Today is not 2 April, but there was a piece last night on the Beeb which referred to electric powered commercial aircraft within the next few years. Is the energy density of batteries sufficient?
Hydrogen has a problem and that is that liquid Hydrogen has a fraction of the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels. So the takeoff weight would be several times as large, and the overall fuel efficiency lower! Is that some kind of advantage, because I don't think so! Also whilst electricity may be an intermediate, it would require even more windmills, which we all agree are not all that green and cannot be made without fossil fuels. I think that trying to make wood blades rather than epoxy carbon fibre (both from oil!) would teach most people the error of their ways. Steel would also become unavailable, and saying "just use scrap" and arc furnaces is a non-starter from several points of view. So just how big an entirely wooden windmill without Iron or steel can you make? Well planes found that about 200 HP was the maximum a wooden prop could stand and that at 2500 RPM. I wait to see the windmill!
Hydrogen has a problem and that is that liquid Hydrogen has a fraction of the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels. So the takeoff weight would be several times as large, and the overall fuel efficiency lower! Is that some kind of advantage, because I don't think so! Also whilst electricity may be an intermediate, it would require even more windmills, which we all agree are not all that green and cannot be made without fossil fuels. I think that trying to make wood blades rather than epoxy carbon fibre (both from oil!) would teach most people the error of their ways. Steel would also become unavailable, and saying "just use scrap" and arc furnaces is a non-starter from several points of view. So just how big an entirely wooden windmill without Iron or steel can you make? Well planes found that about 200 HP was the maximum a wooden prop could stand and that at 2500 RPM. I wait to see the windmill!
