Government-Run Battery-Powered Plane Crashes In Norway 

August 15, 2019

Remember when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office indicated that they’d like to end conventional air travel by forcing a switch to costly high-speed rail?

That proposal didn’t go over well in America, but it seems some in Europe have a different idea on how to end our use of reliable conventional airplanes – switch to battery-powered ones.

But there’s one major problem: it doesn’t work.

The Verge reports that this week, “An all-electric battery-powered plane has crashed into a lake in Norway, in what is a setback for the country’s attempt to move away from fossil fuel-powered flight.”

The plane was operated by Norway’s state-run airport operator, and “was being flown by its chief executive, Dag Falk-Petersen.” The Verge explains that the CEO was actually “in the process” of demonstrating the technology to members of the Norwegian government when it crashed. Fortunately, no one was harmed.

“The incident is a blow to Norway’s flight electrification plans,” says The Verge.

That’s putting it lightly.

The reality is that conventional air travel works incredibly well, and replacing it with batteries is “a challenging task.”

“Compared to jet fuel, today’s batteries are incredibly heavy, which makes it difficult to equip a plane with enough power to liftoff without weighing it down. On a per weight basis, jet fuel gives around 43 times more energy than an equivalent battery,” explains the Verge.

We already have a proven, reliable technology to fly people across vast distances. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.