Currently the solar airplane isn't much of a passenger plane. In fact, while having similar wingspan to an AirBus, it pales in comparison to passenger capacity. The Swiss made plane could have huge benefits for the economy though.
This breakthrough could easily revolutionize the way we travel. This could bring back focus to solar energy, the most abundant energy on the planet, and perhaps make some more technological breakthroughs to allow solar panels to be used with passenger planes as well.
With this coming out into the light we could see more solar panels make their way onto aircrafts to cut down fuel costs and energy consumption. We could perhaps see solar panels make it onto more technology as well.
It seems to be a great idea, although it might take ages and require huge investments to implement a technology that might someday be able to bring passenger all over the world with a very low impact on global warming. The issue is just the same as the one for an hypothetical high speed railway system construction. The social benefits (including the environmental ones) might unfortunately not be as important as the costs involved in such big projects, which will slow down the political incentives to encourage public investments for theses long term projects.
ReplyDeletewatching the video it seems to be a revolutionary idea. this plane will open up a whole new array of products using solar power. The plane would help tremendously economically and evironmentally.
ReplyDeleteAs an opposition to Romain's post. I believe it would not take ages to implement across the United States. The man in the video talked as though his plane was being tested at a phenominal rate and would be ready to fly around the world over the next couple of years. And not to mention the billions it would save in the long run regarding the fuel costs and maybe even the cost to fly in general.