How can we make clean-green airplanes that travel as fast as typical passenger jets?

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

What form of energy could be used as a fossil-fuels alternative? How about some kind of "energy beams" as in the Starship Enterprise?

 

[belchfire]

Cold Fusion, Zero-Point Modules or Dilithium Crystals are a few of the SF solutions...windmills and solar panels as we know them just aren't going to cut the mustard!

Biodiesel/Jet Fuel are interesting options but like gasohol I'm not sure that the returns are worth the energy input...

The really funny thing is that the vacuous All Out Crazy, author of the Green New Deal is incapable of grasping the simple fact that without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, diesel powdered farm equipment and trucks/locomotives/oil burning ships there is no way to feed the population of the planet-if she wants to do something constructive how about collecting all that dangerous methane from cow farts and using it as fuel?

There isn't enough arable land to grow enough hay to feed the horses it would take to replace modern farm equipment, to say nothing of the fact that crops couldn't be harvested fast enough to prevent spoilage...

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Cold Fusion, Zero-Point Modules or Dilithium Crystals are a few of the SF solutions...windmills and solar panels as we know them just aren't going to cut the mustard!

Biodiesel/Jet Fuel are interesting options but like gasohol I'm not sure that the returns are worth the energy input...

The really funny thing is that the vacuous All Out Crazy, author of the Green New Deal is incapable of grasping the simple fact that without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, diesel powdered farm equipment and trucks/locomotives/oil burning ships there is no way to feed the population of the planet-if she wants to do something constructive how about collecting all that dangerous methane from cow farts and using it as fuel?

There isn't enough arable land to grow enough hay to feed the horses it would take to replace modern farm equipment, to say nothing of the fact that crops couldn't be harvested fast enough to prevent spoilage...The

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

The single biggest problem on planet Earth is overpopulation. We need to start embracing Mother Nature and the sciences. We need to advance the sciences far and wide. We need to bury this notion of a bearded God, angels and devils once and for all and start thinking long-term feasibilty. We need to burn books written by ancient middle-eastern hemp-smoking sheep-humpers forever. That stuff is long gone. It's old hat. We need to reduce the population to a Mother Earth green level. Smart, unselfish and educated people adopt babies and don't make new ones. If the human species doesn't find a sensible energy solution soon, Mother Nature and Father Time will eventually prevail and Man won't like it the way the True God of the Universe, Mother Nature and Father Time collectively, does it.

 

[belchfire]

Well, I am going to disagree with your animistic Mother Nature/Father Time on the grounds that it is even more primitive than any monotheistic belief system. The fact is that humans frack up anything they touch beyond any recognition including how to understand their creator.

It is human nature and do-gooder humanistic interference that bears as much responsibility for that overpopulation as anything else...well, and it feels good to practice making babies of course! But to the point-and you are likely too young to remember this and it isn't taught because it illustrates the unintended consequences and abject failure of the humanistic global movement-in the 1960's people were starving in India because their 5000 year old farming processes couldn't feed the population.

Enter the UN and all of their efforts to help the starving Indian people and bring their "emerging economy" into the so called First World. Vaccines and antibiotics were distributed. They worked with various seed and chemical providers and taught Indian farmers to use hybridized, high yield grains, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

What they didn't do for the people who authored the Kama Sutra is give them the pill and a metric crap-ton of condoms!

Not only has this epic example of humanist failure spawned the worst industrial accident in human history (no, you probably shouldn't build a massive pesticide factory in a third-world dump that can't afford to maintain it!),Dec. 3, 1984: Bhopal, 'Worst Industrial Accident in History'

India can no longer produce enough food domestically to feed the population and hunger is again rearing it's ugly head...let's have a golf clap for the UN. Heck, they got us into Korea and Viet Nam too!

I've spent time in India and it is desperately messed up and the root causes are greed (greed that predates the English Colonial period mind you) and humanistic do-goodery from the idiots in the "First World" who should know better!

Since you agree that the world is over populated, who do you propose is qualified to make the choice about who gets turned into Soylent Green?

And thus here we are...

God gave humans incredible problem solving capacity and potential for learning and granted the free will to mess all of that up!

