www.seattletimes.com
WA electric plane startup halts operations
Arlington-based startup Eviation, which in 2022 flew the first flight of its electric airplane at Moses Lake, laid off most staff and paused operations indefinitely.
It was a beautiful plane. Not sure why it did not fly more or succeed, after so many promises and PRs.
Pound for pound hard to beat JetA
This, and with this announcement https://summitcarbonsolutions.com/s...ction-and-energy-independence-in-the-midwest/ it looks like a full synthetic jet fuel is going to be manufactured on a massive scale in a few years that can use existing aircraft and infrastructure and not rely on nonexistent battery technology or electric power grid changes. If I had money to invest I know which side I would bet on winning in the end.
Eviation was based in Arlington. 15 nm north of Everett. Close, but vastly different airports.
Been holding your breath for 100UL for long?
You should have invested in the bio-fuel side then you would be making money now. While the e-fuels are making news now they are still far away from any large scale production, just as bio-fuels are. The down side to e-fuels is the high energy requirements and hydrogen supplies it needs to be produced.
"Electric"WA electric plane startup halts operations
Arlington-based startup Eviation, which in 2022 flew the first flight of its electric airplane at Moses Lake, laid off most staff and paused operations indefinitely.
It was a beautiful plane. Not sure why it did not fly more or succeed, after so many promises and PRs.
And business reality. It was created by people who first and foremost wanted an electric airplane vs a financially competitive airplane.
I don’t think an approval on a new formulation of fuel being Maybe worked on by a few small companies, and a chemically identical synthesized fuel based on technology that was being done at an industrial scale in the 1940’s applied to a multibillion dollar investment infrastructural development that has full funding, already permitted, and granted the power of eminent domain are even playing on the same field.
Come to iowa some time and see how often the windmills are not turning, despite the wind blowing. It’s very rare the vast 30 plus mile long rows of 400 foot tall turbines are all turning. There is no buffer to equalize out power production and demand, the fuel burning plants can’t ramp up and down to compensate for variable wind days, a giant electrolysis plant generating hydrogen can with out affecting base load voltage in the transmission grid. At best they currently supply a small base load and are not close to producing a fraction of their potential energy generation (in my opinion). I will go one step further and say that converting that potential excess energy into a readily made, energy dense, drop in replacment usable with existing infrastructure makes more logical sense than trying to creat a science of batteries that doesn’t currently exist beyond maybe science lab experiments with serious scalability issues and exotic material requirements. Fischer and tropsche were simply to far ahead of their time, but now it’s coming full circle.
The business plan must have been reasonable, because $86 million was invested. Premises are that it was rational to invest and investing means business plan was reasonable. IMHO those premises are not true. Also somewhat a circular logic.
My reply was mainly in context to the investment side. While you are correct that a drop-in SAF like e-fuel is a better option, the biomass based SAFs have the jump. So I think a good indicator of how e-fuel will play in the market is to compare its progress to the biomass side since 2008.
I don't. But to me it's like investing in Nuclear Fusion energy. Someday it will work and be economical (probably). But it's not ready. So let's not build nuclear fusion power plants yet. In the meantime, let's use what works to get us the electricity we need.
What modern investment scheme makes you think that?
Agree. But there are a number of e-aircraft where the current battery tech and capacity are more than enough to handle the mission requirements. As I mentioned, so long as those e-aircraft developers understand their market and capabilities, they won’t end of like the OP venture
I grasp it. Had the opportunity to work some aircraft hybrid-propulsion development that used only SAFs for fuel. As I recall, the e-fuel side was still at the “prototype” stage and there is only one small pilot e-fuel production facility operating. While it may seem like a large scale ops locally, when compared to the current international SAF production industry it pales in comparison.... and it only accounts for less than 1% of all jet fuel. However, I think if the e-fuel process ultimately does find an economical way to produce hydrogen, my bet is that hydrogen will end up powering a hydrogen fuel cell than end up in an A320 or B787 fuel tank.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve met some pretty foolish millionaires.
I've met some pretty smart ones who got sucked into incredibly bad investments by people who talk a good game but can't actually produce anything but bovine fecal deposits. I've met (and worked for) the latter as well.
Right after we get bi-partisan, effective, responsive government that everyone agrees with.
I'm hedging my investments in new battery tech by investing in a cold fusion start up.Or we all lose that pesky 20 pounds.
Agree there as well
