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Speaker 1: Hey, Katie, I have a question for you about the future.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, let me polish my crystal ball over here.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm wondering what's the invention that will

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Speaker 1: tell you that the future has arrived? You mean, what

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Speaker 1: will make me feel like I'm living in a science

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Speaker 1: fiction novel. Yeah, exactly, and not something like a global

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Speaker 1: pandemic or climate disaster. Let's avoid, you know, dystopian futures. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm tempted to say transporters, or food replicators or sentient toasters,

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Speaker 1: but I think the number one classic is the flying car. Nice.

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Speaker 1: But you know, it makes me sure her to imagine

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Speaker 1: what l A Freeways will be like when they go

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Speaker 1: three dimensional. I thought you wanted to avoid dystopian futures. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're right, but driving in l A is

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Speaker 1: a dystopia already. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist,

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Speaker 1: and I definitely want to be able to talk to

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Speaker 1: sentient toasters. And I'm Katie, and I host a podcast

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Speaker 1: called Creature Feature, and I think sentient toasters would be

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Speaker 1: It would be an awkward conversation when you got to

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Speaker 1: get your toast and spurnt like you weren't clear enough

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Speaker 1: about how much you wanted it toasted. I thought, this

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Speaker 1: is what you wanted. You're talking about an emotional toaster. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: I would probably just eat burnt toast to spirits feelings. Man,

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Speaker 1: you just identified a huge downside to AI, and now

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Speaker 1: we have to worry about how everything feels. Oh my gosh, exactly. Well,

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Speaker 1: at least we don't have to worry about how planes

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Speaker 1: feel yet. Well. Well him to the podcast, Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Joy explain the universe, in which we don't worry about

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Speaker 1: how the universe feels, but we do try to explain

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Speaker 1: all of it to you. We dive deep in the

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Speaker 1: very nature of reality with the tiniest little particles are doing,

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Speaker 1: what is real, what's going on down there, and we

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Speaker 1: zoom all the way out to the hugest questions about

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Speaker 1: the very nature of the universe, where it came from,

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Speaker 1: where it's going, what it's got going on, and what

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Speaker 1: it means to be human in this crazy, bonkers, beautiful,

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Speaker 1: wet and wild universe that we find ourselves in. Usually

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Speaker 1: I'm joined by my friend, co host and collaborator Jorge

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Speaker 1: Cham the fabulous cartoonists behind PhD Comics, but he's on

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Speaker 1: vacation today, and so we have our wonderful, hilarious guest host,

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Speaker 1: Katie Golden. Katie say hi to everybody. Hi everybody. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things we like to do on this

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Speaker 1: podcast is not just wonder about how the universe works,

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Speaker 1: but also wonder about how we can make it work

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Speaker 1: for us. One side benefit to understanding the universe, of course,

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Speaker 1: is fig hearing out what those rules are and then

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Speaker 1: bending them to our will, figuring out how to make

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Speaker 1: our lives the best they can be given our knowledge

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Speaker 1: of the universe. Why understand the nature of the universe

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Speaker 1: if you can't, for example, invent ascension toaster? Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: the heck is the point? Like, come on, Daniel, get

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Speaker 1: on it. Modern medicine, energy and dependence, none of that

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Speaker 1: is nearly as important as sentient toasters. I want my

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Speaker 1: toaster to giggle when I put a toast in it.

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Speaker 1: Tickle ish toasters. Wow, this is getting a little personal now,

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Speaker 1: But it does seem like we are making progress. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I look around me, and I see a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff that exists that feels sort of like the future.

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Speaker 1: You know. I think electric cars are maybe the best example,

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Speaker 1: because every time I see an electric car sneak up

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Speaker 1: on me super quiet, or accelerate from zero to sixty

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Speaker 1: and like two seconds, I'm like, wow, this definitely didn't

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Speaker 1: happen when I was a kid. It makes me feel

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Speaker 1: that jarring effect when the world just changes quickly and

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Speaker 1: feels like the very nature of human existence has suddenly shifted.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't help that electric cars also have that spaceship noise,

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Speaker 1: you know, when they kind of get close to you

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Speaker 1: or it's like, oh, I think that's great. It makes

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Speaker 1: it harder for them to sneak up on you, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: it also does give them that futuristic vibe. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if everything that's getting electrified is going to have like

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Speaker 1: a weird space noise, like when you electrify your garden equipment.

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Speaker 1: Is your lawnmower going to make like pep sounds? I hope. So.

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Speaker 1: I think that it's really fun whenever sort of retro

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Speaker 1: futurism becomes correct, like how the spaceship noises that cars make,

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Speaker 1: or or ads being everywhere, and it does really seem

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Speaker 1: like everything is getting electrified. Right, We're definitely aiming to

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Speaker 1: reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and other dirty technologies

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Speaker 1: that are harming the planet and causing global climate change

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Speaker 1: and making it like very hot right now where I am.

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Speaker 1: I'm in Copenhagen for the sun or and it is

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Speaker 1: a ridiculous heat wave over here. I'm sitting in a

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Speaker 1: little apartment, but I'm sweating down my back, and I'm

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Speaker 1: sure lots of folks out there are experiencing the extreme

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Speaker 1: weather we're having. So we were these sentient toasters the

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Speaker 1: whole time. Are we the toaster or the toast ee?

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Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like the toasted or toast we don't

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Speaker 1: do something about our dependence on falsil eules, we are

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Speaker 1: definitely getting toasted. And so people have been making a

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Speaker 1: lot of progress and lots of stuff is getting electrified.

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Speaker 1: It's really cool to see. But you know, there is

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Speaker 1: one industry that still relies entirely or exclusively on fossil fuels,

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Speaker 1: and that is jet airplanes. It's one of the saddest

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Speaker 1: parts about traveling, where you think, well, there's no way

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Speaker 1: to travel without using an immense amount of fossil fuels.

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Speaker 1: But it's also so exciting that planes have brought our

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Speaker 1: world so close together so that you can fly from

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Speaker 1: the US to Copenhagen, or I can fly from the

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Speaker 1: US to Italy, and so what the heck, where's our

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Speaker 1: electric planes, Daniel, Exactly where are our electric planes? Because

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Speaker 1: we all know that it might require some sacrifices to

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Speaker 1: adjust the patterns of human life so that they're more

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Speaker 1: amenable to you know, having our grandchildren and not be

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Speaker 1: living in caves, for example. But we hope that we

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Speaker 1: don't have to give up international travel, because yeah, that

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Speaker 1: changes the way the world feels. And it would be

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Speaker 1: weird if we have to go back to a place where,

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Speaker 1: you know, it took a long time to get to

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Speaker 1: the other side of the planet, where China was like

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Speaker 1: days or weeks or months away. Imagine if you had

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Speaker 1: to sail to get to China or to Japan or

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Speaker 1: the far East. You know, all of human culture would

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Speaker 1: have sort of a shift in reverse, and it would

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Speaker 1: look really weird in history, how things got closer and

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Speaker 1: closer and closer, and then for like a hundred years

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Speaker 1: or fifty years, the world felt like one place and

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Speaker 1: then it cracked and broke again into various regions. It

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Speaker 1: would be weird if that was just a moment, a

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Speaker 1: window in history. Yeah, that wouldn't be good, especially in

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Speaker 1: terms of cuisine, because you know, we would just suddenly

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Speaker 1: have the stagnation and probably the British would have to

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Speaker 1: go back to eating like weird horse parts. And in America,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what we would do. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what American cuisine would look like without a steady flow

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Speaker 1: of people from other countries, but I don't think it

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Speaker 1: would be pretty. Oh my gosh, beans on toast all

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Speaker 1: over the world and so on the podcast today, we'll

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Speaker 1: be asking the question why don't we have electric airplanes?

