Can Aircraft Be Far Behind?

Larry Dighera wrote:

Electrically powered vehicles are the only hope to reduce the transfer
of wealth from the western world to the middle east,

Electric cars will never eliminate our dependence on oil from the middle
east. That is a bold statement and I could be wrong but I believe the
only way to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, is to use every
possible alternative to power cars and trucks, including bio diesel,
methanol (from something other than corn), natural gas, maybe hydrogen,
and to what I believe will be a limited extent battery power. At the
same time we should stop using fuels to generate electricity that work
well in vehicles so as to save it for vehicles and use nuclear, coal
(which can be made clean with the byproduct useful for making concrete
stronger), hydro-electric, wind and solar (and I don't mean PV cells).

What I can't understand is why solar heat for your house isn't being
pushed more. Unlike solar electric cells, solar heat can easily and
quickly pay for it's self. In many parts of the country it can provide
over 90% of your heating needs. The only disadvantage I can see, is for
it to be most cost effective, you need to have it built into the house
from the start. It's hard to add it to existing homes and have it be
efficient unless certain things just happen to be right. That may be
part of why it isn't talked about more.


--
Chris W
KE5GIX

"Protect your digital freedom and privacy, eliminate DRM,
learn more at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm"

Gift Giving Made Easy
Get the gifts you want &
give the gifts they want
One stop wish list for any gift,
from anywhere, for any occasion!
http://thewishzone.com

On Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:13:39 -0600, Chris W wrote in
:

Larry Dighera wrote:

Electrically powered vehicles are the only hope to reduce the transfer
of wealth from the western world to the middle east,

Electric cars will never eliminate our dependence on oil from the middle
east. That is a bold statement and I could be wrong

In the short term, there is no question your statement is true, IMO.
In the long term, the US will need to develop many alternate power
technologies to remain independent.

but I believe the
only way to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, is to use every
possible alternative to power cars and trucks, including bio diesel,

Vegetable oil seems like a great renewable alternative fuel to me. The
question is, is there enough agricultural land to grow the amount
necessary.

methanol (from something other than corn),

To my thinking, methanol is never going to be a significant source of
energy due to its low energy density and high energy demands for
manufacture. Its in vogue now due to farm lobby interests, IMO.

natural gas,

There is an enormous amount of natural gas frozen under the seas.
We'll have to learn how to harvest it, but there is little doubt it
will become a prime fuel source in the future, IMO.
http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/g...tes/title.html

maybe hydrogen,

As a storage medium for photovoltaic solar energy, hydrogen and
oxygen, the natural products of the disassociation of water, can be
"burned" directly in fuel cells. But that technology is still in its
infancy from what I've read. Here's what Honda has in mind:
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/HomeEnergyStation/
This sort of equipment is making fuel whenever the sun is shining.

and to what I believe will be a limited extent battery power. At the
same time we should stop using fuels to generate electricity that work
well in vehicles so as to save it for vehicles and use nuclear,

Nuclear has shown itself to be problematic:


http://environment.newscientist.com/...n-uplands.html
Chernobyl haunts the Norwegian uplands
12:00 28 October 2006

Tougher controls on the slaughter of sheep have been imposed in
Norway after they were found to be contaminated with unusually
high levels of radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) says the
problem has arisen because the sheep have feasted on an unusually
large crop of mushrooms, which were more plentiful than usual
because of wet weather. Previous research has shown that fungi
take up more radioactivity from the soil than grasses or other
plants.

... the discovery of such high levels of radioactivity so long
after the Chernobyl accident came as a surprise. "No one at the
time expected contamination to be so high more than 20 years after
the event," he says.

This occurred a long distance from Chernobyl. I'd prefer that we
didn't poison ourselves in the search for fuel.

coal (which can be made clean with the byproduct useful for making concrete
stronger),

Coal is plentiful and can be made a cleaner source of energy, but it's
not happening yet:
http://environment.newscientist.com/...d=FGPEPLHHNEGB

hydro-electric, wind and solar (and I don't mean PV cells).

