Talk:Why Batteries will Never Compete With Fuels
I agree completely! ESPECIALLY for aviation.
With fueled aircraft, be it conventional kerosine with P2X / Biofuel - Fuel, or some of the newer designs for CNG / LNG , or even cryogenic Hydrogen , You gain eficiency as the amount of fuel left goes down. With batteries you can never take off "light" which will lock you in to that "full tank" take off mass, allowing less flexability in runway length, as well as less potential cargo for the same airframe (you could do less fuel, more cargo on some runs in a fueled aircraft due to not HAVING to use the full tank)
Also (i need to expand on this a bit in Technological Lock-Down , but) those "Grid Scale Tesla Battery Banks" make almost NO SENSE short of the low cost due to those batteries' economy of scale; Lithium batteries are a fire hazard to some degree, it doesn't scale well (same ammount of cost /kwh for the most part) Pumped Hydro , Compressed Gas Storage or P2X -> Tanks/Salt Domes, and other similar storage technologies get very cheap storage once you get the initial "converters" going. As long as you have enough compressors/valves to get the flow you want, you can always add more tank volume.
And if you want to go off of conversion efficiency FES should win (need numbers), and can have more charge/discharge cycles, and needs no lithium/other semi-rare materials. (Also as density isn't a huge issue for grid scale, huge banks of Supercapacitors may actually work)
I think once (if allowed...electric could cause some serious Technological Lock-In , especially on the governemet investment side) FCEVs catch on, electric will decline short of LSEVs , and some other niche cases (electric Glider Tows / Trainer Airplanes can make some sense, need to see if fuel cell options become even cheaper despite more maitnence)
The only advantage of BEVs is their low maitnence (short of battery swaps), but for larger/more used vehicles this is less of an issue (swapping a Semi-Permeable Membrane on a FCEV isn't that bad in the case of a car that also needs a breakpad swap, new tires, etc, but for a cheap LSEV it may be "a bit much"
That's just my two cents
