Decarbonize Aviation? Good Luck to Us
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2023
- With weather disasters lined up like airliners on final to LaGuardia, news on climate change is a constant. And with aviation the most energy intensive form of mass transportation, it's in the cross hairs as an emitter of greenhouse gas. In this video, AVweb's Paul Bertorelli examines the role of electric airplanes and, more importantly, sustainable aviation fuel. Bottom line: Don't expect miracles.
Correction: At 10:05, the title should be a gallon of fuel (6.7 lbs) to a pound. 
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We need that mustache back.
Gives more credibility! Hahaha
#bringbackthestache
Old, trustworthy pilots have grey moustaches! Paul! What were you thinking?
I don't believe a word he's saying! (Yes this is a joke).
I knew something felt weird
"Let us not fool ourselves. We will not even reach the targets we have for 2030 . . ." My guess is that everyone with any sense knows that, but very few have the courage to say it. 2030 is just a little over 6 years away, a ridiculously short time frame for a huge paradigm shift in transportation.
i suspect ur a nerd lmao@@77thTrombone
(some planes have drop tanks, drop empty batteries as autonomous planes/drones )
The 2030 goals are not about Climate Change, they are about total control by 2030. The only climate that is changing is the Political Climate. Climate Supremecists have been setting this up for decades. The entire premise is flawed and likely fraudulent. Not one initiative has netted anything but more expense, shortened lifespan of equipment and more tax revenue. There is an irony in calling a movement to save a mostly blue planet "green". Step back from the premise and consider not looking at this from the box they have created.
Without the politics the best technology available at the time will always win. Defining "best" always depends on the details of the scenario. Innovation has a natural pace.
We are at over 10% Sales of all cars in the world are fully electric, in 2022 this was 5%. Locally this is much higher.. China is over 30% now, Europe over 20%, with Norway at over 80% of all cars sold are fully electric. Tesla Model Y is the best sold car in the world the last 6 months, no matter the power source.
With these huge exponential growth figures, we will reach virtually all cars sold be electric by 2030 easily. Cargo trucking is picking up the pace of converting quickly as well.. Tesla Semi and Pepsico have shown it is possible, with real life data that is significantly better than was in the Tesla specs.
Dont under estimate exponential growth, its a beast once past the 5% adoption figure.. It has happened before with many technology disruptions. Like smartphones in 2007-2012 (remember Steve Balmer fumating about the first Apple I-phone? "A mobile phone? without a keyboard? for 6 hundred dollars?!?!" Just 3 years later Microsoft was wiped out in the mobile device business, just like Nokia!), and what about using horses to automobiles, it took ony 10 years from 5% to 80% cars.. and that was a way more intense disruption as what we see today, because beside the cars we also had to develop and pave a massive road system throughout our cities and countries, develop and expand oil extraction and refinery, install gas stations.. and fight a pandemic and WW1. this was roughly from 1910 to 1920.. But there are many other examples, like refrigerators, digital cameras, color TV, microwave ovens, CD players, etc...
Get ready to eat ze bugs
Imagine how much better we, as the public, would be if every controversial topic were presented in such a balanced and honest manner.
Yes, sounds good. Every problem is now solved after this balanced and honest presentation.
Wouldn’t that be nice!
whoosh @@wolfgangpreier9160
It is, we just don’t listen to reasonable people
According to this presentation, more than 35% of the public isnt persuaded by balanced and honest facts, so dubious whether this type of presentation is that effective for the general population, you have to appeal to those peoples emotions, that is how they make decisions, based on how they feel about something.
A significant amount of AvGas drop is the result of commercial operations moving to turbines. At an ASTM Unleaded AvGas TF meeting during the 2020 Oshkosh, the NATA rep basically said their plan was to keep kicking the lead issue down the road while their members converted to turbines. At that time the estimate was that 20% of the recip airplanes used 80% of the AvGas. When you start knocking that high use 20% down, the AvGas volume drops off fast.
AVgas should have been eliminated decades ago along with those horribly noisy engines so loved of amateur fly boys everywhere. I mean - the stuff *still* contains lead, for god's sake. And this lead is sprayed over our towns, breathed in by our children and dumped on the crops that we eat. It (lead) is only in there because, way back, the fuel companies wanted an anti-knock agent ==that they could patent to make money== so they charged Dr Midgley to find something --that would work as well as ethanol--. Midgley knew lead was poisonous - he suffered badly, and he know ethanol was better (but not patentable). So lead it was and it's still being used because it still makes big oil massively rich. Big oil spend millions lobbying to make sure that lead remains in AVgas even though non-polluting alternatives are possible. This is one good reason to not believe anything the fossil industry says.
@@GhostZodick there have been STCs for auto gas for a couple of decades, Peterson and EAA. You have to use alcohol free auto gas. It is available, but not every station has it. You probably won’t ever find it at an FBO, however. It’s a do it yourself proposition.
It means that GA is dying.
Thanks for the video Paul, really appreciate the amount of work you put in to give such a comprehensive overview of where we're at and the challenges we face.
lol you posted that before you could’ve possibly even watched half that video😂
@@kv501 Nope, I watched the whole thing. Just happened to be up early when it posted. Weird reply!
one vital thing: aviation fuel needs to be taxed to the samelevel than auto fuel. technology will follow.
@@skataskatata9236 Here's a better idea if you really want to have a meaningful impact on climate change: tax China and its exports.
@@airplaneian Lots of stalker losers in the internet world that think they kn ow what reality is, but they are just a waste of space
I recently sold my fuel hog 182 and am building an experimental that will use less than half the gas, and switch to unleaded mogas. We DO have options that can reduce our environmental impact.
General aviation is only 0.04% of emissions. The focus should be on eliminating lead. The good news is a lot of older and less powerful private aircraft can already run on high octane unleaded. Most of the high performance owners can frankly afford to upgrade or modify engines with tax breaks from the government. Just take them from the business jet tax breaks. I bet it's more than enough.