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Speaker 1: If we've made so much progress electrifying everything else, toasters

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Speaker 1: and garden equipment and boats and cars and all sorts

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Speaker 1: of other stuff in your life, why don't we yet

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Speaker 1: have electric airplanes? Why can't we make airplanes that are

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Speaker 1: smooth and quiet and zero emission? And this is what

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Speaker 1: some of you had to say about why we don't

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Speaker 1: have electric airplanes, some very clever responses, that's right. So

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Speaker 1: before you hear these responses, think to yourself, do you

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Speaker 1: know what the limitation is for electric airplanes? And if

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Speaker 1: you'd like to participate for future podcast episodes, please write

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Speaker 1: to us two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Here's what some listeners had to say. We have lots

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Speaker 1: of electric hairplanes, but we don't have electric versions of

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Speaker 1: say commercial passenger airliner type power planes because we don't

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Speaker 1: have good enough batteries. We don't have a way to

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Speaker 1: store electricity that's as energy tense as Jeff Field. I'm

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Speaker 1: going with weight on that one. Well, actually airplanes can

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Speaker 1: list a ton of weight. I'm going with storage capacity

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Speaker 1: or or weight and storage capacity. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: we could put some batteries together that could could put

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Speaker 1: out that much thrust or that much force for hours

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Speaker 1: at a time and not just run out or overheat

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Speaker 1: for that matter, because they need more power, and our

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Speaker 1: electric motors aren't powerful enough to fly a plane like

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Speaker 1: they're okay for driving cars, but not for flying planes.

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Speaker 1: First store on electric planes would be the electromagnetic field

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Speaker 1: is so much stronger the further way you get. Let

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Speaker 1: that be less parties in the air. So I guess

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Speaker 1: possibly that would be an issue with running batteries that high,

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Speaker 1: having a wonder perhaps to set the batteries. I guess

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Speaker 1: that the rhythm for which we still do not have

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Speaker 1: any electrical airplanes, there are technical limits in the energy storage.

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Speaker 1: I think that the batteries are still too bulky. Maybe

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Speaker 1: the storing of energy to make them a viable solution

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Speaker 1: for commercial flood. I'm thinking right now that we can

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Speaker 1: do you know, like those trolleys or tramps that you

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Speaker 1: have the electric cord and you just touch it and

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Speaker 1: you can go. We can do that, like we can

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Speaker 1: we can actually to a zip line between us, like

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Speaker 1: North America and Europe and other continents and do this

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Speaker 1: electric zip line, electric hipplanes. I don't know how you

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Speaker 1: would get the propulsion with an electric airplane. Besides, it

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Speaker 1: probably would be extremely heavy. I feel like people came

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Speaker 1: up with some pretty good ideas. I mean, speaking as

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Speaker 1: someone who knows very little about batteries and how they

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Speaker 1: might go inside of a plane. I do like zip

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Speaker 1: lining electric airplanes. I like the idea of a trans

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Speaker 1: continental zip line. Trans continental zip lines. Wow, that seems

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Speaker 1: pretty crazy. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable like snapping

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Speaker 1: into a zip line where I can't even see the

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Speaker 1: other side, and it's like stretching over the ocean. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna give you like a boat to fall into

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Speaker 1: inciece it snaps. I don't think that would help some

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Speaker 1: like inflatable raft or something like, I am definitely not

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Speaker 1: glibing into that. Yeah, just hold an inflatable raft under

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Speaker 1: you and it'll be fine. There's some good questions in

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Speaker 1: here also, like the basic question of how an electric

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Speaker 1: airplane does propulsion? Right, how does it even move forward

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Speaker 1: if you're not burning gas and exploding the results out

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Speaker 1: the back of a get engine? How do you even

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Speaker 1: get propulsion in an electric airplane? Which is a good question.

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Speaker 1: And then of course lots of good stuff about batteries.

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Speaker 1: So why can't we just plug a plane into a battery,

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Speaker 1: make a big old battery and get it going, Because

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Speaker 1: it seems like if we can get a car to go,

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Speaker 1: you know, we should just be able to scale that

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Speaker 1: up to plane size. Why don't we just like strap

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Speaker 1: a bunch of testla's together and launch it into air? Right,

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Speaker 1: there's already tesla's in space, so we got them above

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Speaker 1: the air and below the air? How going to be

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Speaker 1: so hard? Well, it is tricky, And you know, to

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Speaker 1: answer one of those listeners questions about the propulsion mechanism,

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Speaker 1: essentially we're talking about fans right about like turbo props,

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Speaker 1: just like in a tesla, you have a battery which

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Speaker 1: then binds an electric engine and that engine pushes the

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Speaker 1: air back. So you don't have a jet engine. There's

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Speaker 1: no electrical equivalent of a jet engine, but you can

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Speaker 1: spend something, and spending something is a fantastic way to

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Speaker 1: get airborne and to get this sort of forward thrust

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Speaker 1: you need. But the real issue with an airplane is

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Speaker 1: that airplanes need a lot of power because you need

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Speaker 1: to move forward to get that lift over the wings.

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Speaker 1: That they also have to be light like. This is

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Speaker 1: not as much of a constraint on a car. Car

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Speaker 1: just sits on the ground, and you prefer it to

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Speaker 1: be lighter because then you get better acceleration. But it's

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Speaker 1: not like it doesn't work if it's heavy, right, And

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Speaker 1: so for an airplane you have this delicate balance between

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Speaker 1: power needs and weight, and batteries are not great at that. Now,

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Speaker 1: hang on, Daniel, you say that airplanes need to be light,

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Speaker 1: but if you've ever tried to power lift and airplane

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Speaker 1: all on your own, I think you would find it's

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Speaker 1: pretty heavy. Right. Airplanes are pretty heavy. These things do

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Speaker 1: weight tons, but there's a limit, right, If you're heavy

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Speaker 1: enough off then they just cannot take off, or you

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Speaker 1: need an impossible amount of thrust. What you really need

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Speaker 1: is energy density. You need lots of power per unit weight.

