Flying is the most damaging mode of transportation for our climate. At least, up until now.
Flying is the most damaging mode of transportation for our climate. At least, up until now. But work is already underway to investigate technical alternatives to conventional aircraft. For example, airships with highly efficient solar cells and extremely light batteries on board. Prof. Dr. Christoph Pflaum from FAU, together with Prof. Dr. Agnes Jocher from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the FAU student Tim Riffelmacher, has investigated which route a solar airship would have to take in order to fly from London to New York as quickly and as climate-friendly as possible.
The findings were published in the International Journal of Sustainable Energy.
“If we rely on solar-powered airships, we can make aviation more climate-friendly relatively quickly and economically,” says Prof. Dr. Christoph Pflaum. The computer science professor at FAU specializes in numerical simulation with high-performance computers and has published the paper “Design and route optimization for an airship with onboard solar energy harvesting” together with FAU student Tim Riffelmacher and Professor Jocher from TUM.
Read more at: Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat
