By 2040, the Nordic country is planning to use only electric planes

The Norwegian Government has decided to make the air less polluted. The authorities decided to gradually change the traditional airplanes to electric ones in 2040.

The initiative seeks to reduce the carbon footprint of these vehicles that are one of the most polluter. The first step is to use electric airplanes in national flights that take less than 1.5 hours long.

The Agence FrancePresse assured that in Norway, the airplanes industry produces around 2,4% of the total greenhouse gases of the country. The numbers are really close to the world average that produces 2,5% of the total carbon emissions.

According to Avinor, the Norwegian airport operator, the first electric planes will start flying in the middle of 2018. The first flights will be for demonstration purposes.

Dag Falk-Petersen, chief executive of Avinor explained, “We think that all flights lasting up to 1.5 hours can be flown by aircraft that are entirely electric”. This means all the domestic flights and maybe some other trips to other Scandinavian airports such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, or others.

Norway is considered to be one of the most environmental friendly countries in the world. In accordance to the Independent Norwegian Road Federation, electric cars comprised more than half of new registrations in the country the past year and it is becoming the country with the biggest amount of electric cars in the world. The country is seeking to change their entire vehicles to electric cars by 2025. Now the electric planes will be their next goal.

Norway will start using the Alpha Electro G2 manufactured in Pipestrel in Slovenia. This aircraft has a range of 130 kilometers of flight and maximum flight time of around 1 hour.

Furthermore, the first plane will arrive in May of this year. Experts hope that the first commercial flights in the country will become a reality just by 2030.

The Plane carbon footprint

The New York Times explains that taking a round-trip from New York to California (east to west coast), each person produces nearly 20% of the greenhouse gases that a car emits over an entire year.

The American media assured that the last year, there were around “20,000 planes around the world, serving 3 billion passengers annually. By 2040, more than 50,000 planes could be in service, and they are expected to flight more often”.

The most pollutant flights are the short ones. Experts assured that the cruising phase in the flight requires less fuel than other stages, such as landing and takeoff.

Is it possible to flight in e-planes?

Nowadays, the electric planes are a reality, but they are really small and have just capacity for less than 5 people including crew and passengers. However, the technology is taking gigantic steps. Everyday, the batteries are more powerful, smaller and cheaper, so the possibility of using it in a commercial aircraft is becoming real.

Some of the companies that are developing the commercial electric planes are: Airbus, Pipistrel, Wright Electric, Zunum, Easyjet, among others.

Latin American Post | Santiago Gómez Hernández
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