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Speaker 1: If you just don't have enough power per weight of

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Speaker 1: your fuel or of your battery, then you're not getting

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Speaker 1: up off the ground. You can get off the ground

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Speaker 1: if you're really heavy, as long as you have enough

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Speaker 1: power for all that weight, right, which is how, for example,

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Speaker 1: a seven forty seven gets up off the ground because

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Speaker 1: its engines are enormous and the energy density of its

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Speaker 1: fuel source is pretty good. And that's why we use

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Speaker 1: so much fuel for a plane. Right, That's right, that's

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Speaker 1: why we use so much fuel. And you know, this

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Speaker 1: actually reminds me of like the rocket ship problem. You know,

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Speaker 1: taking off from the ground into the air is similar

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Speaker 1: to like accelerating a rocket or lifting a rocket up

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Speaker 1: into the air. When you lift a rocket, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's only like the very tip top of the rocket

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Speaker 1: that actually is like the payload, maybe the satellites or

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Speaker 1: the people or whatever. Most of the rocket below it

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Speaker 1: is fuel because you need to lift a bunch of

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Speaker 1: fuel to lift the rocket. And then because the rocket

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Speaker 1: is so heavy, you need more fuel to lift the rocket,

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Speaker 1: and it exponentially takes off and pretty soon you're mostly fuel.

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Speaker 1: And so that's the same problem with an airplane is

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Speaker 1: that if your energy source, like a battery, is too heavy,

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Speaker 1: then you need more power to lift that heavy battery,

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Speaker 1: and so then you're gonna need to bring more batteries,

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Speaker 1: which are also need more power to lift them, and

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Speaker 1: pretty soon you're trying to fly the Empire State building.

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Speaker 1: So if a human was a rocket or an airplane,

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Speaker 1: basically we'd be legs filled with like food, just kind

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Speaker 1: of splashing around and then like a teeny tiny head

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Speaker 1: and teeny tiny body. That's disturbing. Oh, I love the

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Speaker 1: biological analogy. Imagine if your stomach was like of your volume. Wow,

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Speaker 1: they'll take a lot of toast. And really the issue

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Speaker 1: for batteries replacing jet fuel is that it just doesn't

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Speaker 1: compare in terms of energy density like jet fuel. The

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Speaker 1: reason it's so amazing is that it's super duper concentrated.

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Speaker 1: There's so much energy packed in per kilogram of jet

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Speaker 1: fuel because it's basically ancient sunlight that's been like boiled

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Speaker 1: down into this chemical that stores that energy super duper effectively.

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Speaker 1: So if you get a battery that could do the

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Speaker 1: same amount of work as jet fuel, the battery is

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Speaker 1: going to be a lot heavier. The battery is going

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Speaker 1: to be a lot heavier exactly. So we measure this

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Speaker 1: in terms of energy density, so that's like energy per weight,

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Speaker 1: So like what hours per kilogram And you know, what

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Speaker 1: hours is a really weird unit because what's are like

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Speaker 1: energy per time and then you multiply by time to

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Speaker 1: just get energy back. So I understand why they don't

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Speaker 1: just use energy instead of what hours. But anyway, this

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Speaker 1: is sort of the standard, and jet fuel is really

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Speaker 1: really good in terms of energy density. It has like

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Speaker 1: twelve thousand what hours for every kilogram of jet fuel.

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Speaker 1: And if you're not familiar with what a what hour is,

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Speaker 1: here's like a stat of get you acquainted. Like one

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Speaker 1: person working for eight hours doing manual labor can do

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Speaker 1: about five hundred watt hours of work in an eight

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Speaker 1: hour day. So that's half of a kilowatt hour in

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Speaker 1: an eight hour day. So that's what you know an

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Speaker 1: individual person can do, So that's what watt hours. That's

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Speaker 1: a lot of wat hours. And you know you've probably,

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Speaker 1: for example, looked at a light bulb and saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: this light bulb is a hundred watt bulb that measures

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Speaker 1: how much energy it uses per time. And so for example,

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Speaker 1: you have a hundred watt bulb, it takes ten hours

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Speaker 1: to use a thousand watt hours because a hundred watts

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Speaker 1: times ten hours gives you a thousand watt hours or

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Speaker 1: a kill a watt, So it gives you a sense

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Speaker 1: for like how much a kill a watt is. And

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Speaker 1: jet fuel is really concentrated, has twelve kilowatt hours per

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Speaker 1: kilogram of jet fuel, So like a kilogram of jet fuel,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, a couple of pounds of jet

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Speaker 1: fuel is as much energy is like twenty five guys

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Speaker 1: working all day. So this stuff is really really dense

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Speaker 1: with energy. All right, Well, if we get a bunch

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Speaker 1: of guys in an airplane on a giant hamster whale

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Speaker 1: running the engine, I think we've cracked it. The problem

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Speaker 1: is twenty five guys weighs a lot more than one kilogram, right.

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Speaker 1: That's the amazing things that there's all these energy in

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Speaker 1: one kram of jet fuel. What about real, real little guys,

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Speaker 1: tiny elves that could do is much work at twenty

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Speaker 1: five grown men. Santa's really onto something that's why I

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Speaker 1: uses elf labor. That's the amazing thing about jet fuel,

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Speaker 1: and you know that's why it takes millions of years

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Speaker 1: to boil it down from sunlight into plants photosynthesizing and

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Speaker 1: then decaying and then getting compressed and turning into jet fuel.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing stuff. It really is pretty incredible. It's just

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Speaker 1: too bad. It's so bad for the environment. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: when you think about it's like Earth has been creating

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Speaker 1: this fine wine for millions of years, just incentrated sunlight,

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Speaker 1: and then we just kind of burn all of it up.

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Speaker 1: It's too bad that we're not a little more respectful

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Speaker 1: of this the stuff that Earth has been cooking and

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Speaker 1: storing so much carbon in for so long. That's right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess we will be when we run out of it.

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Speaker 1: And so the relevant comparison, the reason that like batteries

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Speaker 1: can't power an airplane right now is that they just

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Speaker 1: don't have the same energy density. They have about two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty watt hours per kilogram. That compares to

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Speaker 1: twelve thousand for jet fuel. So it's a factor of

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Speaker 1: like forty or fifty. Jet fuel has forty to fifty

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Speaker 1: times as much energy per kilogram than like the best

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Speaker 1: batteries we have today. I understand why jet fuel is

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Speaker 1: light because it's super concentrated, But why can't we get

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Speaker 1: batteries to be super concentrated. That's a great question, and

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about it in a minute when we talk

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Speaker 1: about the physics of batteries and how people are working

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Speaker 1: on making better battery But first let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: So I just asked you, Daniel, why can't we make

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Speaker 1: batteries super concentrated, Like maybe put a super dense neutron

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Speaker 1: star inside a battery, or really muscular hamster and a

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Speaker 1: hamster whale. How do we get a battery that is

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Speaker 1: super dense but not too heavy that it takes down

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Speaker 1: a plane? Yeah, Well, the answer is we're just not

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Speaker 1: smart enough yet. It might be theoretically possible to make

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Speaker 1: a battery that energy dense, we just haven't really figured

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Speaker 1: it out yet. And part of that comes from the

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Speaker 1: materials we use to make batteries, of course, because you

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Speaker 1: want really light stuff in your battery if you don't

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Speaker 1: want it to be really heavy. But to dig into that,

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Speaker 1: we probably have to have a better idea of like

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Speaker 1: how batteries actually work. Yeah, because when I look at

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Speaker 1: a battery, it just this little canister of mystery that

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Speaker 1: I put into my clocks and my remote and it

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Speaker 1: makes them go. But I just think of, like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I know there's acid in there, right, because when I

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Speaker 1: leave battery out for too long, it this acid spills out.

