Technological, economic and environmental prospects of all-electric aircraft

Andreas W. Schäfer (), Steven R. H. Barrett, Khan Doyme, Lynnette M. Dray, Albert R. Gnadt, Rod Self, Aidan O’Sullivan, Athanasios P. Synodinos and Antonio J. Torija
Additional contact information
Andreas W. Schäfer: University College London, Central House
Steven R. H. Barrett: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Khan Doyme: University College London, Central House
Lynnette M. Dray: University College London, Central House
Albert R. Gnadt: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Rod Self: University of Southampton, Highfield
Aidan O’Sullivan: University College London, Central House
Athanasios P. Synodinos: University of Southampton, Highfield
Antonio J. Torija: University of Southampton, Highfield

Nature Energy, 2019, vol. 4, issue 2, 160-166

Abstract: Abstract Ever since the Wright brothers’ first powered flight in 1903, commercial aircraft have relied on liquid hydrocarbon fuels. However, the need for greenhouse gas emission reductions along with recent progress in battery technology for automobiles has generated strong interest in electric propulsion in aviation. This Analysis provides a first-order assessment of the energy, economic and environmental implications of all-electric aircraft. We show that batteries with significantly higher specific energy and lower cost, coupled with further reductions of costs and CO2 intensity of electricity, are necessary for exploiting the full range of economic and environmental benefits provided by all-electric aircraft. A global fleet of all-electric aircraft serving all flights up to a distance of 400–600 nautical miles (741–1,111 km) would demand an equivalent of 0.6–1.7% of worldwide electricity consumption in 2015. Although lifecycle CO2 emissions of all-electric aircraft depend on the power generation mix, all direct combustion emissions and thus direct air pollutants and direct non-CO2 warming impacts would be eliminated.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-018-0294-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natene:v:4:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1038_s41560-018-0294-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/

DOI: 10.1038/s41560-018-0294-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().