by kumarski | 2025-04-21 02:00:18+00:00
Don't have time to reply to everyone. Clearly triggered a lot of programmers here, so I'll try to go point by point.

Electric motors are ~3× more efficient, but the crushing 18:1 energy density disadvantage (170-180 Wh/kg usable vs. 3,200 Wh/kg for jet fuel) creates a physics trap no engineer can escape [1].

A staggering 70.3% of total energy is consumed before the damn thing even moves – manufacturing (35.2%), extraction (19.8%), and processing (15.3%) create an energy debt that makes the whole proposition a joke[2]

Grids: Carbon intensity varies wildly (200-840g CO₂e/kWh), meaning your "clean" electric plane is often dirtier than conventional systems – that's not an opinion, it's EPA data [3].

Real-world performance nightmare is quantified: cold weather operations see a brutal 33% range reduction vs. just 6% for conventional, charging wastes 22.4% operational efficiency, and VTOL applications – which fanboys love to cite – require 2.5-3× more energy per mile than normal flight [4].

We've seen improvements (2.7× EV range increase since 2010), but we're still butting against fundamental chemistry limitations – lithium-ion cathodes achieve only 25-30% of theoretical capacity, and that's a brick wall no amount of startup capital can break through [5].

Synthetic fuels? Give me a break – 10-15% round-trip efficiency means you need 6.7-10× more renewable capacity than direct electrification, basically requiring us to cover half the planet in solar panels [6].

I explicitly acknowledge where electric makes sense (short-haul ferries under 50 miles, puddle-jumper aircraft), while demonstrating why crossing oceans remains physically impossible without a battery chemistry revolution [7].

lithium propulsion systems cost $245-380/kWh delivered vs. $75-110/kWh for conventional systems – that's 3.3× more expensive with no way to close the gap without massive taxpayer subsidies [8].

If this technology truly made economic and environmental sense, why isn't China – which manufactures most of the world's batteries and has the densest transportation networks requiring efficiency – adopting it at scale for their own infrastructure? They desperately need cleaner air and water, have explicitly prioritized environmental improvements in recent policy, and would recognize a truly superior EROI technology before anyone. Their purchase behavior speaks very loud.

[1] Society of Automotive Engineers, Technical Paper 2024-01-0873, https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/20...

[2] Journal of Industrial Ecology, 24(1), 120-132, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15309290

[3] EPA eGRID 2023, https://www.epa.gov/egrid

[4] IEEE Transportation Electrification, 10(2), 1582-1593, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=668...

[5] Nature Energy, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01060-5

[6] International Energy Agency, "The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions", https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in...

[7] Maritime Economics & Logistics, 26(2), 112-128, https://link.springer.com/journal/41278

[8] Journal of Transport Economics, 58(2), 234-248, https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-transport-econo...