That’s a great idea if the plan is to destroy piston aviation. I wish you guys would stop pushing this scam. I know you all think your planes will grow in value and you’ll all retire extra nicely on the proceeds.
There won’t be enough fuel sales and taxes to support the few GA airports left, and the ability to travel by light plane will finally be completely destroyed.
@@nunyabidness3075Well, if you can’t afford to have your hobby without destroying our cities and future with lead, maybe it’s a good thing it’s going to go away.
@@nunyabidness3075What scam? That lead is bad for society and needs to be eliminated in fuel? Really?
Not to worry ,the ultra rich who preach global warming and are left wing will still be able to fly their jets to their yachts both of which create more environmental issues than small towns combined
Why? Gas powered cars aren't going away any time soon. There are multiple engines certified to run on non-ethanol mogas.@@nunyabidness3075
Aviation needs to be unleaded first. Ban leaded gasoline NOW!
This was also poorly thought for political reasons, while GAMI G100UL is perfect for cases where nobody wants changes in the aircraft (such as older models), if modifying those is acceptable (either small or huge adaptations) there are dozens of better options including jet A, diesel or regular car gasoline.
I caution you against believing any change is possible with traditionalist naysayers like Paul.
Paul - the 11% of flights needs to be done on tach hour, and even then it is probably a tad high. Lessons often spend a considerable amount of time on the ground. Most climates require 10+ minutes of warmup. At the 1 hour hobbs mark, you are maybe only in the air for 30 minutes. Pretty significant difference when taxi takes hardly any power, and your pre-flight checklists and pre-takeoff instruction will be completed in total silence. Otherwise awesome stuff as usual thank you!
Another point I want to make [I'm not a pilot] is relating to battery powered aircraft; if the conservative - safety of life - adage is to be followed "land with 1 hour of fuel onboard" it appears to me that 100% electric aircraft will need to achieve a 2 hour full charge to battery shut down ability before routine, local GA flights will be a possibility. Of course, you can limit your flying to circling in the pattern for 30 minutes and landing or flights to airports 20 minutes or so away, assuming they have recharging facilities. Aviation has a way to go, to say the least.
I believe that with an electric motor, you wouldn't need to keep it running...like how an electric golf cart works. so that would negate the "on the ground" running time you mention. Electric motor dont need to be warmed up (no oil), BUT batteries that get too cold do degrade in performace, so there is that.
@@bigscott55and batteries degrade over time and don't have the energy density of 100LL plus they burn more fiercely than 100LL or JET-A. There is also the weight of the batteries and the Co2 in the making of the batteries, disposal and so on.
@@gdwnetthey don't have the energy density of avgas, but there's not all that much difference at a systems level, as you need a lot of heavy stuff to turn avgas into thrust.
It also absolutely does not burn more fiercely than avgas. It takes much longer to ignite, almost always giving everyone time to leave the aircraft, and it burns much slower with much less energy (as you pointed out, it doesn't have as much energy as avgas).
When my instructor hit the ground and was instantly showered in burning avgas, he was in a much much much much worse situation than if a battery had started to smoulder, then vent with flame 20 minutes after the crash.
@@gasdiveYou're missing the weight of the batteries themselves. Sure, you remove all the stuff that turns avgas into thrust but you just replace it with batteries.
the battery fires I've seen haven't been a slow burn and they kept combusting even with water added to them but I guess time will tell when we see what happens during the first battery powered aircraft crash/hard landing, etc.
Great video Paul! On point as always and very easy to watch. Thanks!
Plenty of people complain that airplanes burn more fuel than cars, but remember the carrying capacity. Most aircraft are gonna be at a high load factor. Beats the per seat economy compared to driving alone in your prius
And speed. Small fast airplanes are more energy efficient than cars.
I appreciate the research that must have been involved to create this. Great job.
Excellent, digestible, thorough. Thanks Paul.
I feel like the sentiment here is 'resist change, even in attempts for good'
Yeah, this guy is obviously trying to stop any sort of progress in the industry. Next he's going to argue against removing lead.
More like being cautious of change because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unless we manage to break the laws of physics I don't see battery technology competing with fossil fuels. The energy density for batteries is just way too low.
Current Lithium-ion batteries have an engery density of
~100-243.06 W⋅h/kg
100LL has an energy density of 12,222.2 W⋅h/kg
Jet-A is slightly lower at
11,944.4 W⋅h/kg
In a weight constrained application like GA Aviation moving to an engery source that has 2% the density isn't that good as it will severely limit the useful load
Also consider the cost of the battery pack. The batteries for EV's cost between ~$22,000 and ~$60,000 i could even imagine how much an aircraft battery woud cost. Not to mention the fact that you would need a climate controlled hanger to store it since too cold or too hot temperatures can kill the entire battery or severely lower its capacity. Sure maybe for flight training, but then you won't develop skills like mixture control and when to use carb heat. You would be limited to only flying electric aircraft, otherwise, your put others at risk.
Resist change for the sake of saying you think it might help some future boogieman that will end up refuted 10 years from now. What happened to us all dying from the hole in the ozone layer? Remember?
Paul, please keep up the videos I like most all of the You Tube av guys, but you are the best
It's both the information and your wonderful dark humor. It is extremely difficult to make this type of humor work ,and admit it or not everyone loves it. You are the type guy I could listen to for hours and never be bored. Your biggest fan, redbaron Chattanooga TN ❤
Great job, Paul as usual thank you for the no-nonsense explanation of what is involved in this complicated affair
What's complicated about it?
If you are serious about Climate Change as the EXISTENTIAL THREAT to humanity, QUIT FLYING!
Just like "renewable power." You say there is NOT ENOUGH? Nonsense! The reality of renwable power is:
1 If you have it, use it.
2. If you don't have it, DO WITHOUT!
Yesterday I was on the Las Vegas strip and was annoyed by the constant drone of low flying heli’s. These are 10 minute sightseeing flights. eVTOL’s could perform this mission far more quietly, more economically and with far lower carbon emissions. Let’s grab the low hanging fruit and support continued development of electric flight.
