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NASA Announces Enviromentally Friendly Jet Fuel
drama writes "From the Press Release: 'Two years of collaboration between Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., and NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., have led to the development of a non-toxic, easily handled fuel made from a substance similar to what is used in common candles. The by-products of combustion of the new fuel are carbon dioxide and water; unlike conventional rocket fuel that produces aluminum oxide and acidic gasses, such as hydrogen chloride.' Or for pictures and more info, visit the site."
jet fuel != rocket fuel
Cheap and clean is the key to colonizing the solar system. When it costs relatively little to lift people and habitats into orbit is when the mass migration to space will begin. Environmentally friendly exhaust is a nice bonus that will help disarm Green opposition to such ventures.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
The story says jet fuel, but the article says rocket fuel. There's a big difference, isn't there?
If it was jet fuel, and it was cheap enough to make Nasa could sell the rights to produce it and become more self sufficient. If it's rocket fuel though, there would be much less of a market and would really only benefit them.
Why can't we use it in our cars?
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IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
One of those involves injecting CO2 into oceanic depths where it's likely that it will remain in solution.
Um... how about we just plant more trees?
But many of the things developed by Nasa could have been deemed a "waste of money" for just using in the shuttle, But technology has a habit of trickling down to the consumer market, and you never know, they *may* be able to create a less explosive fuel with similair enviromentaly friendly charicteristics
is it me, or does the picture at http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2003/03image s/paraffin/medium/Rocketfire04.jpg look furiously like a photorealistic rendering ?
The way the shrubberies stick out in front, and the glimmering on the metal structures on the right all look so unreal...
And the flame really looks like a particle rendered image.
Am I the only one ?
PS please pardon my bad english...
Petrol combustion releases mostly Carbon Monoxide, Sulfer Dioxide, and various nitrogen compounds (diesel and gas release diff kinds/amounts of nitrogen) that are very difficult for the environment to breakdown or assimilate.
However, Carbon Dioxide and Water are easily broken down and assimilated in nature. Trees breath Carbon Dioxide and drink it for instance.
Because the launch site is one of the greatest wildlife sanctuaries in the country and the local polution after each launch is substantial? Because the ability to abort burn increases safety quite a bit? Because it reduces operational costs? Wow sounds like a good idea to me =)
p.s.
Launches were occouring every 3-4 weeks for a while so that is quite a few launches a year.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This is a new type of solid rocket fuel. Current high-grade solid rocket fuels use aluminum powders and such like. All jet fuels already produce "only" CO2 and water on combustion, as do many popular liquid rocket fuels (such as LOX/LH2 and LOX/Kerosene, the two most popular rocket fuels for launch vehicles).
You should have said "much more friendly", but not "very friendly", for its not friendly enough to get that high mark.
Remember, Carbon dioxide is what causes global warming in the first place, so its not clean fuel (remember the Kyoto protocol?). However, the solution is much better than many other alternatives, so we agree on that point.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
Trees are unstable carbon sinks. They eventually fall over and rot, or they burn, and the CO2 is back in the air.
The only way to sequester carbon for good is to make coal out of it and bury it.
Wrong!
GRAPH: the atmospheric concentration of CO2 fits a logistic sigmoid curve. Logistic sigmoid curves are typical for most nonrenewable resource consumption.
I suspect that they meant the majority of the combustion byproducts are water and co2, not all of them, you simply don't have combustion involving carbon and not get funky reactions. My guess it that this new "clean" fuel will be just a bad as kerosene when it comes to pollution, but the point is: that is a hell of a lot better than traditional solid rocket fuels, which contain a lot of heavy metals and other very nasty stuff.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...