Decentralizing electrical power is a great idea. Small wind turbines
seem like a good idea: http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

Another untapped power source, ocean waves, seems ripe to help fill
the need: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

What I can't understand is why solar heat for your house isn't being
pushed more. Unlike solar electric cells, solar heat can easily and
quickly pay for it's self. In many parts of the country it can provide
over 90% of your heating needs. The only disadvantage I can see, is for
it to be most cost effective, you need to have it built into the house
from the start. It's hard to add it to existing homes and have it be
efficient unless certain things just happen to be right. That may be
part of why it isn't talked about more.

Of course, solar swimming pool heating is being used extensively in
locations where it is feasible.

We seem to have strayed a bit from the topic of aviation, but I
believe you are correct in intimating that it will be an aggregate of
technologies that will eventually supplant middle east petroleum in
the US if we are to remain independent in the future.

Larry Dighera wrote:
Nuclear has shown itself to be problematic:


http://environment.newscientist.com/...393-chernobyl-
haunts-the-norwegian-uplands.html Chernobyl haunts the Norwegian
uplands 12:00 28 October 2006

This occurred a long distance from Chernobyl. I'd prefer that we
didn't poison ourselves in the search for fuel.


That's what happens when you let a morally and finacially bankrupt country
play with fire. Overall Nuclear energy has a damn good safety record. There
is, of course, the issue of what to do with the waste but technology and
reuse of the material should be able to take care of that.

But the Chernobyl issue is also a symptom of the Big Nuke Plant that we and
virtually all other counties have used. The outcome of this is astonomical
costs for each plant because first they are so damn big and virtually each
one is designed on a clean sheet of paper.

On the other hand we have nuclear powered ships with smaller reactors that
are fairly uniform and have been proven to be very safe. And those reactors
are designed to be shot at.

Here's a cool idea that our own government came up with for developing
nations. I see no reason it couldn't be used on a local basis right here at
home. http://www.llnl.gov/str/JulAug04/Smith.html

On 2007-01-10, Larry Dighera wrote:
Vegetable oil seems like a great renewable alternative fuel to me. The
question is, is there enough agricultural land to grow the amount
necessary.

The trouble is the US is often looking at the wrong things for biofuels
because of the farming lobby wanting subsidies. There are much better
ways of making biofuel than using corn for ethanol.

Algae processes can deliver 10,000 us gallons/acre of biofuel (compared
with about 150 gal/acre for ethanol). It can be done as an industrial
process, using rust belt industrial land - no agricultural land needed.

Research on cellulosic ethanol continues. This means any old plant
matter will do. You can grow weeds in very poor soil, and make fuel from
that - you don't even need fertiliser, just find a vigorous invasive
plant and grow it on land marginal for agricultural use.

"In June 2006, a U.S. Senate hearing was told that the current cost of
producing cellulosic ethanol is US $2.25 per US gallon (US $0.59/litre).
This is primarily due to the current poor conversion efficiency. At
that price it is not competitive when distribution costs are added.
However, the Department of Energy is optimistic and has requested a
doubling of research funding. The same Senate hearing was told that the
research target was to reduce the cost of production to US $1.07 per US
gallon (US $0.28/litre) by 2012."

So there's far more than one source available, so long as politicians
aren't bought and paid for. Aviation will ALWAYS require a very high
energy density fuel, and no battery in the forseeable future will cut it
for practical aviation. But biofuels will.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

"Larry Dighera" wrote

Electrically powered vehicles are the only hope to reduce the transfer
of wealth from the western world to the middle east, and reduce global
warming. If the US doesn't find some breakthrough technology soon,
we'll all be speaking Farsi before long. :-(

How do you figure that?

What do you suppose generates the majority of the electricity to recharge
that car? Fossil fuels. Until we start building nuke plants, or find a
breakthrough in solar power generation, we will be stuck with the oil and
gas noose around our necks.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Larry Dighera" wrote

Electrically powered vehicles are the only hope to reduce the transfer
of wealth from the western world to the middle east, and reduce global
warming. If the US doesn't find some breakthrough technology soon,
we'll all be speaking Farsi before long. :-(

How do you figure that?

