Is There A Better Way To Power Airplanes?

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It’s hard to replace jet fuel because the alternatives aren’t energetic enough, are too dangerous, or aren’t yet being made at scale.

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To learn more, start your googling with these keywords:
Jet fuel - a liquid petroleum fuel with high specific energy and energy density, used in airplane jet engines, made of kerosene with a few additives
Specific Energy - how much energy something contains per unit mass
Energy Density - how much energy something contains per unit volume
Synthetic jet fuel - a jet fuel replacement, typically aiming to have lower life cycle environmental impacts than jet fuel (AKA: sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), alternative jet fuel, renewable aviation fuel, renewable jet fuel, biojet fuel, sustainable alternative fuel)
Kerosene - a petroleum product that is the main component of jet fuel (and old fashioned lanterns)
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If you liked this week’s video, you might also like:
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Credits (and Twitter handles):
Video Illustrators: Ever Salazar and Sarah Berman
With Contributions From: Henry Reich, Kate Yoshida, Peter Reich, David Goldenberg, Julián Gómez, Arcadi Garcia Rius
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References:

Burton, Freya. Personal communication, Feb 2020

Caldeira, K. Personal communication, Feb 2020

Chuck, C. (Ed.). 2016. Biofuels for aviation: feedstocks, technology and implementation. Academic Press

Thanks also to Steve Thorne and Erik Pieh.

References for calculations

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one of my favorite facts about this is that jet liners and geese have about the same maximum range without refueling (or in the case of geese, spending a season getting fat again, ) because both of them start their journey as about the same fraction by weight of oily hydrocarbon fuel with about the same energy density, which they burn to move the remaining payload fraction a similar distance.

dr.kraemer

I swear yall write the puns first and reverse-engineer the rest of the episode from there

nolaffinmatter

The best part is that thumbnail isn't even an exaggeration

IFearlessINinja

When I saw the thumbnail I just chuckled and thought, “ huh, gay powered planes”

keegancongleton

0:26 "We might wanna replace jet fuel with something else-" **shows a picture of wood** "-but that's really hard!" well played Alex XD

ShubhThakkar

I was here when thumbnail was a battery!

aruniljaiswal

I swear to god the thumbnail was an airplane carrying a battery

bowdoesjai

*straps battery to plane to make it fly further*

enjineer

TheScienceBiome

Legends know they changed the thumbnail...
Initially it was a big battery strapped on the plane

adityabanka_iso

2:30 “Planely speaking”

I see what you did there!

spencerlukay

Thanks for this. Ever since I knew about hydrogen cars and that batteries were too heavy to allow electric airplanes, I've been wondering why while it's not as practical for cars, hydrogen powered airplanes couldn't be a thing.

aliensinnoh

Yet another great video but here's my opinion on one of the notes you had: I think it should have been bigger or more visible, the note being the one that says planes rarely take off with full fuel load and that they almost never (or never) use it all.

Edit: wait a second, why is the thumbnail all rainbow and stuff now?

diogonunes

if we managed to make a nuclear plane fail-prof it could be amazing, we could make a plane that can stay flying for days without landing. but we only ever did a few experiments in the 80's and never went ahead with it.

danilooliveira

Thank god someone posted a video about airplanes so I can get my weekly fix.

Wendover Productions didn't post a new video about airplanes in a week.

YouAreBreathing