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

I don't propose killing innocent people off to reduce our numbers. We will all die anyway. Perhaps world governments should intervene on fertility control as in China. We as a species need to throttle back the rate at which we remake ourselves. Adoption and unselfishness is the way to go. What "feels good" to do is not always good indeed. Same-sex matings feel just as good and make no babies. Sugar, fat and salt tastes good but it is horrible for one's health in a certain quantity. The Native Americans were a primitive society that never overpopulated just like the wolves in North America never overpopulated. The biggest way to change man's selfish ways is through sound education. Embrace homosexuality for pleasure widely. The most educuated people in the world perhaps parent no more than two biological children. Dumb bible-thumping hicks make babies like rats.

 

[belchfire]

Nope, I'm a believer and my wife and I only had one child. Even when so called well educated liberals spread their own intolerant generalities they reveal the absolute depth of their own ignorance while so desperately pretending to be better.

Dude, it's every bit as sad as your so called dumb Bible-thumping hicks! What characterization would you make of the unwed black woman (no, she's a citizen of the United States who has never been out of the country, not an "African-American") who has 7 children by 5 different men? Common, tell the truth!

I've worked with some African Americans-some had dark skin and some had light skin but they were all born in Africa and worked to legally become naturalized citizens of the USA...

You're smart enough to see that there are some really grave issues facing mankind so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume that you can understand the distinction that was just made. It does not matter the source of whatever dogma you adhere to they all have one thing in common. They were all passed on by a fallible and biased humans and therefore none can be perfect because humans are all fracked up.

My own corollary to that-

Given the flawed nature of humans, the more humanistic a dogma is the more fracked up it will be.

Perhaps we should move on and you can explain the forces that ended the last Ice Age and why the climate as measured in, er, say 1972 was better than now and it shouldn't have changed from that perfect balance...as if the climate has ever been fixed and humans are smart enough to determine what is perfect of course-in spite of what your gods of nature and time have done in the past or will do in the future!

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Now, what about those clean-green jet-fast airplanes of the future? Jets only run on fossil fuels as of now. There is no way in the devil planet earth's petroleum reserves will last another 1,000 years at the rate it's used even today. Mother Nature and Father Time has man's fate sealed. If man can't sort it out, nature and time will always do that. Man's stupidity is largely accountable for so much suffering on earth.

 

[belchfire]

I've been about cutting the Arabs off at the Petro-Dollar since 1974...

Nice deflection-why haven't any of algore's dire predictions come true ten years past their due date or more?

Hydrogen is the perfect fuel for combustion engines-except for procuring it and of course the waste heat output associated with combustion engines that is somehow never factored into global warming paranoia...but I digress

For hydrogen in useful quantities we'd need some highly efficient fusion power source that would make the electrolysis process economical-perhaps even using the water to be split as a coolant first to increase its energy state (dang near plasma perhaps?) and decrease the required electrical power...

Of course with an efficient enough fusion process ducted fans could be run directly without combustion.

How about this-using the airframe as a very large capacitor and flying from thunderstorm to thunderstorm and collecting electrical energy?

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

I've been about cutting the Arabs off at the Petro-Dollar since 1974...

Nice deflection-why haven't any of algore's dire predictions come true ten years past their due date or more?

Hydrogen is the perfect fuel for combustion engines-except for procuring it and of course the waste heat output associated with combustion engines that is somehow never factored into global warming paranoia...but I digress

For hydrogen in useful quantities we'd need some highly efficient fusion power source that would make the electrolysis process economical-perhaps even using the water to be split as a coolant first to increase its energy state (dang near plasma perhaps?) and decrease the required electrical power...

Of course with an efficient enough fusion process ducted fans could be run directly without combustion.

How about this-using the airframe as a very large capacitor and flying from thunderstorm to thunderstorm and collecting electrical energy?

Watching the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek has inspired me with such notions. That ship in theory must use some form of energy beams as thrust in outer space. Can't use ducted fans in zero atmosphere conditions. No air in outer space as a thrust medium. I believe the engines are possibly nuclear. Would this principal work for fast aircraft inside earth's atmosphere? The future of energy lies in advanced physics and chemistry. Imagine jet planes thrusted by energy beams. They ought to be super quiet.