Dude doesn't want to give any thought to actually improving anything
Don't forget the insane water requirements for growing fuel
Thank you for making this!!! Legitimately one of the bravest things I’ve seen all year
Awesome presentation, as usual! Thanks for breaking it down.
Electric is only really going to work for part 103 and maybe aircraft a little larger/heavier. So far they're getting about an hour of flight time on a few of them, compared to 3-5 hours on their allowed 5 gallons gasoline counterparts. That means we need a MUCH more energy dense battery, or a higher weight limit on part 103. Scaling that up is terrifying.
Maybe check the math. 3-5 hours on 5 gallons? Hmmm...Probably not.
Not really, there are many technologies that would allow it to have several times more range (better density) than nowadays but nobody is investing on them.
One of the few parts of technology that has NOT followed Moore's Law is batteries. With significant investment in new battery technologies recently, batteries are catching up.
@@petesmith6213Not really, all investments go to deadends and it's on purpose.
@@vitordelimaIf it’s that easy, this is your big chance to start a company and take over the market.
This is information you can’t get anywhere else. Really excellent, Paul.
Sure can, no problem. You just have to sit down and gather all sources and read, and view vids and discuss with others and read and view vids and and and.
In short: You have to study and learn the material.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 Do you consider all the censoring & de-platforming & de-licensing of all who don't think & talk the "right" way? I agree God's truth & science is out there, but you have to dig/ not Godless propaganda pumped into you 24/7 by Big Brother!
@@stevemitz4740 "Do you consider all the censoring & de-platforming & de-licensing of all who don't think & talk the "right" way?" I sure do not know what you are talking about.
Sorry,. I am but a simple elctrician and company owner. I am not a politician nor have i studied sociologically for 250 years.
I do not care for god or truth. I care for reality and my kids.
I do not care for big brother, small sista or any other meme in that regard.
I care for my children and grand children.
Thats all. Everybody else can suffocate as far as i am concerned. Drink poison and sniff glue if they want to. Or drive their gazoline monsters and destroy their own ebvironment.
I DO NOT CARE.
All i care is that my descendants have a chance to live at least as hassle free as i do and am allowed to.
If that means to fight for their right to live - then yes, i do. If that means to do everything to stop the Arabs and Russkis who want to destroy us - then yes i do. If that means to break the US Americanos kneecaps to save us from their arrogance then - YES I DO!
Really need more of these and more of Paul.
I Love this guy, gives it to you straight no fillers, no fat. Thanks Man.
You will see more high speed rail take a bite out of short haul aviation. A train from Miami to Orlando is already here which will compete with those flights.
Or look at New York to Philly or DC flight frequency. It's a lot easier to go electric when you can literally be plugged into the grid the whole way.
@@daniellewis1789 "Easier to go electric" IF you don't consider all the pollution caused by that silly pipe dream/ nightmare, i.e. mining lithium disposing of toxic EV waste toxic un-stoppable E.V. fires, stress on the power grid & all the [so-called] evil carbon based fuel needed to generate the pipe dream/ nightmare, i.e. the scam more designed to own & control the Godless suckers & sheeple!
Terrific video
Aviation will be the last transport to decarbonize simply because of the physics of fuel energy density. Probably not worth worrying about while there is so much low hanging fruit.
There is no reason why we can't decarbonize all ground transportation but keep burning Jet A forever. I do think its important to electrify small GA aircraft though, but not for carbon emissions reasons.
It’s not worth worrying about to people who are pragmatic. But the fanatics are on a mission from God. 🙄
@@rfichokeofdestiny NO! Worrying about a silly made up carbon hoax [to sell salvation] is the mission from the Serpent! [No God!] i.e. a mission to better to control you with, my dear!
@@stevemitz4740 It’s a figure of speech.
@@rfichokeofdestinyI saw “ Blues Brothers” in your comment 😂
This is a really good presentation of the issue and challenges. Thanks!
Thank you. Your work is always illuminating.
Brilliant, as always.
Thank you!
Great video topic. The upsurge in aviation came from the rapid development in WWII. The aviation industry needs a similar upsurge in development, without a war to make it sustainable. SAF is justa first step of many. Whether we will end up with hydrogen fuel, electric engines or antigravity drives, time will tell. But the math behind the supply of SAF doesn't add up.
Hydrogen or there by derived synthetic fuels for road traffic is the worst idea you can come up with the battery technology we have today, nevermind tomorrow. However for flying things, it is the only way forward for the forseeable future. The production even exists today though it would take a while to fill up your 787. 😅
Thank you for sharing your observation of the airline industry.😊
Another enlightened and engaging video. Your skill at presenting for general consumption that which we who have spent our careers in aerospace engineering know all too well, is both appreciated and enjoyed.
There's something wonky with the graph/statement at 6:39. Flights with exactly 1.5 hobbs hours are 11%, the proportion that are 1.5 or less is the cumulitive sum of all the other points. Eyeballing it but it will be much higher than 11%, probably a good 30-40% of the mass in the graph.
I commented on this, too. I think the gray box (6:22) is in the wrong place. If it were in the right place, it would just cover the leftmost six red dots on the graph. The area under these dots is 11.5% of the total area under the curve.
The crazy thing if you look at the caravan is great if you bought it as a private owner (which would be pretty few ?)so from a commercial aspect the 40% lower operating costs will get offset by the approximately 30 something percent reduction in payload which of course means technically it is 30% less stuff you can sell e.g. passengers freight which will suck up that 40% lower operating cost Margin!
Paul, your videos are entertaining and to the point. Thank you sir!
Amazing video once again Paul! Lots of honest and in-depth research and presentation.
Biomass isn't the answer. We need to eat more than we need 3 trips to the Caribbean.
We have more food than we know what to do with…. Americans especially are FAT, if you’re truly worried about food supplies do something serious about it.
