NASA dreaming about an all electric plane

It's looking good for electric cars as far as being the future, but what about planes? When you think of how much power it takes to not only take off but keep a plane flying, it doesn't seem like a battery could fulfill that. The batteries we have today just don't have the capacity needed to power our planes. To make an electric aircraft even remotely possible, two things need to happen. Our batteries need to have bigger capacity, and our modern day plane design needs to change a bit.

NASA wants to create "Lithium-Air batteries", which according to TechCrunch, "use oxygen as the active electron carrier, sucking it in when they're being discharged and expelling it when charging." These batteries could work, but not easily. NASA has tons of work to do developing these batteries and hopefully getting them to power a plane. Another option would be a fuel cell powered plane. This way would use oxygen and hydrogen to create electricity to move a turbine. As TechCrunch reports, this way would still produce little amounts of fossil fuels, but much less than current engines do.

When I said the design of the plane might need to be changed, this is what I was talking about. The giant tail fin located at the back of the plane is helpful, but because of its size, holds the plane back. If NASA could create something like fold-able winglets, this would allow aircraft to delete the tail fin completely and use the winglets for stabilization, etc.

Don't expect to see all electric airplanes popping up in 2020, but be ready for them someday. Do you think a battery can lift a plane? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: | TechCrunch |

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Image Credit: | iflyblog |

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