We are expending astronomical amounts of energy, pulling billions of tons of rare and toxic minerals out of the earth to form into an inefficient but occasionally convenient form of energy storage. Batteries are not ‘energy’ they are just a means to store energy temporarily. They are analogous to the fuel tank in your car – they are not the fuel.
It is interesting to look at the weight of fuel containment systems vs the energy density of the fuel they contain. When you do this, batteries look awful, however it is only one metric.
Make sure that whenever you look at an electric car be sure that you make note of the six invisible passengers the driver is taking everywhere with them as they drag around the 1200lbs of batteries they require to get poor to moderate range.
Then imagine how well that translates to an aircraft application.
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