Private A-380

[airplane wizard]

So this is where all of our gas money goes.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/21757606/

 

[johnsonrod]

What a complete waste. That thing will only be able to fly to 10-15 airports total. Talk about inflexible... I guess that's why he has his 747-400 (to fly into the smaller airports).

 

[Hovernut]

This is why we have to get crackin' on a hydrogen and fusion based energy program here in the US! Oh, the projects I saw started, then de-funded when I last worked a decent paying job at Los Alamos....it would make blood shoot out of your eyes. The talent we lost after SDI was tanked was a downright shame!

We have the know-how; we just need the socialist enviro-whackos and their lobby to get out of the way, really!

 

[NuGuy]

This is why we have to get crackin' on a hydrogen and fusion based energy program here in the US! Oh, the projects I saw started, then de-funded when I last worked a decent paying job at Los Alamos....it would make blood shoot out of your eyes. The talent we lost after SDI was tanked was a downright shame!

We have the know-how; we just need the socialist enviro-whackos and their lobby to get out of the way, really!

Hydrogen is a dead end unless you get some nuke plants to crack the water. Otherwise you are just pushing the pollution to one place AND making it more inefficient to boot.

Ethanol....well, ethanol is just stupid.

Fusion is a great idea, but it's a long, long way off, despite what Popular Mechanics might tell you. It's got some tremendous hurdles (containment, mostly).

But I agree that it's well worth the money to pursue. Any technology that will make the middle east, oil companies and Texans go broke is OK with me.

Nu

 

[avbug]

Despite what the article says, Waleed's money was self-made. He borrowed about forty grand from his father to stake his investments early on, and that was it. Everything else has been self made. Unlike others who profit off the oil, he doesn't.

The media-hungry public laps at their televisions and hates the Saudis and OPEC for the oil prices...but who is the biggest supplier of oil to the United States?

You guessed it. The United States is it's own biggest supplier, closely followed by Canada. Go figure.

You can't blame everything on the Arabs. That particular one is self made. He specializes in buying companies in trouble, and making them profitable, then selling them.

 

[atafan]

Purchases of private airliners has mushroomed in recent years, but most orders are in the category of a Learjet or Gulfstream -- small and cheap at $2 million to $5 million in comparison to the A380,

I agree that the Gulfstream looks cheap in comparison to the A380 but the price tag for a G550 fitted out is closer to $65 mil not $2 to $5 mil.

 

[aerobato]

I agree that the Gulfstream looks cheap in comparison to the A380 but the price tag for a G550 fitted out is closer to $65 mil not $2 to $5 mil.

Yeah, I'll take the Gulfstream for 5 mil and make a little profit on it

 

[BLUE BAYOU]

BTW the A-380 is currently approved for 60 airports around the world, not 15 as previously stated. In fact, it debutes today at MCO at 1600 local as it visits central Florida from Montreal. I guess it'll be here for 3 days but not open for public viewing-- just officials of Disney, Seaworld, Universal and political reps.

 

[CitationLover]

.....when I last worked a decent paying job at Los Alamos....

i knew it! you're wen ho lee!

 

[UALjan15]

Hydrogen is a dead end unless you get some nuke plants to crack the water. Otherwise you are just pushing the pollution to one place AND making it more inefficient to boot.

Ethanol....well, ethanol is just stupid.

Fusion is a great idea, but it's a long, long way off, despite what Popular Mechanics might tell you. It's got some tremendous hurdles (containment, mostly).

But I agree that it's well worth the money to pursue. Any technology that will make the middle east, oil companies and Texans go broke is OK with me.

Nu

It sounds like you're looking for one "silver bullet" solution, which pretty much everyone agrees is not out there. We need to be pursuing all of these technologies, and implementing the ones that fit with our infrastructure today.

Hydrogen is most certainly not dead. While it's true that today, we'd be pushing the energy bill to the power plants (many of which are inefficient), I see no reason why in a few years we can't be running cars from hydrogen made in plants powered by wind, solar, and/or biomass. And then there's the hydrogen infrastructure, which I think will be a huge hurdle.

Ethanol...stupid? Care to elaborate? Let's see...we can grow it ourselves and use it today to substitute for OPEC oil....hmmmm. I'm not saying that this is a great solution, and it's not even my top choice for what to do today, which would be---

Diesel technology. Did you know that half of all cars sold today in Europe are diesel? Maybe this is because gas costs $2/liter and diesels get up to 40% better fuel economy than gas engines. Did you know that virtually all diesel engines can run on biodiesel (or at least a blend of bio/petro)? We could ramp up production of biodiesel in the very short term (1-5 years), helping our farmers along the way. The only knock on biodiesel is cold weather performance, but you get around that by selling lower blends in the winter and higher blends in the summer. Use the extra wintertime supply to substitute for home heating oil. Diesel (petro or bio) fits right into our current fuel infrastructure, so the light here is green. Fortunately the car companies are finally starting to catch on--look for US spec diesels from M-B (just rolled out), VW (2008), BMW, Nissan and Honda. Detroit is, of course, behind the power curve. They do make nice diesels for trucks, however, and if we could start selling our huge SUVs as diesels, we'd be making a dent.

