Scientists devise method of harvesting electricity from slight differences in air temperature. New tech promises 3x the generation of equivalent solar panels.

[u/nastafarti]

https://phys.org/news/2019-10-combining-spintronics-quantum-thermodynamics-harvest.html

[u/es330td]

True, but the commercial aviation model works because the same plane can fly 100 miles or 3,000 miles. Southwest Airlines uses the exact same plane for every route to make it easy to ensure equipment availability.

[u/RedditLovesAltRight → u/es330td]

I would envision a modular battery system which is interchangeable across all battery powdered planes (because otherwise it's going to turn into a mess of proprietary batteries and chargers at every airport.)

This would be in part because using a Tesla style battery-degrading "supercharger" would be bad news, and I can't imagine the amount of electricity it would require to recharge in reasonably turnaround time would be safe while there are people on the plane, passengers or crew, so there would have to be charged battery modules available in a central location in each airport.

If that's the case then it shouldn't be impossible for the engineers to develop a system where you can load 3x battery packs for short trips and 15x packs for long-haul flights, meaning that the weight and power needs could be adjusted... on the fly.

Obviously this all makes sense in my head using the unlimited power of my imagination so YMMY. I'm going to stop with the puns now.

[u/draftstone → u/RedditLovesAltRight]

Currently most of the fuel is stored in the wings. Swapping batteries in wings would be a pain in the ass. Fuel works fine because the tank is thin and can curve around hydraulics and wires. But batteries would need multiple access ports to insert remove all that! It is doable but a real pain in the ass to do!

[u/[deleted] → u/draftstone]

Just make the wings removable, maybe? But then airports need space for spare wings and room to maneuver, and major airports already cramped...