I was a little afraid of how you would handle this, Paul. But you did a great job and as far as I know the information you provided is accurate. This is refreshing in light of the fact that all important social issues are a battle between two half truths.
Yea, we have to be careful not to piss off the democrats.
Yea, we need to dumb it down so even the Trumptards can understand it.
#triggered @@n721sw
@@n721sw They will be gone next year then put a end to all this carbon bull.
Great presentation. Special complements on the outstanding writing.
Well done. Loved the videos as it brought back so many memories of our family company.
We used have 12 Yoder Power hammers and we made fenders, horse trailer front roof caps and many front and rear aluminum roof caps for the RV industry. We didn't use shrinking tooling that much. Only on our master parts for production tooling. We made our parts via welding two pieces of 16 through 20 GA steel or .050 - 3003 H14, then hammering the radius along the weld line to create the fenders/parts. We also hammered aircraft parts too. Much harder materials to avoid heat treat.
Thanks for the memories back in time! ❤❤❤
I dont think we watched the same video lol
As one would expect from you Paul, you continue to impress with your intelligence and informative presentation of the data and give us a 30,000 view of the issues. Leaving space for the non-believers and the tree huggers to both be seen. Keep up the good work! Also, I see you are on a weight loss program, you shaved your mustache.
Great video
Thoughtfulness is your trademark. Thanks for another one.
Good video, nice job presenting many of the important complexities surrounding these issues in a balanced manner. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Ironically CO2 levels will need to be in the 1000-1500ppm range in order to achieve enough feedstock. Reality is that CO2 is not a good indicator of global temperature increasing but it is a fabulous indicator for plant growth.
Hogwash. World population is stabilizing and we already produce enough food to cover the population's needs. Plant growth from millions of years ago isn't what we need. Freaking dinner plate sized mosquitos roamed the Earth. Speaking of which, where I live we're already getting species of mosquitos that carry diseases. I'm going to have to sleep under mosquito nets like it's freaking Africa because you want more plants?
Someone told me SAF is a pipe dream, since it would require enormous land areas to grow the needed plants. I don't know how valid this issue is, I wish it was touched on in the video. Other than the Quatar guy at 13:48 who kind of implies it.
Nicely done Paul. Great perspective......we shall see.
Paul, your propensity to just stick to the facts and the data, and also staying focused on the topic at hand, always makes me respect you as a journalist.
Thank you. Awesome summary of a really deep and complex issue. I have actually flown an electric aircraft. A paramotor. With a bit of a jump in specific energy density I believe electric aviation makes sense for recreation. I.e. Just fun flying. Flying purely for recreation would be immensely popularized by cheap, low maintenance, easy to operate ultralight electric aircraft. Mostly part 103 in the USA but other countries do regulate and license ultralight pilots and aircraft. Right now it's tough to get even an hour of flying on electric so it's not there yet either. But even a twofold jump in wh/kg would be enough. Now maybe the rest of GA is hardly going to welcome a bunch of electric ultralight pilots buzzing around for the fun of it but that's another story.
Biomass - roughly I've heard that all the biomass on earth if burned could meet our oil demand for only 3 days. It's not really a long term solution for the whole production, but perhaps for making a dent in commercial aviation. Tough to make our food source compete with our fuel source too
The means of producing biomass being used are terrible (and there are many alternatives) and fuels can be made directly from sunlight and air (the main sources of energy and material used by biomass) directly instead (or even more sources biomass can't use). Also the fuels themselves (diesel, jet A and gasoline) are too unnecessarily complex (too many atoms with lots of bonds) and hard to be made artifically, it makes sense to use it when you get it is already made from crude oil but not in this case.
Doing a rough calculation, which I know is wrong, but it gives an indication of the magnitude of the issue of biomass as replacement.
Assuming, just for this exercise, that biofuels are to come from soybean oil.
The world currently produces around 190 million acres of soybeans. To meet the Jet A needs, the world would need to produce another +/- 380 million acres. This does not include the addition “bio fuels” needed to produce it, tractors, combines, transportation, etc, etc..
There isn’t 380 million acres of arable land available. Unless we cut down the rain forests.
This is all virtue signaling and as a way to impoverish the Western world.
This 380 million acres does not consider the requirements for road bio-diesel.
@@davidburnham3488This is the reason you have to use something else (such as microalgae, which is more than 10 times more productive and isn't cultivated over soil) or not use biomass.
Hydrogen derived synthetic fuels (whichever it is) is the only workable option.
@@rkan2There are other options but they are far from being ready to use (such as metal-air batteries, other high density batteries such as Lithium-Sulfur or anode-free)
Excellent presentation, thanks.
Always love your videos.... make more :)
Hats off to you for that research. Eighteen minutes of video and I'm quite sure it probably took more than 18 days to get all that data together. Thank you and well done 👍👍
How about de-lead. Aviation including private, emit so many toxins. And the ole Noise Pollution. Chilling and another human can create so much noise.
Great to hear your voice, Paul.
Thank you for the video.
The only way to de-carbonize for aviation has always been to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. So basically the major airlines have to fund some projects, or better yet just pay taxes for governmental actions. Batteries just don’t have the energy density.
This was depressing. Thanks Paul!
@MrPwnageMachine; MORE depressing is all the millions of death caused by Godless movements who sell, "We just want what's best, for the people." "We just want to save you, or get you "free stuff."
Great video, really good discussion and lots of good realities.
Excellent as always
One thing Europe and Asia are doing far better than the US is reliable high speed train service. I'm a lifetime airplane junkie. I work as an aircraft stress analysis engineer and I own a small 2 seat piston airplane. That said I would love to see high speed trains expanded here in the US. I recently flew commercial out of DIA and it was an absolute fucking nightmare. (Edit) I'm astounded that there are still people who believe climate change is a hoax or that it has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels.
I own a plane too but I clearly like trains also. I also own a boat that floats on water and I have a baseball signed by Pete Rose's grandma.
