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A powerful new battery could give us electric planes that don’t pollute
MIT Technology Review ^ | October 30, 2018 | James Temple

Posted on 11/03/2018 12:15:15 PM PDT by Zhang Fei

Brightly colored molecular models line two walls of Yet-Ming Chiang’s office at MIT. Chiang, a materials science professor and serial battery entrepreneur, has spent much of his career studying how slightly different arrangements of those sticks and spheres add up to radically different outcomes in energy storage.

But he and his colleague, Venkat Viswanathan, are taking a different approach to reach their next goal, altering not the composition of the batteries but the alignment of the compounds within them. By applying magnetic forces to straighten the tortuous path that lithium ions navigate through the electrodes, the scientists believe, they could significantly boost the rate at which the device discharges electricity.

That shot of power could open up a use that has long eluded batteries: meeting the huge demands of a passenger aircraft at liftoff. If it works as hoped, it would enable regional commuter flights that don’t burn fuel or produce direct climate emissions.

Viswanathan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, initiated and is leading the research project. He and Chiang are now collaborating with 24M, the lithium-ion battery manufacturer Chiang cofounded in 2010, and Zunum Aero, an aircraft startup based in Bothell, Washington, to develop and test prototype batteries specifically designed for the needs of an advanced hybrid plane.

High stakes

Eliminating greenhouse-gas emissions from airplanes is one of the hardest challenges in the climate puzzle. Air travel accounts for around 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions and is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse-gas pollution.

But there are no clean alternatives today for more than a tiny sliver of air travel, because the batteries powering electric cars are still too expensive, heavy, and otherwise poorly suited for aviation.

More than a dozen companies, including Uber, Airbus, and Boeing, are already exploring the potential

(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; airbus; airtravel; aviation; boeing; energy; science; technology
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To: Zhang Fei

Check out post 28. It won’t be happening anytime soon.


41 posted on 11/03/2018 1:35:55 PM PDT by dynoman (Objectivity is the essence of intelligence. - Marilyn vos Savant)
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To: traderrob6

No kidding. I don’t think so.


42 posted on 11/03/2018 1:36:12 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Zhang Fei

An electric plane?

No thanks.


43 posted on 11/03/2018 1:37:01 PM PDT by VanDeKoik
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To: minnesota_bound

LOL

Or at least a sudden drop.....


44 posted on 11/03/2018 1:37:22 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Zhang Fei

Better batteries are always good. Mucho better batteries would be a game changer. I hope they can make this work.


45 posted on 11/03/2018 1:38:15 PM PDT by sphinx
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To: Zhang Fei

Very cool if legit and dependable.


46 posted on 11/03/2018 1:39:33 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: blackdog

21st Century “steampunk” tech, yaknow.


47 posted on 11/03/2018 1:41:30 PM PDT by HKMk23 (You ask how to fight an idea? Well, I'll tell you how: with another idea!)
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To: blackdog
What about steam-powered airplanes? Just bring enough wood on the airplane to keep the fires stoked.

Or, everybody in the back could just pedal a bicycle hooked to generators to charge up the batteries.

Fly and exercise at the same time. You have great incentive to keep pedaling. That Los Angeles to Sydney route can be rough, though.

48 posted on 11/03/2018 1:41:45 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

All they would need to do is mount a windmill on the airplane to charge the batteries in flight.

Sorry folks I know you wanted to go to LA but we have to fly upwind to stay up so now routing to NYC .


49 posted on 11/03/2018 1:45:07 PM PDT by oldasrocks (rump)
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To: dynoman

petro based fuel tank = energy container
electrical battery = energy container

which one is a problem when contained energy is expended?


50 posted on 11/03/2018 1:48:46 PM PDT by Covenantor (Men are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern. " Chesterton)
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To: Zhang Fei

.
Bad news!

A higher rate of discharge will male the batteries even more dangerous than they already are.

There is no legitimate basis for this quest in the first place. We have extremely clean air just about everywhere, and an inexhaustible supply of fuels.

Send the enviro-loons straight to hell!
.


51 posted on 11/03/2018 1:54:55 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Covenantor

.
Both


52 posted on 11/03/2018 1:55:38 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

.
Not cool at all!

An incredible waste of rare and valuable resources to avoid using resources that are safer and in abundant supply.

Envirolunacy at its very worst.
.


53 posted on 11/03/2018 1:58:40 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: vette6387

.
I think it was the Kendig carb that GM bought and buried.


54 posted on 11/03/2018 2:00:56 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: Zhang Fei

About the only thing feasible, when it comes to batteries, is something along the lines of a Chevrolet Volt, where you use the gasoline you are burning the charge the batteries and use the batteries in the descending part of midflight so hydrocarbons don’t have to be used.

Otherwise, imo, this technology is never going anywhere.


55 posted on 11/03/2018 2:05:20 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death by cults.)
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To: Zhang Fei
Thanks.. but NO thanks!

I'll wait 10 years to see how dependable those batteries really are.

56 posted on 11/03/2018 2:13:09 PM PDT by VideoDoctor
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To: Jonty30

I don’t envy the test pilot for the first proof of concept flight.


57 posted on 11/03/2018 2:20:05 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (They can have my pitbull when they pry his cold dead jaws off my ass.)
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To: Jonty30; blackdog; Steely Tom; E. Pluribus Unum; hanamizu; catnipman; roadcat; gigster; sphinx

Read posts 28 and 39.


58 posted on 11/03/2018 2:25:48 PM PDT by dynoman (Objectivity is the essence of intelligence. - Marilyn vos Savant)
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To: dynoman

I’m well aware that batteries cannot, in any form, replace hydrocarbons. I think they can play a bigger role, as technology develops, but they will never be something that planes can rely on solely. It is hydrocarbons forever. :)


59 posted on 11/03/2018 2:27:30 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death by cults.)
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To: roadcat

I was thinking along similar lines. The big power need is while the plane is still on the ground!


60 posted on 11/03/2018 2:28:49 PM PDT by null and void (Don't argue with the keyboard warriors. They know their delusions better than you.)
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