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Speaker 1: But the rest of it is very mysterious to me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: batteries are actually really amazing, and I have a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun digging into the chemistry of how batteries work.

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Speaker 1: So this is gonna be like between my expertise and yours,

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Speaker 1: because like I think of chemistry sort of sitting between

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Speaker 1: physics and biology. But it's still pretty fun stuff. Kudos

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Speaker 1: to all the chemists out there, of course, we love you. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: let's get chemical chemical. And so the way battery works

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Speaker 1: is you have to have two different kinds of materials.

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Speaker 1: Each one sits in sort of like a fluid like

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Speaker 1: an electrolyte, and you've got to find two different weird metals.

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Speaker 1: Metal number one has some kind of atom that really

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Speaker 1: wants to dissolve into that fluid, and when it does so,

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Speaker 1: it leaves behind an electron. So you need some sort

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Speaker 1: of like kind of atom that has like an electron

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Speaker 1: and its outer shells that it really wants to get

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Speaker 1: rid of, and it's dying to like dissolve into this

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Speaker 1: liquid so that when it does, it leaves behind that

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Speaker 1: electron in like the bulks, you like a slab of metal,

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Speaker 1: and it's dropping little bits of that metal into liquid,

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Speaker 1: and it's gathering extra electron so it's getting more and

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Speaker 1: more charged as it happens. So that's like metal number

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Speaker 1: one in one quarter. It's becoming more and more like electronified. Right,

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Speaker 1: It's just very annoyed with its own electron, so it's

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Speaker 1: trying to escape by dissolving and then leaving behind a

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Speaker 1: bunch of annoying electrons. And then on the other side,

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Speaker 1: you've got the opposite situation. You find some metal whose

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Speaker 1: atoms really don't want to leave it, like they want

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Speaker 1: to reattach if you have them in solution. They want

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Speaker 1: to like precipitate out of solution and back onto the bulk.

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Speaker 1: But to do so they need another electron, Like they

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Speaker 1: want to form bonds with their friends back in the blob,

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Speaker 1: but they can't do it without another electron. So you

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Speaker 1: have this material here that like wants electrons, and then

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Speaker 1: you just connect them with a wire, and what happens

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Speaker 1: is that all the extra electrons from metal A will

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Speaker 1: flow along the wire to where the electrons are wanted,

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Speaker 1: because that's what electrons do. They go where they are needed, right,

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Speaker 1: And you might wonder like, well, how did the electrons

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Speaker 1: know to go from A to B. It's not like

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Speaker 1: you know this little electron monster dot com where it's

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Speaker 1: like advertising for electrons over here, please Craigslist for electrons,

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Speaker 1: miss connections, looking for a metal who needs an extra

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Speaker 1: And it's fun to think about electricity microscopically, and the

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Speaker 1: key to doing that is remembering that in physics everything

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Speaker 1: is local. Right. There's never like piece A says to

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Speaker 1: piece B, hey send me all your electrons, or the

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Speaker 1: other way around, or here come a bunch of electrons.

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Speaker 1: Everything is super local. It's all about like one particle

400
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Speaker 1: talking to another. And so at some point along that wire,

401
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:55,880
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a spot where it wants an electron.

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00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: It's ready to take an electron. It's gonna be next

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Speaker 1: to a spot that has an extra electron. It's gonna

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00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 1: be like the interface and it's going to suck up

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Speaker 1: that electron because that's what it can do. Wanting an

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Speaker 1: electron means that there's like a low potential left for

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Speaker 1: an electron to fall into. And then because it's stolen

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Speaker 1: an electron, now another electron further down the wire is

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Speaker 1: gonna say, I'm crowded over here with all my friends

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Speaker 1: the extra electrons. It's gonna slide over into that empty spot.

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Speaker 1: And then essentially that just happens over and over again.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a relay racer or what

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Speaker 1: am I trying to say? What are those things where

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Speaker 1: you're like, are in a big line and you're passing

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Speaker 1: one item down the line. It's like an assembly line. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what I'm trying to think of. Exactly, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: It's just like an assembly line. And the net effect

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Speaker 1: is that you get electricity because you're moving electrons from

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Speaker 1: one side to the other. They're flowing through the wire

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00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 1: and so you get electricity flowing from that wire that

421
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:55,600
Speaker 1: connects A to B. So A will dissolve more, getting

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Speaker 1: more and more electrons flowing along the wire to be

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Speaker 1: who needs those electron to let its lost bits reattached

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00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: to its bulk. So that's what a battery is. You

425
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,199
Speaker 1: just gotta find metals with those properties and suspend them

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00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: in this electual light, connect them with a wire, and boom,

427
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 1: you've got a battery. And that's to release the electricity.

428
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 1: If you want to recharge the battery, you just have

429
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 1: to somehow force electricity the other way. You put a

430
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 1: potential across it and drag the electrons the way they

431
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 1: don't want to go. Then the opposite chemistry will happen.

432
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: All the depositing and dissolving that we're happening before will reverse.

433
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: And that's how you recharge a battery. You like, return

434
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 1: it to its original state. And so that's the physics,

435
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 1: and I guess the chemistry and maybe the psychology of

436
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 1: how a battery works. That's what happens every time I

437
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: recharge my phone, when I let it get down to

438
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: like one person and just forcing all those electrons back

439
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: and reverse in their congolne and I imagine they're not

440
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: too happy about it exactly. Now we have to worry

441
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: about the feelings of individual electrons. Man, I'm never gonna

442
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: get anything done. Gotta right so many I'm sorry cards

443
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 1: to those electrons. Well, maybe we should just do everything

444
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: democratically right. Every time we make a decision, we have

445
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 1: all the particles vote, and then we just do what

446
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: everybody wants. I'm not sure we're gonna get anything done,

447
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 1: and I feel like that would be very explosive if

448
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 1: we talk to certain electrons. And so the thing that

449
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: limits us the thing that tells us how energy dense

450
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: the battery is, because remember our goal here is to

451
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: have a lot of energy stored with a very few kilograms.

