This article is from the public number: NetEase Aviation (ID: wyair163) , author: Henry Lin, from the title figure: vision China
In recent years,The problem has become more and more important, and the aviation industry has also been impacted, and began to pay attention to reducing carbon emissions.
It can be seen that in recent years, airline companies have been vigorously promoting emission reduction measures similar to carbon neutrality plans. Reduce your own greenhouse gas emissions through carbon offset programs, switching to new and more efficient aircraft, and using renewable energy.
Thanks to these efforts, the same aviation journey now has half the carbon emissions as in 1990.
However, the environmental protection industry still requires the aviation industry to solve the carbon emissions problem once and for all. Therefore, many aviation manufacturers are also promoting all-electric technology and trying to use electric aircraft to replace the current traditional fossil fuel aircraft.
When Netease Aviation communicated with some senior aviation manufacturers, they also said that electrification is the next big direction for aviation.
But is it possible that all-electric planes will become a reality?
Render of an electric airplane
In our opinion, in the foreseeable future, there is no possibility of large-scale application of all-electric aircraft.
In fact, whether it ’s a car, an airplane, or other means of transportation, there are many problems when using electric power for propulsion.
The first issue is power. Judging from the current technology of human beings, if there is no major breakthrough in battery technology, then the larger aircraft needs to have sufficient power to support it, the larger the size is required. Also means heavier) battery cells.
Imagine if you wanted a Boeing 737 to fly with electricity, and the battery weight needed was heavier than the aircraft’s maximum takeoff weight? Obviously, this is not possible in the real world.
This also makes us currentlySome of the all-electric aircraft models we saw were still very small aircraft.
Electric verification machine of Embraer
In addition, safety issues will also limit the possibility of electric aircraft.
At this stage, it is difficult to avoid the possibility of spontaneous combustion in common battery cells represented by lithium batteries.
When similar problems occur on the ground, people can jump out and leave. But in the air, once a battery unit fires, it will spread quickly. Eventually, the blazing fire will turn the entire aircraft into a fireball that crashes to the ground, and passengers have no chance to escape.
This also makes it difficult to put all-electric aircraft to practical use at the current stage under the emphasis on safe aviation regulation.
Finally, from the current fleet planning of airline companies, we do not see any market opportunities for electric aircraft in the short term.
Take Airbus A320neo as an example, its current order is enough to support its manufacture until around 2024, and this batch of aircraft can be operated for at least 20 years before retirement. During this time, it is difficult for the market to give obviously higher costs. Electric airplane opportunity.
Furthermore, if you pay attention to the development plans of aviation manufacturers’ next-generation aircraft, you can also find that they still use fossil fuels as their energy source.
Before the next generation of aircraft, we do not think that electric aircraft can be put into practical use.
E-Fan X
Picture source: Airbus
But electric planes are not completely without opportunities.
Airbus and engine maker Rolls-Royce are using the BAe 146 aircraft as a platform to try to use a combination of electric and fossil fuels to reduce carbon emissions. This plan is called E-Fan X.
The normal Bae 146 has four engines, and Airbus currently envisages replacing one of the engines with an electric engine for certain technical verification. If the technology is more mature, two of the four engines All replaced with electric engines.
In this way, Airbus believes that it may be possible to reduce the fuel consumption of the aircraft during the landing and cruise phases.
And NASA in the United States is also promoting its own single-aisle turbo-electric aircraft. span> plan, but this aircraft is more of a concept.
In this concept, in addition to the engine under the wing, the aircraft also has a fully electric BLI engine at the rear. The engine under the wing generates electricity to drive the engine at the tail of the wing.
It is envisaged that when the aircraft takes off, the engine under the wing will produce 80% of the thrust, while cruise it will be 55%, and the remaining thrust will be provided by the rear electric engine.
NASA believes that this system can reduce fuel consumption by about 10%.
Of course, in our opinion, NASA’s solution may make the aircraft system more complicated and cost more. Therefore, unless the price of fossil fuels rises to an unacceptable level, it will be difficult to put them into practical use.
NASA is also pushing its own verification machine
Overall, we believe that 100% all-electric aircraft will be difficult to use on a large scale for at least 30 years.
Of course, judging by the attempts of aviation manufacturers, we still have the opportunity to meet some electric powered aircraft like Airbus E-Fan X. However, factors such as cost will still limit its share of the market.
Even in some regional and short-haul markets, there are already manufacturers of some fully electric aircraft prototypes, but it is too early to say that they are the future trend.
Maybe 100 years later, we will see the world of electric airplanes on a large scale.
This article is from the public number: Air YORK (ID: wyair163) , author: Henry Lin