[ExI] How will air travel work in a green solar economy?

[BillK]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 8:09 PM, Mark Walker wrote:
>
> I'm not sure pessimism about solar's potential is the right conclusion from
> John's back-of-the-envelop calculations. New Mexico is 121,593 square miles,
> which means that it should be sufficient to keep 40k planes in the air.
> Estimates of the number of planes in the air at anyone time world wide are
> in the neighborhood of 10 to 20K. So, covering half of New Mexico should
> about write the check.
> And of course, most of these planes are much smaller than a 747.
>
>

Google electric aircraft. Airbus has a flying two-seat demonstrator already.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/11/tech/airbus-electric-aircraft/index.html>

Using batteries and electric ducted fans at present. Refuelling means
swapping batteries. But they have plans for much bigger craft.
As batteries improve, and with improved solar cells on the wings, ten
years will bring big changes.

BillK