Avgas Where is the ceiling?

Bob Noel wrote:
In article , wrote:

Anything that burns using the oxygen from air produces oxides of nitrogen,
i.e. smog.

Burning Hydrogen would produce smog?

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

Yes, unless you can come up with a way to keep the nitrogen in the air
out of the combustion process.

Fuel cells, which run at temperatures below which the nitrogen oxides
form don't have this problem, but any conventional engine, no matter
what the fuel, does.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message ...

".Blueskies." wrote in message news:YJw2g.13688
The problem here is that we are continuing to pay those 'hidden' expenses and taxes while also paying the ever
increasing costs of the gasolene. The prices are being driven by speculators, not by true demand, and the profits are
exorbitant.

China and India tripling and quadrupling their consumption is not a "true demand"?




Insignificant at this point and not enough to justify the price of gasoline doubling in the last 2 1/2 years. USA is
number 1 consumer by a long shot...

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarti...n tId=7005897

Martin Hotze wrote:


5 liter per 100 kilometers is on the better side for our cars here, 3l is
very good, 10l is the upper limit, but exceeding up to 20l for larger SUVs
etc.

so the average car is at about 7l per 100 kilometers here in Europe.

right now we pay about 1 Euro (germany about EUR 1,30) per liter diesel or
unleaded 90 octane.

Appreciate the "international" perspective, my friend, but, I seriously
doubt folks on this side of the pond are going to do the math to convert
the units and make sense of your data.

".Blueskies." wrote in message
. com...

"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

".Blueskies." wrote in message
news:YJw2g.13688
The problem here is that we are continuing to pay those 'hidden'
expenses and taxes while also paying the ever increasing costs of the
gasolene. The prices are being driven by speculators, not by true
demand, and the profits are exorbitant.

China and India tripling and quadrupling their consumption is not a "true
demand"?




Insignificant at this point and not enough to justify the price of
gasoline doubling in the last 2 1/2 years. USA is number 1 consumer by a
long shot...

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarti...n tId=7005897


Do you understand "Demand Forecasting"?

well, what are the alternatives? fighting those wars until some wacko hits
the red button and fires all those nukes (even firing one is enough)?
what's next? get a broader view, please.

The alternative is certainly not "giving everyone his fair
share"...whatever THAT is.

So, what ARE the altervnatives?

The answer is simple: The Free Market.

However, you are the one who said "give everyone his fair share" -- I
presume of natural resources? You may wish to expand upon this a bit
-- do you mean air? Water? Oil? Sunlight?

Regardless, I believe we should start the conversation with the
concepts of "worthiness" and "earning potential", as these are two
areas that seem to continually baffle you.

First, there is no one to "give" anything to ANYONE on this planet --
and for you to even start a debate with a statement like that
illustrates a vast ignorance of the way the world's economy works. You
EARN your way in the world's economy, and make yourself "worthy" of
receiving ANY share.

Second, there is no one to determine what a "fair" share of ANYTHING is
on this planet -- and, again, for you to make a comment like that shows
a remarkable naivete. In the world economy, each of us -- from
countries to citizens -- EARNS what we receive, or, rather don't
receive.

Are their inequities in this system? You bet! Here's just one
illustration of what happens when the Capitalist system isn't allowed
to work:

We've currently got a medical doctor staying at our hotel who runs a
department at a very large medical center. Because he is a public
employee, his salary is available on the web and is published in the
newspaper each year.

Imagine my surprise to discover that he personally, all by himself,
received more compensation last year than the hotel generated, in
total! He himself received more money than we received from ALL of our
revenue sources, and he himself received more money than we paid out to
ALL of our suppliers and employees COMBINED.

Now, do I really think that this guy EARNED that much money? Nope --
not by a long shot. Our health care system in America is so screwed up
by regulation and red tape that the capitalist system's vaunted
efficiency has been completely wrung out of the equation. He is paid
that absurd amount of money because the system is allowing that to
happen -- not because he's "earning" it -- while at the same time new
mothers are being sent home 18 hours after giving birth due to "budget
constraints"...

Now, at the other end of the scale, here is a similar LOOKING example
that actually illustrates quite the opposite: The highest paid
government official in Iowa, by far, is (believe it or not) the
University of Iowa football coach, Kirk Ferentz. He is paid well over
a million dollars per year, BEFORE all of his endorsement contracts,
which boosts it to well over $2 million annually.

Does he EARN that money? You bet! The Hawkeyes (the football team)
bring in so much revenue that the University is able to fund ALL other
college sports, from lacrosse to field hockey, from softball to track
-- and still have money in the bank at the end.

If Ferentz were failing, and the Hawkeyes weren't winning, the college
would have to come up with $10 million annually (at least) to pay for
all those other "lesser" sports -- so in a very real sense, Ferentz
EARNS his money.