452
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 1: Are the weights of the materials we're using, right, and here,

453
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: for example, lithium here is an excellent, excellent choice for

454
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: building batteries because lithium, for example, is on that side

455
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: of the periodic table where it really wants to lose

456
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: an electron, right, And so it's very good for building

457
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: this kind of metal. And then you can mix it

458
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: with other kinds of stuff like cobals and other stuff,

459
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: and you can get the opposite kind. You can get

460
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:52,399
Speaker 1: both A and B. You can get the depositor and

461
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: the dissolver using lithium. And lithium also is pretty low

462
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: on the periodic table, so it's not that heavy, right.

463
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 1: It's elm at number three after all, right, so we've

464
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: already got a pretty light metal. It's just not not

465
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 1: light enough to make these batteries as light as gas

466
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: or as light as Jeff fuel exactly. And the key

467
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: is what lithium is connected with. It's not pure lithium, right,

468
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: These are lithium ions and lithium alloys, and currently we

469
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: use things like cobalt in there to make the particular

470
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: mix of elements. We need to get a good dissolver

471
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: or a good deplet, and so that's really the key

472
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: is how much energy is released per electron that moves

473
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 1: from A to b, right, And so if you can

474
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: get either more energy released from A to B, which

475
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: depends on you know, the energy levels of the atom

476
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: you're dealing with, or you can get the atoms to

477
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: be lighter, then you can get a better energy density ratio.

478
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what people are working on. First of all,

479
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: people are working on like making lithium ion batteries more

480
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: powerful without switching to some new kind of technologies and

481
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: new basic element and people are working on that every year,

482
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: like shaving off a little bit here, making that more efficient,

483
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: or tweaking with a kind of you know, mixtures of

484
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: stuff that you need. And we're seeing some improvement like

485
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: the lithium ion batteries that we have now have twice

486
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: the energy density as the first prototypes that were invented

487
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: in the nineties. So that's some pretty good progress. Yeah,

488
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: our phones keep getting smaller or sometimes bigger, depending on

489
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: what people want. I can't figure it out. They're getting

490
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: thinner but wider, and eventually our phones were able to

491
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: toast bread and maybe even fly across the ocean. Sure,

492
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: I'm into it. But yeah. So we have the lithium

493
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: which really wants to shed its electron that people are

494
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 1: working on to maybe make that more either more efficient

495
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: or try to use another lighter element than lithium. Do

496
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: we have any issues with the dissolvent, Like what is

497
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: the other metal that is trying to get the electron? Yeah,

498
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 1: it's mostly lithium, but they mix in the cobalt and

499
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:56,360
Speaker 1: other kinds of stuff in there, and you know, without

500
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: getting too nitty grady on into the chemistry of folks

501
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: I talked to said that they think that lithium iron

502
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: batteries might be able to get twice as energy dense

503
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 1: as we have them today. Right now, we're like two

504
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty watt hours per kilogram. We might be

505
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,719
Speaker 1: able to get to like four hundred five hundred by

506
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: twenty five, So that's a factor of two. That's pretty good,

507
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 1: but that means we're still like a factor of twenty

508
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: away from jet fuel, and that's not going to make

509
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 1: for an economical airplane. We'll have way for thin phones though. Yeah,

510
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 1: Well they just get bigger and bigger and last longer

511
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: and longer, and people won't care. I keep pushing for

512
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: a smaller and smaller phone. Everybody around me has these

513
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: like basically these like many tablets in their pocket. I

514
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: don't understand. Maybe I have just like little pointy fingers,

515
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: but I'm also team small phone. It's kind of fit

516
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: in your pocket or it's not a phone, right right exactly,

517
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 1: it's gotta fit in girl pockets to people, scientists either

518
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: invent girl pockets that are bigger, phones that are smaller.

519
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: Pick one. My daughter is discovered this also that like

520
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: pants for women don't have real pockets, and she is outraged.

521
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: She's like, what's the deal here, Like, why do I

522
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: have to wear men's pants if I want pockets? It

523
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. Sometimes the pockets are just a

524
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: ruse to it just looks like a pocket and there's

525
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: nothing there. So you know, we need to crack the

526
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: code for electric airplanes so we can save the planet,

527
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: and we need to crack the code for women's pockets

528
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: so we can put freaking phones in there. Guys, we

529
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: might be able to solve the secrets of the universe

530
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: on this podcast, but I don't think we're ever going

531
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: to crack the secrets of fashion. That is definitely just

532
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: beyond us. But back to the researchers. You know, these

533
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: folks have been working on this for a while and

534
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: the actually want a Nobel Prize in two thousand nineteen

535
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: for the development of lithium batteries, Like it was a

536
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: big step forward when people were able to make lithium

537
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: batteries work. They're much lighter, much more rechargeable, much more efficient,

538
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: and also more cycles than other kinds of batteries. Like,

539
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 1: you want a battery that can hold a lot of energy.

540
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: You also wanted to be reusable. You don't want a

541
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: disposable airplane, right, You don't want a car that you

542
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: charge it up, you use it and then it's done.

543
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: I do imagine what the disposable airplane. It just flies

544
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: from airport a right into a junkyard where people disembark.

545
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: I know, I know, and we're all experienced with like

546
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: lithium batteries working really really well when you first get

547
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: your phone or your laptop and then degrading. That's because

548
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: they start to grow these like filaments and deposits on

549
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: the surface of the lithium bits that prevent them from

550
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: depositing or depleting as well. But they've gotten pretty good.

551
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: You know, a laptop, for example, they expected to be

552
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: able to recharge it like five hundred or a thousand

553
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: times over the lifetime of the laptop, and for a

554
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: test level for example, the goal is that it lasts

555
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: like ten years, which is something like, you know, maybe

556
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: three thousand charges. So lithium batteries already really impressive. I

557
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: feel like we're sort of already living in the future

558
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: for lithium batteries, but of course they're not yet good enough. Yeah,

559
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: I mean so, because if we wanted to make a

560
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: really tight plane, we could potentially have a battery strong enough.

561
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: Could we have like personal a plane for one person

562
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: that could have a modern day battery in it? Or

563
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: they still not efficient enough. No, we'll talk about that

564
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: in a minute. And you can probably have electric airplanes

565
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: for a smaller number of people. But if we want

566
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: to do like you know, cargo or seven forty seven's,

567
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: that's going to be a challenge. And so people are

568
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: working on other technologies to improve batteries. The problem is

569
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: that some of them are also not that stable. Right.

570
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: You want something that has a lot of energy per

571
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: electron and can also can give that up and doesn't

572
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: weigh a lot, but some of these combinations are literally exclusive.

573
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: This is what I was going to ask, because we've

574
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: seen these stories of Tesla's just spontaneously combusting and driving

575
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: around on autopilot while on fire, which is bad enough

576
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: for a car, it seems particularly frightening if it's a plane. Yeah, exactly.

