A quick followup on solar-powered flight. A comment came up that "battery-operated flight was a possibility because the charge density of battery tech will get there".
I think it's going to take discovering some Star Trek energy crystal flux magic. A current, say, 787 uses about 4 terrajoules of energy on its flight. The rumored next iteration of the Tesla Model S stores 90kW.hr (~= 300 megajoules) in a ~1000lb battery (see: http://my.teslamotors.com/.../forum/forums/model-s-battery-0), which is pretty consistent with this claim that a typical Li-ion battery can store 150W.hr per 1kg.To store the required energy would take around 15000 batteries, weighing 15 million lbs. The corresponding kerosene weighs under 30,000 lbs. That means the same energy requires 500 times more weight in storage. This is the gap that must be closed to a large degree.
I think it's going to take discovering some Star Trek energy crystal flux magic. A current, say, 787 uses about 4 terrajoules of energy on its flight. The rumored next iteration of the Tesla Model S stores 90kW.hr (~= 300 megajoules) in a ~1000lb battery (see: http://my.teslamotors.com/.../forum/forums/model-s-battery-0), which is pretty consistent with this claim that a typical Li-ion battery can store 150W.hr per 1kg.To store the required energy would take around 15000 batteries, weighing 15 million lbs. The corresponding kerosene weighs under 30,000 lbs. That means the same energy requires 500 times more weight in storage. This is the gap that must be closed to a large degree.
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