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Boeing’s Concept SUGAR Plane Plugs In Like a Prius
In November of 2011, American commercial airlines consumed 48.3 million gallons of fuel—every day—and paid a total of $49.8 billion that month to do so. And with increasingly tight operating budgets, fuel efficiency has quickly become a primary concern for the airlines. Boeing thinks one possible solution is its new plug-in hybrid jet concept that burns 70 percent less gas per flight with the help of the local power grid. (gizmodo.com) More...
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Yeah, there isn't a plug on a Gen1 or Gen2 Prius. And they ALL have motors. And Jet-A is $1,000/gal???? REALLY? I think this guy at Gizmodo needs to go to journalism school.
Only a tiny fraction of the Prius vehicles on the road plug in, the rest are powered by an internal combustion engine.
The author correctly identifies battery efficiency vs weight as a major problem...as it is in cars. His suggestion of methane is likely to be more relevant at least for domestic airlines as we will have lots of natural gas from domestic sources from which components can be extracted and/or converted to useable fuels.
insted of con-trails in the sky - extention cords!
@Chris Bryant No Jet-A is not $1,000/GAL. If you read carefully it says they consumed 48.3 million gallons A DAY, and paid $49.8 billion THAT MONTH. And really technicalities such as which Prius' does and which Prius does not pug in is not the focal point of this article. How about lighten up a bit man.
Cheers!
Cheers!
OK, I'll give the "that month" bit. But it's still poorly written and that doesn't change the fact that the Prius is a terrible example (even the plug-in model has a 1.8L engine); you're not going to build a plane with fuel tanks and big engines like that if the point is to be electric. It also lightly skims over the fact that a plane would have to be bigger than an A380 to carry the battery capacity for even a short flight. Nor does anything in the whole tree-hugging, environmentalist movement address where the heck you get the electricity to recharge the batteries. And he also skipped over the fact that an airliner on the ground loses money, period. Pumping a few thousand pounds of Jet-A takes a LOT less time than recharging a massive set of batteries.
unless they had some type of interchangeable battery system than yeah it's inconceivable.