577
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: And you know they have these limitations like even checking

578
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: something in your luggage that has a lithium battery in

579
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: it for that reason, and so people are really careful

580
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: about the stability of these things. And some of these

581
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: technologies that people are working on for the future of

582
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: batteries involves like lithium in combination with oxygen or lithium

583
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: in combination with fluoride, because fluoride is very powerful and

584
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: very and much lower on the periodic table than cobalt,

585
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: so you can get a lot more energy like per electron,

586
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: maybe even up to twenty times are current batteries which

587
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: would bring us like in the realm of jet fuel,

588
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: But it's very tricky and nobody's really sure if you

589
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: can make a lithium fluoride battery work and if you

590
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: can overcome the stability issues. Right, it seems like when

591
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: we try to have some of these really really light

592
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: flying aircraft options, sometimes it kind of ends up in

593
00:32:53,760 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: a Heisenberg Lindenburg Lindenburg Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for really futuristic

594
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: planes where the plane just blips out of existence, and

595
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: the Hindenburg for the more balloon shaped planes. It seems

596
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: like a very significant problem because every kind of engineering

597
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: issue that you would have on the ground is going

598
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: to be even more drastic when you have it in

599
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: the air, because you have this giant hunk of metal

600
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: that you do not want to suddenly explode and lose

601
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: that sort of airborne nature. Do you know, like how

602
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: we make these chemicals more stable? Are people working on

603
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: trying to get them to be safer or is it

604
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: just too hard to get these combinations of chemicals to

605
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: be stable. People are definitely working on it, and Mad

606
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: props to these folks, because this is crazy materials engineering.

607
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: You know. It's not like you start from legos and

608
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: you get to build anything you want. They can do

609
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 1: anything you want. You got to start from the materials

610
00:33:56,480 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: we have around and the properties that they have, you know,

611
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: and so you're very limited in your toolkit and combining

612
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: these things in just the right way to get the

613
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: electron transfer without being explosive. It's a real challenge, and

614
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 1: there's lots of folks around the country working on this

615
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: stuff because not only would be like hugely valuable, right,

616
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 1: like to be able to make batteries twenty times as

617
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 1: energy dense as the current ones, Like wow, that pattern

618
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: would be worth a jillion dollars, but also it's a

619
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 1: fun puzzle. You know. I work at like the smallest

620
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: little particles and think about how you can combine them

621
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: to make other particles. But this is much more difficult.

622
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: These folks really are limited in the toolkit they have,

623
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 1: and so mad props to everybody out there creating new

624
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: kinds of goo and all sorts of new materials that

625
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: have these weird electronic properties. Maybe someday we could have

626
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: just like a sort of bag full of liquid, like

627
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,800
Speaker 1: a water balloon type thing we put in a plane.

628
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: That's just is a big old squishy battery. Well good chemicals.

629
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 1: That would be cool, especially if the battery could get

630
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: used up and smaller. Another real downside of batteries we

631
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: haven't even talked about is that the battery doesn't like

632
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: shrink as you use it, right jet fuel, as you

633
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: burn it up, it disappears. So seven forty seven is

634
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: much lighter when it lands than when it takes off,

635
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: and so it's like not using as much jet fuel

636
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: for the second half of its trip as it did

637
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: for the first half of its trip. But that's not

638
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: true for a battery, right. A battery doesn't get lighter

639
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: as you use it up, and so that the airplane

640
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 1: is just as heavy in the second half as the

641
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: first half. So they actually would have to be more

642
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: energy dense than jet fuel to have the same basic economics.

643
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: Not if we make strip poker compulsory on planes and

644
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: everybody has to participate and throw their clothes out the

645
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:45,839
Speaker 1: win though, wow, and what if those clothes have AI

646
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: and then we have to ask those clothes, you know,

647
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: how do you feel about this situation. Yeah, darn it,

648
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: darn those super intelligent shirts. But I want to hear

649
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: more about my own personal aircraft. But before in, let's

650
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,840
Speaker 1: take a quick break while I see if I have

651
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: enough money to buy myself my own personal little bubble aircraft.

652
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: I think I've got some change in my couch I'm

653
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: going to go through, all right, So, Daniel, how am

654
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: I going to get my little electrified Katie plane that

655
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: can just carry me and maybe my dog across the

656
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: Atlantic just on a whim and I park it in

657
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,839
Speaker 1: a garage? Like how close are we to that? Well,

658
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: you know that might be a reality pretty soon. This

659
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: energy density issue is an issue for long flights where

660
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: the plane is really really heavy and you need to

661
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: go really really far. But if you're willing to take

662
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: a smaller, lighter airplane or just not go as far,

663
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: then it's totally possible to have electric air planes. And

664
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: some of you might even remember that crazy flight of

665
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: the Voyager that was solar power. Remember that one that

666
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: flew around the world for like twenty four hours. That

667
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: was an electric airplane because it took energy directly from

668
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: the sun and used it to power its motors. Yeah,

669
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: because when you're flying a plane usually you get above

670
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: the cloud cover. So it seems like having a solar

671
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,400
Speaker 1: power airplane is a pretty good solution if you can

672
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: get it to work. If you can get it to work.

673
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: And the key for that airplane was it was super

674
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: duper light and had almost no cargo, and the pilots,

675
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: for example, like lost a bunch of weight before they

676
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 1: even took off, you know, like they didn't even bring

677
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: a toothbrush along. You know, this is very very much

678
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 1: on the edge of what people could do. So you

679
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: definitely could not use solar power to power a large,

680
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: heavy airplane where you're actually carrying stuff and people. But

681
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: it turns out that the biggest part of flying actually

682
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: is not like launching seven forty sevens from here to China.

683
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: Most of the people who take airplane chips don't go

684
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: internationally or you know, from l A to Sydney. Something

685
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: like half of the airline tickets sold last year were

686
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: for shorter trips like under five hundred miles, and the

687
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: airplanes that we use for those trips right now are

688
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: actually ones designed for much longer flights. And so it's

689
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 1: really pretty initiaient right now. We're using these like airplanes

690
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 1: designed for thousand mile flights on all these short little hops.

691
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: So I sense that you're saying flying cars from l

692
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: A to San Diego? Am I wrong? Yes? Exactly. You know,

693
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: like if you fly from LA to San Diego, it

694
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: just like a hundred miles. Then the airplane basically never

695
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: has a chance to get up to cruising speed where

696
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: it's most efficient for using jet fuels. So it's like

697
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 1: always speeding up or always slowing down, and that's really inefficient,

698
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: and so it produces a huge amount of CEO to

699
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: sort of per mile. And so instead if you develop

700
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,359
Speaker 1: like smaller airplanes that are not capable of doing these

701
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: longer flights, but are only capable of doing a hundred

702
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: three hundred, five hundred mile trips, and you don't need

703
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 1: as much energy because the whole plane is smaller, is lighter,

704
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: and so that opens up this window where you can

705
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: like satisfy a huge fraction of air travel much more

706
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: efficiently than you can with jet fuel. So with these planes,

707
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: they would take like the pilot and then maybe ten

708
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: people or something like little little tiny commuter planes. Yeah,

709
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing we're talking about. And people

710
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 1: are working on lots of different kinds of stuff, and

711
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: this is real. This is not like, you know, people

712
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: are doing research and maybe this will happen in twenty six.