Once we're on diesel, start the next wave of hybrids with plug-in diesel hybrids. Toyota has proven that people will pay a little extra to go green. With this next wave of hybrids getting 60-100 mpg, it will make economic sense for all of us to get on board.

There are also ways to blend CNG/LPG/LNG/Hydrogen with diesel right before combustion that boost power and economy while slashing emissions at the same time. This is a commercial product available from Australia today. http://www.dieselongas.com/

If I sound like a hard-core environmentalist, I'm not. I don't own a hybrid or a diesel, and I burn 25,000 lbs of fossil fuel on my job each time I cross the country. I would just say that I have heard the wake up calls (both the environmental and oil dependence/cost alarms), and I'm not going to bury my head in the sand anymore. I've started reading up on the technology, and honestly, this will depress you. There is so much that we could be doing today, but we fail to make significant strides. It's just like the Titanic--see the iceburg a mile earlier, and an easy course correction does the job. Wait until the last minute, and it takes a huge correction...one that just might be too late.

Make your next car or truck a diesel. I know mine will be.

 

[bouttime]

Ethanol...stupid? Care to elaborate? Let's see...we can grow it ourselves and use it today to substitute for OPEC oil....hmmmm. I'm not saying that this is a great solution, and it's not even my top choice for what to do today, which would be---

Ethanol is a terrible solution. Have you checked the price of milk, cereal, meat, cheese.... lately? There simply is not enough land available to produce the corn requred. If every acre of corn were used for ethanol, it would replace only 12.3% of the gasoline used in this country. That would leave zero corn for food.
Also any solution that has to have government subsidy to survive is not cheaper, your still paying for it in the end.
As a motor fuel, ethanol from corn produces a modest 25% more energy than is consumed — including from fossil fuels — in growing the corn, converting it into ethanol and shipping it for use in gasoline.
Compared with gasoline, it produces only 12% less "greenhouse" gasses linked to global warming. It has environmental drawbacks, including "markedly greater" releases of nitrogen, phosphorous and pesticides into waterways as runoff from corn fields. Ethanol, especially at higher concentrations in gasoline, also produce more smog-causing pollutants than gasoline per unit of energy burned.

 

[Jmoney]

Alwaleed...

Despite what the article says, Waleed's money was self-made. He borrowed about forty grand from his father to stake his investments early on, and that was it. Everything else has been self made. Unlike others who profit off the oil, he doesn't.

The media-hungry public laps at their televisions and hates the Saudis and OPEC for the oil prices...but who is the biggest supplier of oil to the United States?

You guessed it. The United States is it's own biggest supplier, closely followed by Canada. Go figure.

You can't blame everything on the Arabs. That particular one is self made. He specializes in buying companies in trouble, and making them profitable, then selling them.

This turd is not exactly what you make of him..... He may be more or less "self-made," but he is still an extremist idot.

If anyone remembers the aftermath of 9-11...This is the guy who tried to give $10 Million to the recovery effort at the same time as he stated that "The U.S. would not have to worry about such events if we simply would rexamine our approach to the Palestinian problem." His gift was turned away by our country after his comments which were really an attempted justification for such a horrible event.

In other words-you won't have to worry about terrorists if you and Israel just give us a world ruled by islamic law. That, of course is paraphrased, but that is the only solution Palestinian leaders find acceptable-that plus the total destuction of Israel.

This guy can suck it dry! Just like any other a-holes that want to blame our terrorist problems on the fact that we don't just cave to their every demand!

-Without idiots like this in the world, we would have a lot less to worry about!

 

[CF34-3B1]

Yield of Various Plant Oils

Crop Oil in Liters per hectare

Castor 1413
Sunflower 952
Safflower 779
Palm 5950
Soy 446
Coconut 2689
Algae 100000

 

[avbug]

If anyone remembers the aftermath of 9-11...This is the guy who tried to give $10 Million to the recovery effort at the same time as he stated that "The U.S. would not have to worry about such events if we simply would rexamine our approach to the Palestinian problem." His gift was turned away by our country after his comments which were really an attempted justification for such a horrible event.

In other words-you won't have to worry about terrorists if you and Israel just give us a world ruled by islamic law. That, of course is paraphrased, but that is the only solution Palestinian leaders find acceptable-that plus the total destuction of Israel.

Actually that would be YOUR translation of his effort, and turning down the gift was very, very poor international relations. That money could have done a lot of good.

