Electric planes don’t need sunlight to fly, but they do need funding

At a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Friday, former President Donald Trump criticized the push for electric airplanes, noting, “All they know is electric. They want electric military tanks. They want electric airplanes. What happens if the sun doesn’t shine when you’re in the air?”

While it’s always difficult to tell when a bombastic speaker is being deliberately obtuse and when he’s simply uninformed, he may not be alone in misunderstanding how electric planes work and why anyone would want to develop such planes.

With a major player in the alternative fuels market filing for bankruptcy, in part because of investor concerns that Trump would revoke Biden’s support for sustainable aviation programs, perhaps it’s time to offer a simple guide to the technology.

Not all electric planes are solar-powered planes, and solar-powered planes do not need constant sunlight.

First, let’s be clear that not all electric aircraft programs include solar power as a power source. Those that do look to solar panels use batteries to store solar energy, allowing them to operate in cloudy conditions and at night.

One remarkable program, Solar Impulse, has already proven that solar-powered planes carrying people can fly around the world. I visited the Solar Impulse Control Center in Monaco during the 2016 circumnavigation program.

While this is a promising development, it is unlikely that solar energy can be used as fuel for large passenger planes.

This is because the main challenge for any type of electric aircraft is that it must have a battery sufficient to power the aircraft during its mission. The power demands of larger aircraft would require batteries that are too large and too heavy to fly. Finding a balance between aerodynamic weight constraints and sustainable power is a real challenge that many aerospace companies are trying to address.

However, solar cells could power other important aircraft, such as single- or double-seat aircraft and drones for transport, communications, and defense. Again, these aircraft, like Solar Impulse, would use batteries to store solar energy, allowing them to fly when the sun isn’t shining.

Hydrogen energy promise crushed by investor concerns over Trump administration funding overhaul

In sad news for those monitoring aircraft sustainability, Universal Hydrogen collapsed this week after burning through $100 million in funding and failing to raise more. The innovative program was working on the most likely sustainable power source for larger aircraft: hydrogen.

The company’s founder and CEO, Paul Eremenko, who previously served as chief technology officer at Airbus, told The Seattle Times: “If (Donald) Trump were to win, investors saw a significant risk that the massive subsidy for green hydrogen that was put in place as part of Biden’s inflation-boosting bill would disappear.”

However, the promise of hydrogen-powered flight is compelling enough that many European and British companies are working on further research and development. As Airbus, which is actively working on hydrogen propulsion, explains:

“Hydrogen is a technology with a high potential, with a mass per unit of energy three times greater than traditional jet fuel. Hydrogen produced from renewable energy through electrolysis is CO2-free, making renewable energy potentially capable of powering large aircraft over long distances, but without the unwanted byproduct of CO2 emissions.”

The aviation industry is considering a combination of hydrogen solutions, including synthetic sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) produced using hydrogen, hybrid hydrogen fuel cells to power aircraft, and hydrogen-powered combustion engines.

Airbus is looking for a blended-wing airliner with up to 200 seats and a range of 2,000 nautical miles that could be powered by hydrogen instead of fossil fuels.

There are many promising programs underway to find alternative and sustainable energy sources to power aircraft, but funding is needed to make them viable in the future.