“Can’t be done”
Is not relevant when some does it
The curious case of batteries and motors
I spent a day at CSIR NAL trying to understand why we couldn’t just put up a solar drone and fly it non stop at a height of 20 kms. This could hold the 6g cell sites, provide ubiquitous high speed data anytime anywhere and also serve as an eye in the sky. ADA has already made the Rustom 2 autonomous uav which flies at 8 kms without much of a problem. Just that it is not electric.
The discussion came down to three components – the solar panels, the motors and the battery. The solar panels is easy – just use satellite solar cells. They are made from gallium type compound semi materials and can do higher percentage conversion. There is a promise of perovskite silicon tandem but that is still a college science project.
Next the motor. This is what I woke up to:
This is 55 kw of power in a motor that weighs three pounds. That is like the weight of a large bottle of tomato ketchup. Good enough to fly a plane. The internal combustion engine is dead. Run this in reverse and you have an alternator. Combine this with a hydrogen micro turbine and you can build a 50 kw electricity generator in a suitcase. And even carry it around. Leave aside technology and related fluff that the global north uses to justify profiteering and margin. China is going to sell this by the kg.
The battlespace is now just one.
The battery.
India has one sole player – Log9. A battle scarred techie group with a rs 250 cr loss after ten years of hard work and rs 750 crore invested. His PE players – all tier 1 – abandoned the well meaning techies leading to a highly undesirable retrenchment of 400 trained people.
My IIT friend Sanjiv Goyal invested in a battery company Prologium many years ago. It was a bunch of techies from Taiwan struggling to survive. Sanjiv got them on a path to luxury and now most of the Mercedes electric models use their battery. However most of these EVs are on the ground. They are happy with 5 kg per kWh. They are more concerned about charging time.
But up in the sky you are only concerned about weight. U have all the time in the world to charge it. You are also a lot more tolerant to cost. Planes are like advanced biologics in pharma. You don’t pay for the material (which is like free) – you pay for the research, the many years spent in trial – and most important for the obnoxious profits.
The basic science for high density batteries is well established. They cost a bomb to make and mfg will take years to master because they involve thin film type semiconductor technologies. Additive manufacturing offers hope – but the cost is even higher. It was a solution looking for a problem. Pseudo satellites is that problem. Now one needs to see if someone like Go Power Technologies – the stealth mode aviation battery startup in Go Mobility – can deliver quickly enough – by working with someone like log9 to hit the ground running.