We desperately need both high speed train infrastructure to get from city to city, as well as a complete overhaul of our cities to support public transit and cycling as viable options if we are to ever begin to remove our incredibly expensive and dirty reliance on cars.
The US is too spread out and can no longer build large things thanks to government regulations. Just look at California.
Man Made influenced climate change is a hoax. The numbers of CO2 put out by man vs nature are insignificant to volcano and bio mass produced CO2. The 97% of scientists that say climate change is real is only because they threw out the scientists with no opinion. Even if climate change is real, China approves 2 coal powered power plants a week and nothing we do will stop that. I will build a leavy next to my beach front Florida home if the water ever rises. It will cost me less than the amount of taxes I will pay to basically do nothing. It's mostly a money laundering scheme.
Sure, but the problem is that if you go north from Denver you’re in Wyoming. If you go south, you’re in New Mexico. If you go east you’re in Kansas (with nothing till Kansas City really), and if you go west then you’re in the Rocky Mountains and building a train isn’t at all reasonable when talking about the environmental impact of installing a high speed rail through such an ecosystem (I70 is already showing impacts on elk and deer populations).
It makes sense in densely populated areas, but certainly not in the interior of the US.
I enjoyed a Boeing design presentation several years ago where the engineers mentioned "we have solutions ready for pretty much any power source - we'll see where technology and the market go". Just like computing before the transistor, we will likely see continuing huge changes in battery technology over the next several years. Let's also consider this point - flying on commercial airlines in the 2020s is not fun unless you can afford business/1st class. Non-high-speed trains in the US wouldn't be such a bad thing, if we could get more cars off the road and make flying more fun!
Unfortunately US seems to be lost cause when it comes to rail since any new effort to implement goods or transport would be under attack by oil lobbying organisations, car manufacturer lobbying, existing commitments to expanding and maintaining car infrastructure that would make rail infrastructure look "wasteful"(regardless of the fact that it's the most cost effective, environmentally friendly AND an fast way of moving both people AND goods, but good luck conveying that to the american public).
"The Diesel handles cruise flight" Well, I flew freight in the caravan for years, and we use around 90% or more of takeoff power in cruise, so there's there. Full power on a cool day.
Really awesome video!
lets focus on dragging aviation out of the dark ages of carb engines first...it was baffling coming from the car world and finding out how unnecessarily expensive and outdated GA was
Car engines are intrinsically unsuitable for GA aircraft. I can list the reasons but there are many sources on the internet for you to peruse. To summarize, car engines operated over a wide rpm range, and converting power to a propeller optimized for a relatively narrow band of rpm's would necessitate some form of automatic transmission. By contrast, the gearing from a typical carb engine to the propeller is usually no more complex than that needed to achieve a constant speed prop.
Car engines are not designed to run at their maximum rpm and power settings for extended periods. A typical car engine is optimized for continuous operation at around 60 to 65% of the engine's rated power. More, and you are degrading the engine. I track cars, and for this we improve the oil systems, the cooling systems, and use smarter timing. Even so, they reckon that 10 miles on track is equivalent to more than 100 miles on the road. Aviation motors are surprisingly tolerant and will accept a fair amount of abuse in respect of high power settings (still not a good idea though!).
Car engines are complex beasts with many potential single-point-of-failures. I had an injector on my sports car jam in the open position. This flooded the cylinder with fuel which instantly hyrdolocked, ruining the engine. That's not likely to happen on a carb engine (at least not in such spectacular fashion). You could engineer a fuel injected engine to reach the required level of reliability and robustness, with some form of constant speed transmission (possibly a planetary gear system) but this gets us to the next problem: designing the aircraft around the engine. If you look at the engine bay of your typical Cessna, you are going to realize that space is at a premium. Of courses you can redesign the front end from the firewall out, but it won't come cheap. In addition, you'll likely need to add water cooling which means a radiator - more complexity plus the need to position the radiator in the air stream (somewhere).
I should add, I've seen problems on carb engines too, but in general if you follow maintenance schedules fastidiously, you are not likely to have an inflight emergency. Time after time I see cases where either the engine was poorly or negligently maintained and/or a compromised fuel system was in evidence. With a car you pull over and call AAA. With an aircraft, you'll be lucky to find a runway and the alternatives aren't pretty.
Yes, there are fuel injected aviation engines, but most are designed to fit existing aircraft, and much of the intrinsic value of a fuel injected system is wasted as a result. Plus they are prone to specific problems such as vapor lock on a hot engine! That's an ergonomic thing, but space puts limitations on what you can achieve in an existing GA aircraft. So yes, I agree with you the costs are outrageous, the technology is pre WW2, but dammit it works!
@@davidgapp1457 Most fossil car engines are not older than 10 years. Most GA engines are between 40 and 50 years old.
50 years ago nobody cared one iota for emissions standards. Nobody was interested if anybody was poisoned or not.
What i demand is the immediate ban of all fossil engines not meeting current standards. Cars, Trucks, any types of farming and building machines, ships and of course all flying material.
Or we can just ignore everything mother nature tells us and continue destroying our own environment to stoke our greed and pride.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 So I actually started flying 50 years ago, and despite what you choose to believe, we did care even back in the day. I was shocked to find they hadn't, at a minimum, moved to unleaded fuels rather than LL. The harsh reality is that humans aren't capable of organizing to avert disaster - at least not a slow-moving disaster. We are, as a species, parochial - always finding new ways to consider ourselves superior to our fellow human. It is a desperately sad truth. We also have an exaggerated sense of 'status quo' - the unreasonable belief that whatever is, was and always will be. When I was born the world population was 2.8 billion and today it is 8.1 billion. I travel all over the world and I've seen changes that are would've been unimaginable 50 years ago. The weather, across the planet, is messed up. The balance of life is fundamentally skewed towards the extinction of hundreds of animal species and our oceans are visibly dying. There is no stopping this. Sorry.
@@wolfgangpreier9160”What I demand”. Calm down Greta.
