A recent experiment by google and American airlines, has shown that these could become far rarer which would help cut aviation emissions.
Through using AI models, contrails can be reduced by 54%. Given the impact on global warming (contrails absorb and trap heat really well), removing these contrails could make a big difference around the world.
So how big is this difference? Well planes only account for 2.5% of global emissions, but this increases to 3.5% with other effects such as contrails. A large part of this 1% is down to contrails, so by largely eliminating them, could cut aviation impacts by 2 sevenths.
Looking at it differently, a reduction of 2/7 or 29%, accounts for 2/3 of the emissions cuts required by aviation by 2050.
This does not really make a big difference to the overall issue, but shows that Aviation can still cut their impact in a meaningful way.
The North Pacific right whale is in a similar position. In the eastern North Pacific there is a population of 30-35, while the western North Pacific is around 300.
It should be noted, that despite this numbers, the North Pacifi right whale is only considered Endangered. not critically endnagered.
While hunting was the initial driver to drop the population. Current threats include ship strikes, as well as entanglement in fishing gear, and of course the small size of the population. Some of the places with the highest density are Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, Okhotsk Sea, Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka area, though I should mention that this is a huge area, so does not help a great deal.
Below is a video of a rare sighting of this species. Below that is a list of references to this species on this website (if any). Below this, we will add any opportunities to see this species in the wild.
Currently, the majority of aircraft use their main engine while moving around on the ground. This can account for as much as 5% of the fuel that they use in their journey.
By running the taxiing on electricity, whether from batteries or a generator, either reduces the fuel burned by as much as 90% or more. This means that there is a saving of around 5% of fuel per flight.
With major airlines, the fuel used on a flight accounts for around 22% of the cost of the flight, which means that this 5% saving of fuel cuts overall costs by around 1%. In the cut-throat world of airlines, a 1% advantage over another airline can quickly become a significant issue. Put differently, it is thought, that each aircraft with an EGTS system installed will save around $250,000 a year. As such even an incredibly expensive EGTS system would quickly pay itself back and then some. It will also make airports far less noisy for much of the time.
The last time that I wrote about a potential Airline disrupter was back in late March. Interestingly, the source article was written back at this point but I didn’t find it for a few months.
In this case, the change is in design rather than in the fuel (the last article on planes was looking at using biofuels made from algae. I should note, that this is probably possible to power any aircraft, so both changes could team up.
In this case, rather than changing the fuel, the layout of the plane was changed. Rather than 1 relatively thick wing, they replaced it with 3 thin wings distributed along the body of the plane.
By having 3 sets of narrow wings, each part of the plane is supported.
One of the main advantages of this design, is that there is no natural rotating point. Generally the tail of the plan is required to keep the plane flying level (this tail is recognized as one of the most problematic parts of the plane in terms of efficiency).
Why is this design exciting? Well this plane would have a carbon footprint 70-80% lower than current aircraft. This means that it is incredibly cheap to run, and therefore cheaper for passengers to fly on. Also of interest is the fact that this design makes the aeroplane far safer. Due to its higher efficiency it can also fly an incredibly long way – 10,500 miles, far enough to easily fly London to Australia ( this would suggest that perhaps in the future, non stop flights to new Zealand are not too far off). Another advantage, is that due to its low drag coefficient, it would fly at 690 miles per hour (mach 0.9) – more than 100 miles an hour faster than normal passenger jets. In a similar way, London to Johannesburg would be a little over 8 hours.
So this plane would be cheaper to fuel, fly further and faster. It is predicted to be far cheaper to maintain, and to have a life span of twice current planes. It would have a wider body, so take more passengers than normal. It has a high lift coefficient, allowing it to take off from shorter runways, allowing it to access more of the world. Due to the how thing the wings are, they would not be able to store fuel anymore, so this would have to go in the proper body of the plane – current plans would be at the top of the plane over the passengers. As well as having a lifespan of roughly 50 years, it is thought that each plane will take half as long to build.
Whether we see an aircraft like this is anyone’s guess. Moving to one engine at the rear of the plane, probably rules out electric propulsion, though who knows. Of course with wings as slim as this it is unlikely to be able to accommodate dispersed power.
Elon Musk has talked about creating an electric plane, I think that this is a fantastic idea, but not from a tesla fanboy point of view.
Electric planes are in their infancy. There are a range of extremely light weight aircraft for learning to fly. There are also an increasing number of island hopper jets, which can allow easy access for small communities – at prices that are affordable, and therefore long-term as well as the far more environmentally friendly setup.
The other big move in this arena, is Ryanair. They are a budget airline operating throughout Europe, but they are building an aircraft which should be able to carry 186 people (31 rows of 6 seats) that would cover 80% of their routes. My hope is that this is a move into them behaving in a more compassionate way – they have a reputation of treating people poorly (I have experienced that first hand but that is another story)
Elon Musk envisaged a vertical take off and landing aircraft, and one which would fly high enough to travel at supersonic speeds. He did state that he thought batteries needed to reach 400wh/kg and the batteries that run tesla cars are currently 260wh/kg, so were still some way off. Having said that, tesla has some of the best battery research going on, and they are confident that the batteries will be ready in the next 3 or so years.
So what impact would a tesla plane have? Well what Musk is describing is largely a private jet, not a passenger jet. Never-the-less Tesla cars started and high cost and came down. It is likely that a Tesla plane would do something similar. Certainly, with the weight Tesla can bring to bare, it is likely that any involvement by Tesla would push the electrical aviation market place to new heights.
