Why Don’t We Build Electric Airplane?
According to an industry report, Tesla is the fastest-growing brand of 2021, with an unprecedented 184 percent increase in brand value. Moreover, as gas prices hit record highs this year, Tesla again sees its order rate surging.
As Tesla, together with other electric vehicles, steadily takes over the roads, one might hope that transportation will significantly reduce its reliance on fossil fuel and turn completely green. But what is happening with passenger vehicles will not spread to trucks, cargo ships, and airplanes anytime soon. Even Elon Musk is not able to do it. I recently read Bill Gates’ book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, and this is one of the many things I learned.
Gates’ book is a thorough study of the causes and solutions to the climate problem. According to Gates, we currently produce 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas every year. If it doesn’t get to 0 by 2050, we will face disastrous consequences, just like a bathtub will overflow even if water only drips down slowly from the tap.
Gates divides the greenhouse generation activities into five areas:
- making things
- plugging in
- growing things
- getting around
- keeping warm and cool
and explains how today’s technology can reduce emissions in each area and what breakthroughs are needed. Transportation, or getting around, makes up about 16% of global emissions, ranking fourth behind manufacturing, generating electricity, and farming. We might be on the way to converting all passenger vehicles to electricity, but the same cannot be said about larger vehicles. Why? Because the battery is far from ready.
Battery’s function is to store energy. But its energy density is far lower than gas. Today’s best battery needs to weigh 35 times as much to supply the same amount of energy. When the battery is of the same weight as the gas, it provides far less energy. As a result, an electric truck capable of going 600 miles per charge, because it needs to carry a heavy load of battery, will take 25% less cargo. If the range…
