When we run out of fossil fuels, how will we fly?

Nuclear, if the environmentalists will allow it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 25 2007, 05:12 PM) [snapback]467837[/snapback]</div>

Biofuels Which is why the owner of Virgin Airlines has just put a massive amount of money into biofuel research. Jet A is very similar to fuel oil, Kerosene, and Diesel. Biodiesel seems to be the obvious choice but you would need to take care of gelling issues and the extreme temperatures that airplanes fly. Hydrogen could work but you need to solve the problem of storing enough fuel for the flight due to hydrogen low energy density.

On the other hand we may just return to far more efficient methods of travel like trains and boats.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(roryjr @ Jun 25 2007, 03:20 PM) [snapback]467842[/snapback]</div>

Yeah! The terrorists will love that one. Fly one nuke-powered passenger plane into the center of a large city and the whole city is destroyed.

No thanks!

 

Flap our arms really fast.

In the end, fast travel will go bye bye. People are going to have to bite the big one and accept it. I imagine the majority of people will want what fuel is left for their cars, rather than someone else's flight.

You're talking the return of trains and boats. I anticipate the dirigible making a comeback. But nothing is going to be fast and speedy.

Not until Scotty can beam you.

People are going to have to learn to slow down.

 

Bring back the broom...

 

Electricity might step in, but any type of liquid synthetic fuels would probably do. Of course, the real problem is where the energy will come from. If you have a source of energy (solar, wind, nuclear -- though that last promises to be an environmental death warrant in the long term, due to the highly toxic and nearly everlasting radioactive waste materials) you can manufacture liquid fuels to operate aircraft.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wiiprii @ Jun 25 2007, 06:38 PM) [snapback]467852[/snapback]</div>

Destroyed by...? A nuclear reactor has little more in common with a nuclear explosive than it does with a nuclear family or a nuclear magnetic resonance imager.

 

Fischer-Tropsche process on biomass will get you the oil you need for JP-8 or whatever hydrocarbon based fuel you want.

 

If we can get Buckminsterfullerene (carbon nanotubes) perfected and a space elevator built, maybe we could be winched into orbit and glide from there.

I like trains better anyway. In France, they're already faster than planes, city to city.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ethereal @ Jun 25 2007, 06:11 PM) [snapback]467877[/snapback]</div>

One word.

Chernobyl.

I'm with Daniel. More reactors are NOT the answer. We have no safe way of storing the "dross". The energy they provide isn't very cost efficient either.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ethereal @ Jun 25 2007, 07:11 PM) [snapback]467877[/snapback]</div>

Thank you for that informed correction.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 25 2007, 07:22 PM) [snapback]467897[/snapback]</div>

One acronym: USSR. The design of the Chernobyl reactors was typical of the engineering priorities of the Workers' Paradise: cheap, sloppy, allowed the use of natural (non-enriched) uranium as fuel, and worked pretty well when it wasn't blowing up and killing people.

RBMK belongs in a textbook as an example of how NOT to build a nuclear reactor. Moderator-tipped control rods are downright suicidal.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ethereal @ Jun 25 2007, 09:17 PM) [snapback]467996[/snapback]</div>

Please now address the problems of nuclear waste.

(No comment on why our quality is better I.E. Government regulations oh horror!)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 25 2007, 09:41 PM) [snapback]468014[/snapback]</div>

Reprocess it so that most of it gets burnt in breeder reactors. The rest can be converted into short-lived isotopes in purpose-built accelerators and then stored for a few decades until it is no more dangerous than the original ore. This is a problem of politics and perceptions, not technology.

Note also that no matter how quickly or slowly the US turns to nuclear power, China, India, and most of the rest of the world are doing so as quickly as they can. France and Japan have already used nuclear power for most of their electricity for decades.

We note with amusement that the 400 square miles or so around Chernobyl are now a wildlife preserve. Animals and plants not seen there for decades are flourishing. It turns out that the presence of humans is far more harmful than even a considerable amount of radiation.

So anyway, as Daniel points out, with an acceptable energy source we can manufacture all of the synthetic kerosene and gasoline we need, using even atmospheric CO2 as the raw material.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 25 2007, 03:38 PM) [snapback]467853[/snapback]</div>

Excellent points. It used to take weeks to cross an ocean, or months to cross a continent. Now it takes hours, and we feel we absolutely must travel that fast. We may have to return to more leisurely means of transportation. Trains lend themselves to electric power. We probably could have installed a national network of electrified high-speed trains for what we have spent on this illegal and counter-productive war. On a coast-to-coast run, even the French trains would not be as fast as planes, but they would be perfectly acceptable. L.A. to N.Y. as the crow flies is about 2,500 miles. At 200 mph that would be just 12 1/2 hours. Compare 12 1/2 hours in the comfort of a train's observation car to 6 hours cramped in coach class on a wide-bodied jet full of crying kids and no more t.p. in the rest rooms.

I would love to take a trip in a dirigible. The old German ones were apparently quite luxurious, much like cruise ships. I did go up in a hot-air balloon once. Didn't get sick at all. But of course it was very calm, as it has to be for ballooning.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 25 2007, 10:41 PM) [snapback]468014[/snapback]</div>

Well, since so many seem to think that there is no possible way we will be visited by little green men anytime soon, eject the stuff into space.


Right?





B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Jun 26 2007, 12:09 AM) [snapback]468067[/snapback]</div>

I love the romantic notion of train travel. However, having traveled this nation (a lot), by train, it's bumpy, and often delayed by other trains (cargo). Plus unless you are lucky enough to have a first class car, the average sleeper arrangement is cramped, and inconvenient.

Now, while that is better then the horse and buggy, I'm sorry, but most of us live in the pampered A/C world. Want to drive through Miami, Dallas, parts of the South West with no A/C on a hot day? I'm sure some of you will say yes, but most of us would not. And the same can be said for rail travel; not something most of us would want to do. Look. I'm all for change, and in a positive way. But some real thinking will h ave to be done to figure this transportation problem out, and we can't just fall back, out of a lack of better thinking.

Of course, I am about to get on a plane, and travel back to Fort Lauderdale, from Dallas, and it will take far less time then it would have just 30 years ago, so I am bit biased.

 

Gee, I didn't know trains didn't have A/C.

I've traveled by train in England and Europe. They can teach us a thing or three about rail travel.