Now scale this up to the national and international level. Is Austria
EARNING it's "fair share" of natural resources? How about Kenya?
Bangaladesh? If not, why not? Are they earning more than they're
costing?

As you can see, your statements about "fair share" lose their meaning
rather quickly, in the real world.

Bottom line: Earn it, and it's yours. Fail to earn it, and reap the
consequences.

Worse yet, mess with the free market economy, and end up with bloated,
corrupt, over-paid bureaucrats -- like our vaunted doctor.

And Europe.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:


However, you are the one who said "give everyone his fair share" -- I
presume of natural resources? You may wish to expand upon this a bit
-- do you mean air? Water? Oil? Sunlight?

Living in the midwest I'm sure you'd like to know where the line forms
to get your equal share of sunlight.


You
EARN your way in the world's economy, and make yourself "worthy" of
receiving ANY share.

Or form OPEC and artificially drive up the price.

On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 04:06:08 GMT,
wrote:


On 22-Apr-2006, Roger wrote:

We are going to see the
demand for high grade avgas drop to the point where it will become
unavailable. Then we'll have to find gas without alcohol and
additives so we can burn it in the high compression engines.


I think that there will still be enough demand for a suitable high octane
aviation gasoline that it will be made available -- at some price. The real

It's that "some price" that is scary.

key is that Continental and Lycoming need to get to work on building engines
(and airframe manufacturers need to make fuel tanks and lines) that work
with premium mogas, including those with ethanol. Otherwise, the future for
light GA aircraft will be diesel

But I think that mogas as we know it is going to go away and in the
not too distant future.



Hydrogen, when looked at on a large scale, makes all this other stuff
look cheap.

Depends on the original energy source. Right now, photovoltaic systems can
be constructed for about $1 per delivered watt, or $1 million per megawatt,

True, but so far that is on a very localized basis. Plus for hydrogen
you are limited to the distribution system that has yet to be
implemented except on a small scale. Electricity is easier to
transport and the electric farm you list below is one whale of a good
start. Unfortunately our power grid is only capable of *almost*
meeting peak demands. Cars user far more energy so that would mean
either trucking vast amounts of Hydrogen, increasing the size of our
electric grid several fold over what we have now, or a combination of
both with the latter being the most likely. I think though that the
bio fuels will probably outdo the Hydrogen overall in the big
picture.. It's easier to increase trucking incrementally than it is to
increase the power grid.

The electric car is probably the least desirable as it would require
the greatest infrastructure change and is the least efficient "over
all".

Add into this the bio-fuels and the need for Hydrogen and electric
powered cars is greatly reduced. At least the Metal Hydrides used for
Hydrogen storage make a take full of H2 safer than one full of gas.

BTW, Hydrogen is treated more like the batter in the electric car than
a fuel. There is a loss in net energy with its production and another
loss in its use just as there is in using a battery to store
electrical energy.

and prices are coming down. Vast photoelectric farms in the desert could

On a local basis, going solar power to really power the home is about
$20,000 and that is for Florida. Up here in the frozen, cloudy north
it's not very practical unless you can develop a way of capturing a
lot and then storing it .

I saw the figure given as a solar farm 100 miles on a side out in the
desert could power the entire US. That would be one expensive
undertaking:-)) Both from the solar farm and the distribution.
OTOH single farms large enough to replace a couple of fossil fuel
powered electric generation plants are not out of the question. Using
parabolic mirrors to collect heat to power generators would be much
more compact and at current costs probably run about 10 to 20% (my
SWAG) of a photovoltaic farm capable of creating the same power.
A couple of 10 or 12' dishes used to heat water could probably heat
enough water in one day to heat my home for 3 to 5 days. I know a 10'
dish can collect a *lot* of heat ever since I painted one with some
excess aircraft paint and it melted the feed horn.

produce copious amounts of cheap, environmentally innocuous electricity.
But how to transform that electric energy to a form that can readily be used
for highway transportation? Hydrogen from water dissociation.

It takes a lot of electricity to produce the Hydrogen on a large
scale. I used to work with the world's largest electrolytic Hydrogen
generator. The O2 was just blown off to the atmosphere as a
byproduct. That company used to have daily tankers of liquid H2
coming in and they had a tank farm for liquid H2.

The processes that used the H2 have been modified and streamlined to
the point where they use a very small percent of the H2, yet the basic
process that uses it has multiplied many fold.

Actually the tank farm AND the H2 generation cell are both gone with
just a *relatively* small tank remaining and I am speaking in relative
terms. That place is BIG and they are in the process of basically
doubling their capacity again.

