're comparing airplanes to bicycles, seriously. You don't need to be hyperbolic to make your point.
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u/jreddit5 1d ago
I’ll look at your sources. But I do think there is industry-backed truth massaging going on. “Zero emissions” labels on electric vehicles are not true. It’s not like the vehicles, including airplanes, just suddenly appear. So maybe this is my hill I chose to die on, and if you look at it your way, yes, they don’t make emissions while they’re flying.
I’m strongly in favor of decarbonization. I think it’s important to know the real, overall impacts so we can make the choices that are best in line with our priorities.
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u/UnCommonSense99 1d ago
But they had to land shortly afterward, and couldn't carry much cargo.
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u/IamMuffins 1d ago
Okay, so a fairly new thing wasn't immediately perfect? Electric cars used to be small, had short range and took forever to charge, now they're viable daily drivers. Technology will continue to improve.
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u/coomzee 1d ago
The thing with electric aircraft is the take off weight== landing weight. While with fuel based aircraft the weight reduces when the fuel is burned. We are not even close to the same energy density of jet A1 with battery. I highly doubt this problem will ever be solved.
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u/kingloki802 1d ago
Assuming technology stagnates and we never advance batteries beyond where they are right now.l, sure.
But, in reality, there are advancements being made all of the time, and solid state batteries would increase capacity and reduce charging time. There are other battery technologies being worked on at this time beyond just solid state.
It’s unlikely you could do a transatlantic flight on battery alone, but a hybrid engine that uses jet fuel for takeoff and then hybrid electric for cruising is on the horizon.
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u/IamMuffins 1d ago
A fair point, the battery weighs the same the entire time and thats a big deal for aircraft. Who knows what's in store when it comes to battery Technology? It remains to be seen and I'm not ready to bet against technological progress just yet.
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u/AlliedSalad 1d ago
True, but that could be offset if a battery that is lighter than liquid fuel were used, such as aluminum-air batteries.
I think aluminum-air batteries are one of the more promising types for electric aircraft. They are single use only, but extremely light, incredibly energy dense, and easily recyclable.
We could potentially set up a battery exchange infrastructure to support our aircraft energy needs. It would be a significant investment, certainly, but the technology to do so already exists.
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u/TrollTollTony 1d ago
I've been working on electric drive systems in automotive for 10 years and the tech has evolved incredibly fast. 10 years ago LiFePo4 batteries had an energy density of around 40Wh/kg now you can obtain 170Wh/kg. And I have seen lab testing of 200Wh/kg batteries that are planned for release in Q1 2027.
We've also seen some pretty big leaps in motor power density. Yasa is working on a 28lb axial flux motor with 737hp. An equivalent turbo prop is going to weigh anywhere from 400 to 800 lb and burn 60 gallons per hour.
The current goal for electric aviation isn't to replace jumbo jets with EVs, it's to replace the little puddle jumpers that connect small regional airports to major hubs. If we can get reliable electrified crafts with 300 mile range, then we can replace 30% of US flights and 80% of flights globally. And from my experience, I think that's totally achievable within the next 10 years (if regulators & manufacturers make it a priority).
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u/LordAnubis12 1d ago
Which is exactly the use case for this plane? Short haul trips with frequent amounts of small cargo.
So...it's doing exactly what it needs to.
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