 

[belchfire]

There are all kinds of possibilities in theoretical physics.

The problem is the math as we understand it, for instance the "big bang theory" requires an infinitely dense mass in an infinitely small space (to say nothing of "dark matter") but the math as we know it creates a discontinuity when you try to divide by zero...

it is a hole, nothing can exist where you divide by zero, it is a non-space!

On the other hand it would only take a few horsepower or about 3000 watts to accelerate a tiny mass to a near light velocity...

so how do you trick something the mass of the Enterprise (whichever one, even the aircraft carrier would do) into behaving as if it has the mass of a single electron?

And is it bad luck if a black cat walks across your keyboard?

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

It sounds like the days of fast travel around the world are numbered.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

No feasible alternatives to fossil fuels seem to have been found yet for fast-moving airplanes. Man needs to understand that fossil fuels surely won't last forever at the rate we are using them even today. Something needs to give somewhere down the line.

 

[belchfire]

When I was about 10 years old the "experts" predicted that we'd be out of easily accessible oil by now...but technology improves with time. Cars don't get 10 mpg any more and the definition of "easily accessible" has shifted.

Still, yes, it is a limited resource and will eventually run out. Just like the 50% of rivers that used to have salmon runs (believe it or not salmon used to make it up the Snake River as far as Burley ID!).

But where would we be if not for the electrical generation from the dams on the Columbia river?

Yep, every kind of energy has a cost. Nevada Solar One kills untold numbers of birds with it's nearly 500 acres of mirrors focused on a heat collector-besides that it is very efficient-but at what cost to the control of insects and pollination that those dead birds would have done?

And here's a question that you will hear no one ask-

When you use Wind Turbines to extract tens and hundreds of thousands of megawatts of energy from the atmosphere, energy that may otherwise have turned into thunderstorms and have had a cooling and cleansing effect on the environment, what will the long term effects be?

If we put all of the carbon that is in fossil fuels in the ground back into the atmosphere do you know what we would have?

A CO2 level as it was during the period millennia ago when the Earth was warmer and you know what else? It was the period the greatest biodiversity the planet has known!

Yeah, there were no humans or polar bears way back then but you know what?

The critters and plants of that time didn't miss either one and who died and made some climatologist the new god of what is the perfect environmental conditions on Earth?

99.9% of the life that has existed on Earth is extinct and the vast majority of that happened before Neanderthals let alone Homo Sapiens-

our days on Earth are numbered regardless...

Michio Kaku: 3 mind-blowing predictions about the future

I would like to live long enough to eat venison from a deer I shot with a flintlock though...I need a flintlock but I'm working on that. At my age becoming picky is earned so no, I'm not going to settle for one of the crappy Pedersoli imports with a rifling twist rate suited to conical bullets. 1:66 or so would be fine for spit patch and round ball...

Mother Nature is not warm and cuddly, that is a kitten-and even kittens have pointy teeth and sharp claws. Mother Nature is the frigid vacuum of space that we are an insignificant oasis in, a vacuum full of asteroids, supernovas, pulsars, gamma ray bursts, rogue stars, planets and even stray black holes!

Seriously, the continuation of high speed travel by airplane-pretty or not given the A-380-is really a pretty low priority all things considered...

Happy New Year!!!

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Mother Nature and Father Time could care less how long naked apes can continue to soar near or exceeding Mach speeds through the atmosphere of this planet. Man may face long voyages in sailing ships all over the world once again someday. Man may very well someday need to seek out new planets for his survival, at least for civilization as we know it to be able to live in a high-tech state. Outer space is the final frontier indeed. Man needs certain forms of energy to sustain a high-tech lifestyle. Does Mother Nature care if we ever go back to the caves or the bush again? Perhaps, man will not last forever, but certainly some other intelligent life might take over. The universe is bigger than we can ever dare imagine.