@@allgrainbrewer10 Why should i? Stop poisoning your children! Or do you hate them?
I don't understand why the aviation industry doesn't team up w/ the nuclear industry to support the production of jet fuel from sea water. The DOD has done the research for years and in 2020 (IIRC) a team at Rochester University was able to use a new catalyst to do the process more efficiently. This seems like a really easy way to get around the SAF problem of crowding out food for fuel.
Because the carbon used to make the jet fuel is locked up in sea water. Not a lot different than burning fossil fuel.
@@danharold3087 It's completely different, because you're not adding new carbon to the cycle, it's carbon that's already in the carbon cycle. This would also help to slow the acidification of the oceans.
Because nuclear is scary.
@@PistonAvatarGuy We are more concerned with the carbon in the air than the ocean. If the carbon we take out of the ocean is replaced in short order than yes it is a win. But if we are actually raising ocean pH it is not because we are transferring captive carbon into the air.
@@danharold3087 The oceans are the largest carbon sinks on Earth.
The Hobbs time is a bit misleading. They probably have 1 hour lessons, but depending on the organisation, the hour might be tach time or flight time. The 10 minutes faffing about with warm-up, run-up, mag checks and taxi are all eliminated on an electric but push the Hobbs time above the "one hour" for almost all flights, as the graph shows.
If an electric can do an hour of *flying* it's probably a pretty straight drop in replacement for most flight schools, at least for lessons sold in one hour blocks as most are.
@@SeattlePioneer yes, obviously planes are filled with petrol or batteries and sealed at the factory and can never be refilled /s
I imagine that a petrol powered small plane can do several hour long instruction blocks one after another after fueling the aircraft once.
But if a battery aircraft can barely do an hour of flight time, wheat happens when it lands and the next student in lined up, ready to go?
You have a flat batt on the aircraft. What do you DO?
Your supercilious comment fails to answer the question posed in the post.
We've outsourced everything to China, including CO2 emissions. All of this is a drop in the bucket compared to what they put out and nobody is willing to make them change because they don't want the cost of a new iPhone to go up.
That's my biggest problem with the West's punitive approach to carbon emissions. Even if we were to achieve the ridiculously lofty goals by 2030, or even 35, they wouldn't accomplish much if countries like China continue to build coal power plants and otherwise pollute indiscriminately (while claiming that they don't, because they lie all the time). So we'd be suffering the serious consequences and cost of redoing our energy infrastructure, while achieving precious little in slowing climate change.
Manufacturing costs are a small fraction of the final cost of the iPhone.
@@joesterling4299Coal emissions can be controlled as part of improvements in their energy efficiency (being efficient by itself reduces emissions due less use of fuel but this also includes other processes) but this contradicts the ongoing spam so nobody will care about it.
Water vapor. Not CO2. Wrong narrative anyway.
@@NOLAbutterfly2Lack of absorption of water, since everything is always releasing vapor all the time.
Get ready to travel to Europe on ocean crossing ships. N.E.OH. Bob
SAILING ships!
Man, I love this guy right here.
Yet another killer presentation! Appreciation for your work Sir.
Really an excellent clear and succinct presentation thanks. I worked in the low carbon sector and found it hard to stay optimistic. Anyhow, one bright note, if we use RC planes as a guide - where electric has all but taken over - the benefits of reliability and safety far outweigh the compromises of reduced duration.
People want travel range. Hopping around for fun is fine for the LSA & RC pilots, but most of the world want range/turn around that is better than driving.
@@kenreynolds1000baby steps... It may lead us to longer range.
@@sloth6765 Maybe, but like EVs, as current chemistry dictates they are useless for long range and high capacity. Try to take an 8 hour trip for a day or two.
Reducing soot is a good thing. Chasing CO2 emissions is not. However, anything that needs fuzzy accounting to prove its benefits is to be avoided at all costs. In the end, we are fine. Continue on as is.
The fashion industry emits 10% of the carbon emissions globally, those carbon emissions from the fashion industry are expected to grow 50% by 2030.
One little problem with electric vehicles, there isnt enough lithium on earth to make enough bstteries to actually take over combustion engines. Until there is a technological breakthrough in both electricity production and battery composition, EVs are just a clever way to sell more things to people who already consume way too much for any sort of environmental sustainability.
I don’t see saf reducing emissions, after all ethanol didn’t reduce emissions but it’s needed as an octane booster either way
We mechanics love ethanol in fuels, we get more money due to the damage it causes from the fuel system to exhaust systems just did one that the whole fuel system and cats had to be replaced due to corrosion from ethanol customer had to pay just over $ 8k
The only emissions that have to be reduced are NOx, SOx, soot and others that together are a tiny percent of all emissions, the rest is harmless. Ethanol reduced those harmful emissions a lot.
@@chadpm11The cars are poorly designed for it and the fuel itself can be improved in many ways to prevent this.
@vitordelima yeah just like the after treatment systems on Diesel trucks and cars, the systems are too expensive to replace and burn way more fuel. Mine fell off on my truck😏. i went from 10-15 mpg to 36 mpg unloaded, and my Diesel car went from 28-33 mpg to almost 60 mpg when doing speed limits.
@@chadpm11Research about this also didn't attract enough interest of the idiots in charge and it had many smear campaigns for obvious reasons. But some of the technology that really works is already used in other contexts and different from what you are mentioning.
I agree that general aviation is a trivial source of CO2 emissions. Nothing short of lowering human population to sane levels with a global one child per person policy is going to solve that issue. And that's a great big "Good luck with that".
What I REALLY care about is the LEAD! I don't know what it is about where I live in Southern California, but the small planes go round and round and round and round, NOT merely passing through. All the while they're raining lead down on ME, and, frankly, that pisses me off. I know at least some of them are Big Brother surveillance, and that pisses me off too. I'd have no real trouble if they'd just pass on by. And I love hearing them, because I have always had a love of aviation. But I REALLY wish they could have lead free gasoline. It's not like the technology doesn't exist.