One of the things I can refer to specifically is the change is the
basic charge to the customer. 30 some years ago the end product ran
as much as $165$ US per gram. Now the raw material is more pure than
that refined product and sells "some where" in the $2 to $5 a Kilogram
range.

That is a tremendous increase in efficiency.
Take that tot he Hybrid cars which I can say from experience my wife's
gets 50 MPG average. However hybrid cars take a different mind set.
These are not "economy cars". They are expensive cars (at present)
that get very good gas mileage. So although they save a *lot* at the
pump the overall operating cost has to be as much as many of the gas
guzzlers. OTOH the overall operating cost is far less than the new
luxury gas guzzlers.

As A personal opinion I see various forms of hybrid cars using various
fuels as being the current and at least short term way to go. They
alone in their current form "could be" enough to make us independent
from foreign oil and reduce the green house gases to acceptable
levels. In the mean time the alternative energy sources can be
developed to the point of being economically competitive, or even
economically superior.

The unfortunate down side is the people who really need the cars that
get high mileage can not afford them. Currently their only answer is
car pooling, driving less, mass transit, or moving closer to the
center of their activities.

One other step that is not going to be popular or painless is to empty
the high school parking lots and we could very easily see that happen.

As much as I'm afraid of being the one to put the first scratch on it,
I am now driving my wife's car (when it's available) and I don't need
the SUV for hauling *lots* of stuff. I can drive that thing to the
airport three times on about the same gas as it takes to get the SUV
there once and it gets good gas mileage. 20 years ago it would have
been considered outstanding.

They are talking 5 to 9 degrees over the next century. If it goes to
5 or 6 degrees, it is going to drastically alter some coast lines and
economies. If it really does go to 9 degrees some one needs to read up
on the "Permian Extension" (SP?)

Yes, we simply have to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, the leading
source of the greenhouse gas CO2. Burning biodiesel and ethanol also
produces CO2, of course, but growing the chlorophyll-based plants from which
these fuels are derived absorbs as much CO2 as is produced when they are
burned. No net add of CO2 to the atmosphere. Hydrogen/water cycle
generates zero greenhouse gases or any other pollutant.

IF you are using the biomass produced fuels to produce the materials
(crops) and produce more fuel, you have a net reduction.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


-Elliott Drucker

On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:25:02 GMT, wrote:

snip
Anything that burns using the oxygen from air produces oxides of nitrogen,
i.e. smog.

There are also the lubricants that are either burned or expelled, but
modern engines have reduced these pollutants to extremely low levels.
The gas engine in my wife's car runs a compression ratio of 13:1, yet
is it listed as one of the lowest emitters of pollutants. Some call
it a zero emitter, but that really means it has met Ca standards.
What I find amazing is how they produce so little Nitrogen oxides with
such a high compression ratio. (It does have variable cam timing) and
the engine even shuts off if not needed. No idle at stop lights or
even going down hill.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

-Elliott Drucker

On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 06:22:10 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:


"Roger" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:59:33 GMT, ktbr wrote:

Matt Barrow wrote:
Last I heard, the US was a "democracy" (ie, representatives were
elected),
so if there's a problem, thank your friednds and neighbors.

Actually, its supposed to be a representative republic not a true
deomocracy. But anyway, I'm not convinced that the average voter

Actually the US is a Republic that is governed as a representative
democracy.

today has necessary economic education to fully understand the issues

I would say, "most voters", not the average voter does not have either
the information or the ability to use it to the point of being able to
make an intelligent choice.

I would add that most voters have neither the information nor the ability to
make sense of it, and DON'T HAVE THE INTERST in doing so.

Hey, don't bother me, the ballgame is on...

I'm sorry Matt. I was watching TV while you were typing. What were we
talking about?

sigh

BTW There was a good program on tonight that started out showing some
old photos of glaciers and then faded to the present view from the
same location. Now that was eye opening!

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:53:00 -0000, Jim Logajan
wrote:

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
In case you haven't noticed, America doesn't conquer people. We come
in, save your ass, and go home.

If only that were true during all of our history, rather than the two World
Wars. Because Native Americans may tend to disagree with both your
statements:

Although that is the politically correct term there is no such thing
as Native Americans. Those called that merely got here before we did
although that does nothing to the fact that we took the land away from
them by armed force.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Wars

And the U.S. took the area encompassing California and New Mexico as a
result of the Mexican-American war:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_American_War

Likewise, Puerto Rico and the Philipines were territorial conquests
resulting from the Spanish-American war in which the U.S. "didn't go home":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish-American_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico

The U.S. did its best to not "go home" which was evident during the
Philipine-American war:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipine-American_War

Lastly, the War of 1812 involved a failed attempt by the U.S. to take
Canada:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasio...ada_%281812%29