 

[Pervis]

Strange how little is mentioned in the lame stream media about sustainable alternative fuels. We use it in a number of FBOs now with similar burn rates of JetA. One company uses non recyclable plastic to make it. Another uses landfill waste. Cuts carbon emissions by something like 80%. If we could viably produce enough for all diesel burning vehicles, that would be a huge reduction in bad pollution, including CO2, plastics, and landfills. Nothing positive is ever acknowledged by the alarmists. If it was, the crisis can’t continue.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Strange how little is mentioned in the lame stream media about sustainable alternative fuels. We use it in a number of FBOs now with similar burn rates of JetA. One company uses non recyclable plastic to make it. Another uses landfill waste. Cuts carbon emissions by something like 80%. If we could viably produce enough for all diesel burning vehicles, that would be a huge reduction in bad pollution, including CO2, plastics, and landfills. Nothing positive is ever acknowledged by the alarmists. If it was, the crisis can’t continue.

FBOs?

We should look at the whole smorgasbord of energy possibilities. We should also slow down our fertility rate drastically. How many humans on this planet does it really take in this world to sustain a modern-level of civilization and technology as we know it today? I guess no more than 10% of our current numbers on earth. To have smartphones, airplanes, automobiles, roads, electricity, Internet, TV, air conditioning, automatic dishwashers and such, it takes so much manpower to make that all happen. It take a certain amount of energy to power and sustain modern first-world living. An African-Bushman-level population or American Indian tribal population will support a hunter/gatherer society but not a jet age, a digital age or a space age. Fewer than 10 million people might support an ancient Roman Empire.

 

[Pervis]

Well, you can adopt the Margaret Sanger approach. Eugenics. 43 MILLION babies were slaughtered in the womb last year alone in the US. Hitler tried the same with millions as well. Or how about soylent green. Kill a bunch of people and supply their bodies to the food production plants. And where the heck did you come up with 10% of our current population?

China had very stringent birth controls with their one baby rule and now regret is as the natural course of gender balance was disrupted. They are backing off that philosophy. Go ahead and believe all the doom and gloom. Or better yet, be a realist, not an idealist. Live your life and do what you feel is best to save the planet. Get sterilized. That’s one small step, and then you can go toot your own horn.

Oh, and btw, an FBO is where General Aviation goes. More airports than all the airlines. And SAF used by them, by private jets, by trucks, by ships and trains will do wonders to reduce CO2 levels. Let’s do what we can without drastic measures affecting countless people. Who the he// are we to decide who lives and who dies, because that’s what it’ll come down to. Or maybe another little thing called a virus, or maybe a bigger thing called an asteroid.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Well, you can adopt the Margaret Sanger approach. Eugenics. 43 MILLION babies were slaughtered in the womb last year alone in the US. Hitler tried the same with millions as well. Or how about soylent green. Kill a bunch of people and supply their bodies to the food production plants. And where the heck did you come up with 10% of our current population?

China had very stringent birth controls with their one baby rule and now regret is as the natural course of gender balance was disrupted. They are backing off that philosophy. Go ahead and believe all the doom and gloom. Or better yet, be a realist, not an idealist. Live your life and do what you feel is best to save the planet. Get sterilized. That’s one small step, and then you can go toot your own horn.

Oh, and btw, an FBO is where General Aviation goes. More airports than all the airlines. And SAF used by them, by private jets, by trucks, by ships and trains will do wonders to reduce CO2 levels. Let’s do what we can without drastic measures affecting countless people. Who the he// are we to decide who lives and who dies, because that’s what it’ll come down to. Or maybe another little thing called a virus, or maybe a bigger thing called an asteroid.

The 10% figure I read several years ago online but can't remember the source. I propose reducing human numbers by reducing conception rate, not killing. People with means should unselfishly adopt children in need of homes.

Be a virgin
Beat off
Do blow jobs
Use contraceptives
Practice same-sex sex
Adopt
Get a vasectomy

All good ways to lower our numbers without killing.

 

[Pervis]

All a personal choice. Isn’t that the mantra of the pro abortion folks? Irresponsible sex and kill a baby for convenience. That’s killing people and provides for the greatest reduction in population aside from world war. Both undesirable from my perspective. You think new options to facilitate your population reduction won’t come along, like corona?

BTW, how did this devolve from your original question about greener aircraft? I gave you a viable solution available and becoming more widespread today yet like the alarmists, nothing positive is ever acknowledged. Or are you just a troll stirring up the pot? At best you are a very naive individual with very little real world experience.