We're already below replacement rate in most of the world. We're actually going to face demographic collapse. There won't be enough working adults to keep things running by the time I retire.
Thank you!
Asian countries use more kerosene just for lighting than the entire US aviation industry. That's before you add in the kerosene used for heating, cooking and their own aviation industry.
The issue seems to lie in a person’s definition of “socially responsible”. And perhaps the amount of ‘reason’ they factor into that definition. As for ‘reason’… I see nothing currently to be all that hopeful about.
Case in point: Batteries are great. However, the ‘socially responsible’ seem reluctant to discuss the production of those batteries, or the production of a battery’s component materials, much less the environmental effects of the two.
The reality of renwable power is simple:
1: If you have it, use it.
2. And if you don't, do without.
This has been the reality of energy use in the 3red world forever, and we can certainly go that way if we wish.
That will allow 3rd world countries to buy and burn the fossil fuels the West no longer wants to use, and the energy intensive industries will follow the energy supplies to the 3rd world. China and India are will become the new 1st world powers.
@@SeattlePioneer In my experience, it’s a fairly grand presumption to say “fossil fuels the West no longer wants to use”. There certainly has been political pressure, to a point and only to a point, to lessen fossil fuel energy use over recent years. However the logistical realities aren’t changing in such a way that allows this beyond ‘to a point’. There is a LOT of political theater involved. Sadly, no one seems to understand ‘the play’. Not the audience and not the producers or performers.
We all want to be good stewards of the environment. I would hope that we can all agree on that much. But that said… pretending that ‘renewable energies’ are in a place in which they can replace fossil fuels can be as perilous as any of the other threats the world currently faces.
I want "the environment" to serve the interests of human beings. Only the wealthy can afford anything else, although people kid themselves all the time about that.
>
You seem to imagine that world politics is a game people play at. Lots of the actors take it very seriously indeed.
Environmentalists don't really care much about CO2 levels --- as long as they can "point with alarm" over increasing C02 levels, it gives them political power to enact their entire agenda, at least in the West. That's the real priority, in my opinion.
They do this, for example, by shutting down nuclear power plants, ripping out hydroelectric dams and then reopening coal fired power plants when their "renewables" don't work and the alternative is shutting off the lights.
@@SeattlePioneerI've watched this presenter on several occasions and consider his views on "the environment" to be highly suspect. Wonder if he's being pressured ($) on what to say.
Nothing is more "socially responsible" than keeping your nose out of other people's business.
electric planes are never really gonna work for anything but short range training flights
hydrogen or sdynthetic fuels can work but making them economic has very little to do with airplanes and more with how they're produced - once we can produce the mcheaply the airplaen side is either just a regular old airlienr or one with a slightly different fuel system but as long as we aren't producing them cheaply at scale there's not much plane design can do about that
Electric aviation is the future... eventually. Your presumption the electric will only be good for training is based on battery technology standing still. It obviously won't.
@@cruiserflyerbattery technology will not stand still but it will not improve beyond what is fundamentally physically possible either
in a best case futuristic scenario it might be just barely feasibel to do very very short range travel with electric planes but thats as good as it gets
and evne then it would be outcompeted by other renewabel technologies like hydrogen or syntehtic fuels simply for having to carry the battery the whole way wheras a lighter fuel for such short ranges adds only marginal weight to the plane
sorry buttheres only so many elements and so many ways they can react
it is theoretically possible to make batteries much better than today but never anywhere near competitive with kerosene let alone hydrogen in energy density - plus hte advantage of no longer having to carry your fuel after you've used it
@@JulianDanzerHAL9001 Hard disagree. One thing that constantly happens is the rate of innovation, and the technology improvements go far beyond what people expected. It just keeps happening. Flying in 1903 and breaking the sound barrier 45 years later was an impossible thought in 1900.
@@cruiserflyer thats a very simplifeid and broad way to think about innovation
you could equally easily say that innovation constantly falls short of expectations
after all, in the 70s we thoguht that by hte year 2000 you could commute to the moon like its your regular drive to work
sometimes technology develops faster than expected
sometimes lsower
soemtimes as fast as expected
if you wanna get an actualyl decent prediction oyu have to look into the deeper reasoning behind hte predcitions not just at the braod strokes
in many cases innovation goes much faster than expected when hte challenge being met is one of engineering practicality or manufacturing at scale
however when it comes to basic conservation of energy and fudnamental physics... there's jsut not much you can do about that
there's only so much energy density in ANY possible chemcial reaction logically possible
and it is easy to beat the best possible one of those if you do not actualyl carry one of the reactants with you, like when burning kerosene or hydrogen you don't have to carry the oxygen with oyu as you get it from the air
guess what, even rockets use either kerosene or hydrogen but do carry their oxygen with them thus having an overall lower energy density than a pure fuel tank
if there was a simple chemical reaction that would beat the energy denstiy of kerosene WITHOUT carrying oxygen while being able to carry all your reactants with you they would use that for rockets
plus again, with fuel you don't even have to carry one of your reactants you only have to carry one half of one of your reactants - well simplifiedly speaking - you only have to carry fuel until you use it
if you travel 5000km on fuel you have to carry fuel for 1000km plus safety factor for the last 1000km, fuel for an additional 1000km for the last 2000km, and so on
if oyu travel 5000km on battery you have to not only carry essentialyl your fuel and your oxidizer but you ahve to carry fuel and oxidizer for 5000km plus safetyfactor THE ENTIRE WAY
the most promising electric planes are fuel cell powered but then you mgiht as well burn the hydrogen in a turbine engine
@@JulianDanzerHAL9001 I am unaware of a chemical limitation as to how much change can be stored per unit volume. What I do see is a constantly evolving research climate producing ever more efficient battery chemistries.
Additionally, necessity is the mother of invention. There was no necessity to commute to the moon, but there's absolutely a necessity to decarbonize. This near term looming catastrophe is driving urgent innovation at a global level of engagement like never seen before, with analytical tools that we've never had.