713
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: You know, United Airlines invested a billion dollars last year

714
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,240
Speaker 1: in an e plane startup. This is for an aircraft

715
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: that's designed to fly like up to sixty miles and

716
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: just carry like five ish people, and they're expecting to

717
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 1: have like commercial flights in twenty four. So that's basically

718
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: around the corner. Like, this is a billion dollars by

719
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,320
Speaker 1: a big company. This is not like, you know, somebody

720
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: investing a million dollars on a whim. This is a

721
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: real investment. This is kind of thing that's actually going

722
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: to happen. Now, do these aircraft like get up to

723
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: the altitude that the larger planes do. Are they more

724
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 1: low flying? Yeah? I think for shorter flights you don't

725
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: need to get as high, but you definitely want to

726
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: get up to a certain height for the lower air

727
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: pressure so there's less resistance and then you can be

728
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: more efficient. But there are people working on all sorts

729
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: of different scales of these things. You know, there's some

730
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: people working on even larger ones. The largest plane anybody

731
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: has made so far that actually has flown, like in

732
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: reality in our universe is like a retrofitted version of

733
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: a Sessna and it can take nine passengers and it's

734
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: fully battery powered. And this is something that like exists today. Yeah,

735
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. I mean, it's kind of like because

736
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: when I think about some things that feel like impossible

737
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: flying feats, I think about the Quotquotalists, which is this

738
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 1: ancient pterosaur which is like a pterodactyl but the size

739
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 1: of a small Cessna aircraft, which after researchers found its bones,

740
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: they thought, okay, maybe it has wings, but maybe it

741
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: just didn't fly because it was so big. But they

742
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:12,799
Speaker 1: were able to work out through physics and math that yeah,

743
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: they could actually fly, and they probably flew these long distances.

744
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: But of course these things don't use jet fuel to fly.

745
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,839
Speaker 1: They just use the power of muscles and whatever unfortunate

746
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: little probably proto mammals they were eating. So this idea

747
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 1: that if a pterosaur can figure it out, it seems

748
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: like we should be able to figure it out without

749
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: using jet fuel. Yeah, and it goes back to the

750
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: question you asked originally, like why can't you get this

751
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: thing off the ground if you have enough batteries And

752
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,800
Speaker 1: the answer is you can. You can basically fly almost

753
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 1: anything you want enough batteries on it. It just won't

754
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: go for very long. And so if you want any

755
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: distance at all, you've got to find that sweet spot

756
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:57,280
Speaker 1: between shorter distances and smaller airplanes so they can actually

757
00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 1: take off. And so that's what people are working on,

758
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: and you know, people are hoping that like by twenty thirty,

759
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,839
Speaker 1: there might even be a electric jet that can fly

760
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty people up to five kilometers.

761
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: Easy Jet is working with a startup called Right Electronic

762
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: to develop this kind of prototype that might be in

763
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: service in twenty thirty. So we have the technology today

764
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: for these smaller planes to go smaller distances. And there's

765
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: also really advantages. You know, we talked about the energy

766
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:28,720
Speaker 1: density of jet fuel, but we haven't talked about the cost.

767
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: Like jet fuel, that's expensive stuff. As you say, it's

768
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: been cooking for millions of years. You got to gather

769
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 1: from under the ground, right, It's complicated, whereas electricity, you know,

770
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 1: it just falls down on earth from the sun and

771
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: you can create it in lots of different ways, and

772
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: the cost of electricity is really dropping because of the

773
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 1: amazing solar power build out, and so one of these

774
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,800
Speaker 1: assessments that was retrofitted with an electric engine, for example,

775
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: it costs like five bucks to take a flight, whereas

776
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: otherwise it would have been four hundred dollars in jet fuel.

777
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: So airlines are pretty interested in this because that's a

778
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: huge part of their cost is spending on jet fuel.

779
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: And I, as a passenger and someone who does like

780
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: the planet, I am also interested your pro planet. I'm

781
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: pro planet because I live here. I'm biased, and so

782
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 1: I think what we might see is like a real

783
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: revolution in the way air travel works, because if you

784
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: have a lot of these smaller, cheaper airplanes that can

785
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: go shorter distances, then you can actually start taking advantage

786
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 1: of a lot of little airports. Can ever drive down

787
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: the highway you see like a little airport and it's

788
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: basically nobody taking off. Well, there's tons and tons of

789
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: these underused regional airports all over the country. We already

790
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: have the infrastructure to make these short flights to go

791
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: from like little airport to little airport. Those things already exist,

792
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: and so all we need are the airplanes. Basically, it's

793
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 1: just the airlines dominated from mega airport to mega airport,

794
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: but smaller airplanes that can go shorter businesses and cheaper.

795
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: We're gonna get like this much richer network of destinations.

796
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: You know, that would really change the tapestry of big

797
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: countries like the US too, because currently things like where

798
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: jobs are located, where people can find work, even things

799
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 1: like the successive farms depends on proximity to airports. And

800
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: if you have more airports for commuters to be able

801
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: to fly to, it seems like it'll mean that, you know,

802
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 1: we won't have as much because right now we have

803
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 1: this big problem of population density in these big cities

804
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: where people have to crowd. You know, people wonder like, well,

805
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,399
Speaker 1: why does everyone go to l A or or San

806
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 1: Francisco or New York, these big cities. A lot of

807
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: places people are dependent on being near an airport, And

808
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: so if we kind of spread out the airports, it

809
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 1: seems like we'll be able to have more jobs kind

810
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: of spread out throughout the US. Yeah, exactly, And so

811
00:44:57,480 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 1: I sort of look forward to that possibility where people

812
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: can take these little hops from place to place on

813
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,800
Speaker 1: a quiet, clean, cheap electric airplane. That sounds like a

814
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: lot of fun to me, But people, of course are

815
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: still working on the long haul. We talked to the

816
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,800
Speaker 1: beginning of the podcast about like connecting different parts of

817
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 1: the world, and you know, if you can't take a

818
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: flight from here to Japan in twelve hours, if it

819
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: really takes a lot longer to get there, if you

820
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: have to take like, you know, fifteen little hops to

821
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 1: get from here to Japan, it really would make the

822
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 1: world feel different, and so it's definitely worth working on.

823
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: But you know, it seems hard to understand how we

824
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: could get there unless we manage one of these incredible

825
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 1: breakthroughs in battery technology using like lithium fluoride. So people

826
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: are being creative and working on like weird other solutions.