 

[Pervis]

The silence is deafening.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

All a personal choice. Isn’t that the mantra of the pro abortion folks? Irresponsible sex and kill a baby for convenience. That’s killing people and provides for the greatest reduction in population aside from world war. Both undesirable from my perspective. You think new options to facilitate your population reduction won’t come along, like corona?

BTW, how did this devolve from your original question about greener aircraft? I gave you a viable solution available and becoming more widespread today yet like the alarmists, nothing positive is ever acknowledged. Or are you just a troll stirring up the pot? At best you are a very naive individual with very little real world experience.

A break in the deafening silence. BANG! BANG! BANG!

As for "how did this devolve from your original question about greener aircraft?", belchfire way up above got me started with the population issue:
as in his "there is no way to feed the population of the planet".

Overpopulation is another of my big ecological pet peeves besides pollution and the world energy crisis. My thread has much to do with the ecology and the environment as it questions how to make airplanes go fast when the world runs out of gas.

As for "At best you are a very naive individual with very little real world experience.", I do personally happen to know the world is much too crowded for my own individual comfort.

So, what are we really going to do when the world runs out of gas? Animals will pull wagons again. Back to horses.
Back to oxen and camels. Back to sailing ships. Forget about fast airplanes maybe.

 

[Pervis]

For ‘your own individual comfort’. Very scientific. The US has 332 million residents while the world is at 7.9 billion. Even if we sterilized every human in our nation it would have minimal impact on world population. Let me give you a hint where the bulk of the population lives. China and India. How do you propose we force them to cut back on their reproductive practices? Once again, idealism vs realism. A concept many have difficulty grasping.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

For ‘your own individual comfort’. Very scientific. The US has 332 million residents while the world is at 7.9 billion. Even if we sterilized every human in our nation it would have minimal impact on world population. Let me give you a hint where the bulk of the population lives. China and India. How do you propose we force them to cut back on their reproductive practices? Once again, idealism vs realism. A concept many have difficulty grasping.

You can force other countries to do things to bend toward your will by imposing sanctions, boycotts, tariffs on imports or embargos. In America, we can have tougher immigration reform and border control. We can impose severe taxes on households that reproduce more than two children. We can give tax credits to households that adopt children in need of homes. We can give tax credits to adults who engage in sterilization as vasectomy and tube ligation.

Did you know that dog owners all across America are getting punished with much higher city license fees for having unsterilized dogs? In Lawton, Oklahoma it's $50/year for an unsterilized dog and only $10/year for a sterilized one? Is it any wonder why many people like to live in unincorporated areas?

 

[belchfire]

The People's Republic of Covid recently lifted their one child per couple dictate to two children per couple. Since those people plan hundreds of years in advance I suspect personally that they are expecting the need for increased replacement rates because they are planning military options in the next 15-20 years...

I could be guessing wrong but I believe they protest too much that they do not have expansionist goals while they build military islands off their coastline and increasingly threaten Philippine and Japanese territories and the Republic of China...

Apparently you missed the main point of Doctor Kaku's predictions.

There will be no other intelligent life rising on Earth (or it is as doomed to extinction as we are) because the planet's days are numbered as surely as the supply of fossil fuels!

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

The People's Republic of Covid recently lifted their one child per couple dictate to two children per couple. Since those people plan hundreds of years in advance I suspect personally that they are expecting the need for increased replacement rates because they are planning military options in the next 15-20 years...

I could be guessing wrong but I believe they protest too much that they do not have expansionist goals while they build military islands off their coastline and increasingly threaten Philippine and Japanese territories and the Republic of China...

Apparently you missed the main point of Doctor Kaku's predictions.

There will be no other intelligent life rising on Earth (or it is as doomed to extinction as we are) because the planet's days are numbered as surely as the supply of fossil fuels!

Sounds like a nuke holocaust is in the works. I really don't know Doctor Cuckoo or whatever I missed. I might be dead before all this happens anyway. What do the dead care about anything? In the end, Mother Nature and Father Time have everything planned for all of eternity. Where will my soul be reincarnated when this planet is destroyed? Ask that mad lady in white on 1970's Chiffon margarine commercials who got fooled in a very not-nice fashion. Ask yourself also why Mother Nature is wearing clothing since naked is natural.