“We all wish would go away” pretty much sums up any push for green technology.
Best and quickest way to reduce aviation is quality high speed rail.
If you can reduce especially short haul flights.
I worry that biofuels might not take into account mowing down established forests to get the "feed stock" for the biofuel. Not really a carbon benefit at all. It's not that likely the companies are converting deserts into carbon absorbing greenbelts to truly get these numbers.
Shouldn't we be more concerned about soylent green as a biofuel? Soylent green is people! It's PEOPLE! 🤣
General aviation needs to focus on removing lead and getting engine technology to get general aviation way more efficient. That will help a ton.
Electric ga aircraft will help with that.
You guys should turn on the superthanks, I'd donate to keep this balanced content coming.
I'm a simple man. I see a video by Paul, I thumbs up and comment.
A "replicant".
Let me know when i can replace my IO360 with an electric motor and battery pack that has a 10 hour endurance and weighs less than my engine and 100 gallons of LL. Until then I am just fine of avgas. The rest of the world can live in their emotional love for the environment while i live in a world of reason.
Great video! I think the answer to the future of propulsion lies somewhere between battery electric, hydrogen electric or alternative fuels like ammonia, SAF or methanol from direct air capture plants. Any other thoughts?
I'd prefer battery electric, it's likely the lowest cost
DME from waste nuclear heat as a replacement for diesel/ jet is my preferred option😊
@@paintballthieupwns okay, but where does the carbon in that fuel come from?
@@tobiasreichelt888Completely the opposite. Battery electric is horrible for cars, but it's even worse for boats and total madness to suggest it in aviation.
@@pistonburner6448 why?
I’m not holding my breath on flight schools going electric, as a UND student (I do not speak for the university in any way/shape/form nor are my views associated with the university) but until they can demonstrate 2 hours of charge in extreme weather, i.e. 90+ days and sub -10F when we fly it won’t fly
You touched on so many good subjects. Initial training and electrics sounds nice at a glance. But you still have to train in normal airplanes. This increases the cost to train.
The whole argument is ridiculous. Thanks to the physics of flight aviation has always been forced to be as efficient as it possibly can in order to increase range/payload from day one. They need to go adress cargo ships burning 63000 gal/day each from an transportation catagory that started and operated on Zero Emmisions for Millenia..
Back to the 1700’s and sailboats??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Cargo ships emit absurdly less than planes per tonne-kilometer. Ships and rail consist of the two most efficient methods of transportation. Simply pointing out that a single ship emits way more than a plane without realizing how many planes would be needed to transport the same amount of cargo is simply brain-dead.
@@JPduclerc and yet ships had an emissions free solution that still achieved the exact same result and could with advances in tech today be even better where vehicles and AC do not.. I tell you what. You can have your fuel powered boats. I'll keep my gas powered vehicle and AC and we all go out merry way..
@@JPduclerc further more the point was that global commerce is the bigger issue. If countries wouldn't continue to import/export as much as they do you could eliminate a significant amount of pollution. If you enforced people to live within a certain radius of their employment you could significantly reduce commuter energy demands. You could improve and make mass transport work.. But no one is going to give up those freedoms. No-one really interested in being energy efficient. So why should I give up the things that I enjoy doing?
@@Dyson_Cyberdynesystems "...that still achieved the exact same result..." okay bud if you are going to be dishonest I'm not gonna continue engaging with you. Have a good one 👍.
Batteries are about as efficient as we can make them. There really isn't much room in battery tech to improve the energy density and there is co2 is making the batteries themselves plus the disposal and batteries degrade over time. A plane that can take 500lb of fuel will always be able to take 500lb of fuel. An electric plane can always do 100% of charge but 100% charge is very different when new compared to five years later.
Thanks for a well-researched discussion about the ways that things are going in the airplane fuel industry. I liked the balanced approach to the different aspects and the recognition that it will become more important in the future.
Great video - thank you for making and sharing it.
Whilst certification will be a large hurdle, could E85 Mogas help the GA industry? It would need a new fuel container, lines, pumps and specifically made motors for this, but the high octane (around 140 IIRC) could help - I know the energy density is lower than standard Mogas? It also doesn't target the actual area that needs sorting - that Jet A1 shot put.
I think the real issue with bio-ethanol is that it turns to gum when it sits for long periods of time.
No discussion about where electricity comes from?
The receptacle on your home's wall.😀
Every viable non-fossil source of electricity is discreetly sabotaged by political dementia and mass hysteria, except hydropower in some countries and contexts.
Sssshhhh!!!!
Paul, why bother reasoning with your audiance? More than 35% dont accept facts as a valid argument. Appealing to their emotions would be more effective, that is how those people make decisions afterall.
Would love to hear your thoughts on other alternative fuels such as ammonia
I did not have time to review all of the comments so this might duplicate a previous comment.
With respect to the pure electric aircraft efforts one thing to keep in mind is that we scoop up the major portion of the fuel as we fly which is air. The stoichiometric mixture is 14.7:1. Of course Air is only 1/5 oxygen but that still is three times the oxygen to fuel. Electric vehicles have to carry the full energy needs rather than 25%.
Also, aircraft take advantage in that they loose weight during a flight due to fuel usage. Electric vehicles weigh the same when they land as when they take off.
I'm surprised you didn't go into the source of Electricity for electric planes. Just like electric cars, when you plug your electric plane into the grid, where is it getting the electricity from??? More often than not (Over 85% of the time??) it's a Coal fired power plant!!! Coal is *FAR MORE* polluting than Auto Gas, Av Gas or Jet A. In other words, your electric plane not only can't make it as far, it's not fixing a DAMN THING!
Perfect, let's axe the coal plants. Glad you see it our way.
@@ColHogan-zg2pc And replace them with what exactly??? The only viable replacements are Nuclear and Hydroelectric. Both of which the Enviro-Nutbars oppose!