Are electric aeroplanes the technical breakthrough Air Canada has been yearning for all these years?.Or is the decision to buy 30 of Swedish Heart Aerospace’s ES-30 electric-powered short-haul airliners a politically-aware decision? Something akin perhaps to what happened in the 1980s when the airline ended up with an Airbus fleet, instead of the Boeings it wanted?.A clue: See how long it takes Prime Minister Trudeau to tell an elite international audience that to help the world reduce carbon, Canada is electrifying its national airline. The next international climate change conference is set for November. If I’m right, it won’t take any longer than that..Unlike the majority of readers responding to our online poll who overwhelmingly voted ‘Hell no!’ they would never board an electric plane, I'm not reflexively against the idea of electric aircraft. I've lost a few rounds at the traffic lights to smug Tesla drivers. So, if those four hairdryers on the wings develop more thrust than the drag created by the struts holding them off the ground and the thing that holds the batteries, maybe you won’t know the difference. And it should be quieter..But that’s not saying I want to be on the first flight, either..Likewise, doubters of electrified flight have their talking points..For one thing, the in-service date is 2028. That of course is right up Trudeau’s alley: Signal virtue that you can take credit for now, but don’t have to deliver on for years. Since we’re talking aeroplanes, like the F-35..Also the ES-30’s range is only 120 miles. For comparison’s purposes, it’s 163 miles from Calgary to Edmonton. It could do Banff, but except for weather emergencies, the National Park discourages use of the grass strip there, which is too short anyway..Odds are we won’t see many of them out West. And when Heart proudly announced the ES-30 would have a washroom after all, you have to wonder: What else did they do to save weight?.However, let’s say the Swedes make it work. That still leaves the commercial issues..First, the only traffic that makes sense for this aircraft is spoke-flights to aviation hubs. But people are already used to driving a hundred miles to a hub airport. That doesn’t leave much advantage to a plane with a range of 120 miles. Hmm. Over to marketing..The bigger problem, however, is likely to be the price and even more, the availability of electricity. And in this, electric aircraft just add to the case that when it comes to electrification, we’re trying to run before we can walk. That is, it’s not whether new power generation is in the works: It’s whether there will ever be enough. And, will we have in time the expanded grid necessary to take all the electricity a population switching to electric cars will need, never mind that required for aviation purposes — a population that is growing by up to 400,000 immigrants a year, each of whom brings their own domestic demand for electricity as well..This, you can’t shunt to marketing..A few weeks ago, my colleague Cory Morgan ranted that maybe Trudeau’s idea was to have us all travel less. You have to wonder..One thing’s for sure, though: If we must rely much on electric cars and aircraft, we'll be travelling less unless we start building reliable generation capacity and the heavy wires to carry it..Trudeau will tell you he doesn’t give Air Canada instructions..But then, people don’t always need to be told. Electric aircraft? The name says it all: Heart Aerospace… There’s some high-altitude virtue signalling going on here..Nigel Hannaford holds a commercial pilot's licence.