How much money did the President of the United States donate? How much from each member of congress?

So much for free speech here. Apparently ten million just won't buy what it used to.

The country didn't turn that money down. One man did...Giuliani. He was wrong to do so. Accepting the money wouldn't have changed the countries policies. It wouldn't have catered to any special interest. It was money, sorely needed, pure and simple.

Waleed is no terrorist.

 

[Phaedrus]

Ethanol is a terrible solution. Have you checked the price of milk, cereal, meat, cheese.... lately? There simply is not enough land available to produce the corn requred. If every acre of corn were used for ethanol, it would replace only 12.3% of the gasoline used in this country. That would leave zero corn for food.
Also any solution that has to have government subsidy to survive is not cheaper, your still paying for it in the end.
As a motor fuel, ethanol from corn produces a modest 25% more energy than is consumed — including from fossil fuels — in growing the corn, converting it into ethanol and shipping it for use in gasoline.
Compared with gasoline, it produces only 12% less "greenhouse" gasses linked to global warming. It has environmental drawbacks, including "markedly greater" releases of nitrogen, phosphorous and pesticides into waterways as runoff from corn fields. Ethanol, especially at higher concentrations in gasoline, also produce more smog-causing pollutants than gasoline per unit of energy burned.

Nice summary. Corn-based ethanol is a joke. Now if I can only convince my wife that an E85 Flex-Fuel machine is simply a waste of money.....

 

[Deuce130]

So much for free speech here. Apparently ten million just won't buy what it used to.

The country didn't turn that money down. One man did...Giuliani. He was wrong to do so. Accepting the money wouldn't have changed the countries policies. It wouldn't have catered to any special interest. It was money, sorely needed, pure and simple.

Waleed is no terrorist.

Free speech? The guy said what he said, pissed off many New Yorkers, who exercised their right to tell the guy to pound sand. Sounds like everyone had free speech in that scenario. The guy is self made? He's self made in the same sense that George Bush and Chelsea Clinton are self made. The fact that he's a Saudi prince is what set him on the path to success, not hard work. Are you really that naive? It's only a matter of time before the Saudi extremists turn their sights on their own country. The ruling family has done a good job of creating distractions from their obscene wealth, decadence, and hypocrisy for a long time, but that'll end someday soon.

 

[F/O]

I think that, long term, corn based ethanol is a bust, especially when poor people are paying more for food because of it. But at the moment it does make sense for the gasoline consumer. E85 is about $2.10 in my area and regular gasoline is $3.00. Yeah, you sacrifice a few MPG with E85 but the numbers still work out. And you aren't committed to run a specific type of fuel as you are with a diesel. Unfortunately your choice of vehicles is extremely limited.

The current trouble with diesel for the consumer is that it runs 30-50 cents more per gallon than gas. Why? Because of taxes. The truckers don't pay what you and I would pay. Why the government doesn't reduce the tax on diesel to promote people buying cars that get better mileage defies logic.

BTW, Al-Waleed has a chick flying his jet. Presumably she will be checked out on the 380. Pretty progressive for a Saudi prince.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=9&section=0&article=54958&d=24&m=11&y=2004

 

[Wiggums]

The premium for diesel depends on the state, some places you pay close to gasoline and some places, like NY, diesel costs 30-40c extra. However, it's pretty much a wash since diesel contains 12% more energy per gallon, so your price per BTU is about the same. This AAA site shows the real price of E85 adjusted for it's energy content.

 

[time builder]

BTW, Al-Waleed has a chick flying his jet. Presumably she will be checked out on the 380. Pretty progressive for a Saudi prince.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=9&section=0&article=54958&d=24&m=11&y=2004

One of the many women on his planes. I hear he goes for the high class, well educated types, (if it's the same guy who used to fly around in a green and white 767). Maybe I shouldn't start rumors though.

The 767 was pretty ugly on the outside, but inside, wow, persian rugs, marble floors..... I don't know if I was worthy to even be in the front galley of that plane.

I'd love to see the inside of this A380.

 

[Jmoney]

Justification.....

Actually that would be YOUR translation of his effort, and turning down the gift was very, very poor international relations. That money could have done a lot of good.

How much money did the President of the United States donate? How much from each member of congress?

So much for free speech here. Apparently ten million just won't buy what it used to.

The country didn't turn that money down. One man did...Giuliani. He was wrong to do so. Accepting the money wouldn't have changed the countries policies. It wouldn't have catered to any special interest. It was money, sorely needed, pure and simple.

Waleed is no terrorist.

I still see no reason to attempt to justify this man's comments. Any attempt to blame 9-11 on the "policies of the U.S." is pure B.S. The things these fool terrorists do are inexcusable on any level. Clowns who attempt this sort of excuse-making are evil as well. No moral equivalency here-evil is evil! People like this will burn in hell!