Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation
muusemuuse@lemm.ee 4 days agoSo that might not be a big deal. Most of the energy in gasoline is released as heat and not useable.
Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation
muusemuuse@lemm.ee 4 days agoSo that might not be a big deal. Most of the energy in gasoline is released as heat and not useable.
Natanael@infosec.pub 4 days ago
Not sure it’s enough.
Airplane engines are about 35% efficient. Maybe you can push it upwards 50% with state of the art designs.
Fuel cells hits about 60-70%, state of the art can maybe hit 85% (and the electric engines can be efficient enough to be part of the error margin in this equation). Best case you’re halving wasted energy. That means you need AT LEAST half the energy density, or else you’re carrying more fuel mass for the same flight. Might be tolerable if it is at least cheaper, but you’re also adding stress and wear as you do.