 

[belchfire]

mother nature and father time...and naked is natural-

are you a wiccan or a druid?

Tell ya what-I know this lovely little village in Alaska, be happy to drop you off naked on a nice balmy February day!



That's the problem with PITA specifically and overly broad characterizations in general-they don't work out well in the real world and only fools try to apply what might work in the LA basin for outerwear-or the lack thereof-to the rest of humanity!

Again with the law of unintended consequences-in other words every time Homo Sapiens tries to fix a problem no less than two more are created.

What landfill are all those burned out Prius batteries going into? Oh, I know, they get "recycled"...and the waste byproducts from those kind of reclamation processes, well, not good...

WRT "green aircraft" so far we have the Solar Impulse (about a year and a half to get around the world) for manned vehicles and a handful of UAV's that are doing some interesting research. Nothing fast yet and nothing that can carry a meaningful payload.

As for increasing payload to a useful level there is something that makes sense...it won't be fast but if you use a lifting gas to bear the weight and can concentrate the solar component on propulsion it would be a heck of a lot faster than a sail boat! Just the size required to get the 8 million cubic feet of gas volume (16 million would be better) to lift a practical load would make for adequate surface area for gathering solar energy.

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

PITA?

It seems like man never had a fossil fuel problem BEFORE the automobile, but wait, what did steam engines run on, just water? Before man dies out, horses and wooden sailing ships may be in fashion again someday. Acts of nature certainly will slow down man's activity and reduce his numbers considerably before he dies out altogether. Things like COVID are nature's balancing act in action.

Man has bad actions: nature has equal and opposite reactions.

 

[belchfire]

Covid-19? YGBFSM! Are you one of those true believers who think this bug is something like Smallpox, Polio or the Bubonic Plague?

Gimme a break! Show me one city where there weren't enough people left alive by Covid to bury the dead...just one. We are being played by a bunch of power greedy politicians trying to increase our dependence on their "beneficence"!

Tell me one person in North America who was Covid positive who's death was attributed to some other cause...

(hint, there is one, and only one that I know of)

(Insert Jeopardy theme)

Ya give up?






I'll answer at the bottom of the page...

Covid-19 isn't even a blip on the population explosion radar-not even a one year setback...sheesh, get a grip.

Steam engines have run on several things-anything that will burn...wood-which is renewable at a certain rate, coal, oil and in Egypt, in a pinch at least one steam locomotive was fueled by mummies!



And the first Diesel engines ran on peanut oil...and they still can-at least the ones that aren't all fracked up by computer controls that is!

Acts of nature-you need to expand your horizons. Acts of the UNIVERSE! It's a cosmic shooting gallery! The only thing that remotely protects our frail existence (which ultimately matters not in humanistic terms) is that it is a big universe and a lot of opportunities to miss. Asteroids and comets are threats that come from within our own solar system...from outside there is a whole pantheon of lethal things from that big rock Amua Amua to rogue planets, rogue stars, rogue black holes, gamma ray bursts, any number of nearby stars that could, depending on their failure mode would vaporize us without warning, our own sun (yeah, global warming will happen when our own sun fails for sure!) and God only knows what I've left out...

Heck, one good batch of tsunamis would solve the population issue-about 75% of the population lives in coastal plains. Us meek Highlanders may well inherit the Earth after all!

I do know of a really pretty airplane...

She's pretty clean as Pratt Power goes, not really green (she really wants that old purple 115/145 fuel) but she's keeping her figure to an advanced age and that's really sexy!

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https://img00.deviantart.net/38a4/i/2017/011/d/7/dream_girl_by_rlkitterman-dav1u70.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Oh yeah, the answer...

George Floyd!

 

[guy_liking_pretty_planes]

Nature and Time are in control of the entire universe indeed, not some bearded old fart in the clouds. I do believe in the natural immortal soul and I do believe in reincarnation. The soul will always find a new living physical body (human or otherwise) on some astronomical object (Earth or otherwise) to possess one physical life after another. I may have been a Klingon once and may be a dog the next for all I know.