827
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: One of my favorites is this idea of like wireless

828
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: power transmission. We talked about like carrying the energy with

829
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: you on a battery. But we've also talked on the

830
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: podcast about crazy ways to get around the universe, on

831
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: things like solar sales, which is this thing which you know,

832
00:45:57,640 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: gathers the energy of the sun and uses it to

833
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 1: put yourself through space. The advantage there is you're not

834
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: bringing any fuel with you. You don't have to carry

835
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 1: the weight of the fuel and then the weight of

836
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,919
Speaker 1: more fuel to push that fuel. So people are talking

837
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: about like beaming energy to the plane, but if you

838
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 1: don't have to have a huge battery, you just like

839
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 1: fire a laser at a spot on the plane. That's

840
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: like absorbing that energy turns into electricity and then spins

841
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: the engines. But if someone gets in front of that energy,

842
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: being like say a flock of birds, they just get bisected. Right, Yeah, exactly.

843
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: And this is sort of similar to what we've talked

844
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 1: about on the podcast. Another time, we talked about space

845
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: based solar power, like gathering energy up in space and

846
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: then beaming it down to Earth using either lasers or microwaves.

847
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 1: It seems a little bonkers, like you're inventing a death ray,

848
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: but you know, people have tried this. NASA has actually

849
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: done this demonstrate this technology with like a small unmanned

850
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: solar craft that you could like beam energy to it

851
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: and like recharge its batteries and it can fly longer

852
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have to have as big a battery

853
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: if you can recharge it. I'm not sure how they

854
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: would do that for like international flights. I can have

855
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: to have like laser stations in the ocean to like

856
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: recharge these things or beam it down from space from satellite.

857
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 1: The whole thing seems kind of impractical, but you know

858
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: today's impractical idea. Maybe it is tomorrow's future. But it

859
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: would if you did get in the path of one

860
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: of these energy beams, you would be toast right, because

861
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,919
Speaker 1: that seems like you would need a pretty concentrated high

862
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: energy thing there. Or are they not as deadly as

863
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:31,919
Speaker 1: they sound? No, you're exactly right. And in the case

864
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: of space based solar power, they avoid that by having

865
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: the beams not be very dense and having like really

866
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: large collection stations on the ground. But you can't do

867
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: that for an airplane, right. An airplane is the size

868
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:44,720
Speaker 1: of an airplane, and so yeah, basically you're like zapping

869
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 1: death rays in the air all over the planet just

870
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:50,799
Speaker 1: so you can go to Japan and do some shopping. Right,

871
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: you'd have two problems if you miss the plane. One,

872
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,399
Speaker 1: the plane wouldn't get its energy and that would go down.

873
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: And the other whatever you're hitting on the ground is

874
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: not gonna be too happy with having its atoms completely rearranged. Yep.

875
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: And then on the other side from like zapping your

876
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 1: airplane with a hot laser, is the idea of bringing

877
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: other kinds of fuel or like a hybrid. Remember when

878
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 1: we went to electric cars, we didn't go straight to

879
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: electric cars. We went to hybrid which had like you know,

880
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: gas powered engine that could recharge your electric engine, and

881
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: the electric engine which is for like getting around a

882
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: little bit around town. Well, people are talking about hybrid

883
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: approaches to airplanes where you have like a battery, but

884
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: also you bring something along like hydrogen, which is like

885
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: a fuel cell that can create electricity. And the advantage

886
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: there is that, like hydrogen is much more energy dense

887
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 1: than a battery. It's not quite as good as jet fuel,

888
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: but it's much better than a battery, so you can

889
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: like effectively bring along more energy. I'm getting a deja

890
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: vu though, talking about hydrogen gives me an unsettling sense

891
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: of deja vu with other aircraft that maybe shouldn't use

892
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: exactly that is dangerous and all. So these fuel cells

893
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: have to be very cold, like negative four hundred and

894
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: twenty three degrees fahrenheit, and so not only do you

895
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 1: have to bring the hydrogen, but then you have to

896
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: bring along like very complicated cooling equipment to keep this

897
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:17,280
Speaker 1: thing frozen, and so it gets very complicated very quickly.

898
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: But you know, there's some nice advantages to these hybrid

899
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 1: solutions because you can do a little bit of this

900
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:23,919
Speaker 1: and a little bit of that. Right, we just don't

901
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: want like a Hindenburg situation with the hydrogen. Nobody wants that.

902
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 1: And you know, we could also do some other kind

903
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:33,560
Speaker 1: of combination where you have like some hydrocarbon fuel like

904
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: jet fuel plus some batteries as a hybrid, and there

905
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:39,840
Speaker 1: are ways to do that in a sustainable way. We

906
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 1: can take solar power, for example, and use it to

907
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:46,399
Speaker 1: generate hydrocarbons to like pull carbon out of the air

908
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: and generate our own synthetic fuel and use that to

909
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: power our airplanes. And then you know, when you burn it,

910
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: it releases that carbon back into the atmosphere, but you've

911
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: already pulled it out of the atmosphere to make the fuel,

912
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: so it's not like you're releasing ancient carbon there that

913
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: was stored millions of years ago back from the atmosphere.

914
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 1: It's like fresh carbon you just took onto the atmosphere,

915
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 1: store into fuel, and then release again. So there are

916
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,760
Speaker 1: ways to make like hydrocarbon fuels that are net carbon

917
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: zero for the planet, and maybe combine that a little

918
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: bit with some batteries and some electric propulsion and you

919
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:25,359
Speaker 1: might get net carbon zero long haul electric airplanes. That'd

920
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:29,280
Speaker 1: be cool. I just hope that's not too explosive exactly.

921
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: And the bigger picture is that we have lots of

922
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: ways to get there. Maybe improved battery technologies will let

923
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: us get to the same energy density as jet fuel,

924
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:41,439
Speaker 1: or maybe some of these other clever, crazy solutions will

925
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:44,280
Speaker 1: let us get enough energy stored on a really huge

926
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: plane to fly at halfway across the world. But even

927
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: if we don't, we have bright prospects for short hop

928
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,800
Speaker 1: electric airplanes that can get you from LA to San Diego,

929
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: or from New York to Philly, or somewhere else to

930
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:58,919
Speaker 1: somewhere else, And so I think we'll be seeing those

931
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: a lot in our life, and pretty soon it's going

932
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,520
Speaker 1: to feel kind of like the future, you know, now

933
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: I think about it, giant death ray is getting you

934
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: from l A to Japan actually seems really cool, and

935
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 1: I'm kind of on board. It's pretty metal. It does

936
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: sounds like something in a science fiction novel. And maybe

937
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 1: it can automatically toast your bread right just so to

938
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: stick your bread out the window and it gets zapped

939
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:25,359
Speaker 1: by the laser. Killed two birds with one giant death ray.

940
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 1: All right, well, thanks everyone for listening. If you're going

941
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 1: on this crazy electrified ride with us, stay tuned for

942
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,840
Speaker 1: more episodes about everything that's crazy about the universe and

943
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: the future of technology. Thanks for listening, and remember that

944
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explained The Universe is a production of

945
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio or more podcast For my heart Radio,

946
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

947
00:51:56,280 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. No