What do you suppose generates the majority of the electricity to recharge
that car? Fossil fuels. Until we start building nuke plants, or find a
breakthrough in solar power generation, we will be stuck with the oil and
gas noose around our necks.
--

Don't forget coal.

Danny Deger

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 18:17:26 -0500, "Morgans"
wrote in :


"Larry Dighera" wrote

Electrically powered vehicles are the only hope to reduce the transfer
of wealth from the western world to the middle east, and reduce global
warming. If the US doesn't find some breakthrough technology soon,
we'll all be speaking Farsi before long. :-(

How do you figure that?

Well, not the ONLY hope, but part of the solution to petroleum
independence.

What do you suppose generates the majority of the electricity to recharge
that car? Fossil fuels.

That is true today, but petroleum based energy sources should be
diverted over time to the manufacture of alternate energy producing
technology, rather than burned as motive fuels if the US is to slip
out of the middle east grip toward which it is headed.

Until we start building nuke plants,

Not my first choice, nuclear has shown itself to be problematic in a
number of ways, financially, environmentally, politically ....

or find a breakthrough in solar power generation, we will be stuck
with the oil and gas noose around our necks.

I agree.

Currently, we are poised on the brink of a global revolution in
photovoltaic cell production. Manufacturing plants for new, cheaper
cell technologies that require less environmental impact to produce,
and higher efficiencies are slated to begin coming on now as supply is
unable to meet demand. Much of the venture capital that fueled the
dot com boom is being diverted toward solar technology startups. I
look for photovoltaic costs to decline and efficiencies to increase in
the near future. And with the power companies paying customers for
running their meters in reverse, the stage is set for decentralized
energy production in the US.

Larry Dighera wrote:

Electrically powered vehicles are the only hope to reduce the transfer
of wealth from the western world to the middle east, and reduce global
warming. If the US doesn't find some breakthrough technology soon,
we'll all be speaking Farsi before long. :-(

There are alternatives that are perfectly practical, and technically
feasible. They just aren't economic, or any better environmentally.

One of the closest is the liquafaction of coal. We have vast supplies in
North America, and it is a relatively straight-forward process to convert
it to liquid fuel. (see the Fischer-Tropsch process) The Germans and South
Africans used synfuels made from coal when they couldn't get cheaper
petroleum products. They worked well.

There are a number of environmental issues, but the biggest problem is that
fuel produced from coal is somewhat more expensive than petroleum based
fuels, and few will pay extra for them. OPEC knows how much synfuels are
to make, and they carefully keep the price of crude below those costs, so
there is little risk of a competitive supply.

James Robinson wrote:

One of the closest is the liquafaction of coal. We have vast supplies in
North America, and it is a relatively straight-forward process to convert
it to liquid fuel. (see the Fischer-Tropsch process) The Germans and South
Africans used synfuels made from coal when they couldn't get cheaper
petroleum products. They worked well.

Okay, here's the aviation tie-in ...

The USAF recently flew a B-52 with synfuel made throught the FT
process. First flight was with 2 of 8 engines powered by synfuel; IIRC
subsequent flights had all 8 burning synthetic?

I think a combination of wind turbines and sea turbines would be a
great combination for limitless electrical power generation. Here's the
site for an interesting proposal.

http://www.capewind.org

Kingfish wrote:
James Robinson wrote:

One of the closest is the liquafaction of coal. We have vast
supplies in North America, and it is a relatively straight-forward
process to convert it to liquid fuel. (see the Fischer-Tropsch
process) The Germans and South Africans used synfuels made from coal
when they couldn't get cheaper petroleum products. They worked well.

Okay, here's the aviation tie-in ...

The USAF recently flew a B-52 with synfuel made throught the FT
process. First flight was with 2 of 8 engines powered by synfuel; IIRC
subsequent flights had all 8 burning synthetic?

I think a combination of wind turbines and sea turbines would be a
great combination for limitless electrical power generation. Here's
the site for an interesting proposal.

http://www.capewind.org

It's a great idea. Unfortunatly would be a huge "Not in my backyard" or more
to the point "Not in my ocean view" backlash against it.