Bill Gates is known worldwide as founded MicrosoftHe recently returned to the spotlight for his predictions and opinions on the Covid-19 pandemic. But another subject he is passionate about and has studied for years is caring for it environment and, in this regard, has stated what it considers to be the future of transportation and travel.
Gates shared that while in recent years industries such as automobile have been busy making more vehicles ecologically supporting models electricWe won’t see that trend to achieve larger shipments, at least not in the short term.
In his new book, “How to Prevent a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Progress We Need”, the businessman warns that batteries power simply cannot contain enough energy to sufficiently offset their weight and volume so that they are not viable to move airplanes O shipsBut that doesn’t mean we can’t take steps to correct the CO2 footprint of our commercial and freight transport.
In his text, Bill Gates, with the help of countless experts in the field, presents his elaborate plan to stop what he believes is a environmental apocalypse caused by the effects of climate change. One of the problems it addresses is precisely that of transportation. ‘Not long ago, my friend Warren Buffett and I was talking about how the world could decarbonise planes. Warren asked, “Why can’t we run a jumbo jet on batteries?” I already knew that when a plane takes off, the flammable that it bears represents 20 to 40% of its weight. So I told him it would take 35 times more batteries to get the same power as jet fuel, and he got it right away. The more power you need, the heavier the aircraft will be. At one point it is so heavy that it cannot get off the ground. “
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He explained that when he tried to push something heavy like a container ship or a passenger plane The same rule applies: the bigger the vehicle you want to move and the further you want to drive it without charging, the more difficult it will be.
Therefore, unless there is an unlikely breakthrough, batteries will never be light and powerful enough to move aircraft and ships over shorter distances. Suffice it to note that currently the best fully electric plane In the market, it can only carry two passengers, reach a top speed of 210 miles per hour and fly for three hours before recharging. Meanwhile, an average-capacity Boeing 787 can carry 296 passengers and fly for nearly 20 hours before stopping to refuel. In other words, an airplane powered by fossil fuels It can fly more than three times faster and six times faster and can transport nearly 150 times more people than the best electric plane on the market.
The same applies to cargo shipsThe best container ship Conventionals can carry 200 times more cargo than either of the two electric boats that are in use and can cover 400 times longer routes. Those are the main benefits for ships that have to cross entire oceans.
Gates also states in his book, published Feb. 16, that despite the fact that the batteries are improving, it is hard to imagine that they will ever reach the required power. “If we’re lucky, they can have up to three times more energy density than they do now, in which case they are still 12 times less energy dense than gas or jet fuel.”
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So what’s the option?
In accordance with Ports our best guess transport-For now it is replacing jet fuel with electric fuels Y biofuels Advanced.
In fact, in the case of cargo ships, the employer predicts that it will never be economically feasible to attempt to use them with anything other than liquid fuels. “Switching to other alternatives would do us a lot of good. Since shipping is responsible for 3% of all emissions, using clean fuels would give us a significant reduction. Unfortunately, the fuel that container ships run on is called bunker fuel, which is very cheap,” he said. because it is made from the waste from the refining process Petroleum and it is so cheap that the Green Premium for boats is very high. “
Said the above Ports suggests four ways reduce emissions of transport and not only of large companies, but also of people in general:
Do less, drive, fly and ship less. He believes we should encourage more alternative modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and carpooling, and highlighted the ones some cities use smart urban plans to do just that.
Use less carbon-rich materials in car production. While that doesn’t affect fuel-based emissions, keep in mind that all cars are made of materials such as steel and plastic that cannot be manufactured without emissions. greenhouse gases so the less of these materials are needed, the smaller the ecological footprint.
The third way to reduce emissions is by using fuels more efficiently, in this sense, automotive companies have already been asked to do the engineering of more efficient enginesIn that case, however, it is almost impossible to make use of it gasoline In its entirety.
Finally, Gates’ fourth and most effective recommendation to move to zero emissions from transportation is to move to electric vehicles Y Alternative fuels For this it is necessary to encourage people to buy these types of options by creating a network of charging stations to make them more practical, for which the production of many clean electricity, another reason why it is so important to implement renewable resources and make progress in generation and storage.
Finally, we need a huge effort to explore all the ways we can produce biofuels advanced and cheap electric fuels. Companies and researchers are exploring different avenues, for example new ways to produce hydrogen with electricity or solar energyor by using microbes that naturally produce hydrogen as a byproduct. The more we investigate, the more opportunities we create for a breakthrough, Gates concluded.