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The Development of Ecologically Sound Jet Fuel

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at Princeton University are currently working on two projects to reduce jet travel's role in global warming. The first one, a major project funded by the U.S. Air Force with $7.5 million, is focused on developing computational models that accurately simulate the burning of jet fuel, a complex process not well understood today. The second one, funded by NetJets, a company providing business jets, will help to develop new jet fuels with near-zero net greenhouse gas emissions."

210 comments

  1. In Soviet Russia... by PresidentEnder · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Jet Fuels reduce YOUR emissions.

    --
    I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
    1. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Right-wing California, catalytic converters are mounted on you to reduce greenhouse emissions.

    2. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couldn't it be argued that your emissions make up a small part of the jet's emissions?

    3. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      catalytic converters are mounted on you to reduce greenhouse emissions

      And how exactly do catalytic converters reduce greenhouse emissions?

    4. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL look at the OT Troll. Most popular meme my anonymous ass!

    5. Re:In Soviet Russia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how exactly can you just call California "right-wing" in a big sweeping statement like that?

    6. Re:In Soviet Russia... by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      How is it a sweeping statement? "right-wing California" refers to the right wing parts of California. Pretty much everything but the coast excluding Orange County and parts of San Diego.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    7. Re:In Soviet Russia... by dintech · · Score: 3, Funny

      Pretty much everything but the coast excluding Orange County and parts of San Diego.

      This is confusing. I think we need a Venn diagram I think...

    8. Re:In Soviet Russia... by epp_b · · Score: 1

      Pretty much everything but the coast excluding Orange County and parts of San Diego.
      This is confusing. I think we need a Venn diagram I think...
      No, no, no, what we need is a car analogy.
    9. Re:In Soviet Russia... by no1nose · · Score: 1

      I thought California was considered left wing.

    10. Re:In Soviet Russia... by The+Great+Pretender · · Score: 1

      I thought this was a car analogy

      --
      A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
  2. global dimming by stoolpigeon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    as long as they keep creating all those contrails that help keep the temperature down. we don't want to get rid of that.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:global dimming by rustalot42684 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're wrong. According to wikipedia, contrails have a negative effect. Anyways, the effect of the contrails is vastly outweighed by the carbon emissions. I remember hearing about a study that was saying that after the 9/11 attacks, when there was no air traffic, the temperature dropped. Of course, it's a small sample size, but you can't shut down all air traffic for a month to do a science experiment.

    2. Re:global dimming by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're wrong. According to wikipedia contrails have a positive effect. Anyways, I'm not saying that the carbon emissions are good so that is irrelevant. If all they do is switch fuels, but the engines operate under the same principles as they do now, then I imagine contrails will continue to exist as engines will continue to put out water vapor.
       
      I don't think anybody has nearly as clear a picture of how our planet's weather as we would like. It sure would be nice. I could plan my days at the beach better and we could quit guessing about what is best for the environment and maybe get a little more consensus and action, though I doubt too much more. So are contrails in and of themselves good or bad? I don't think anyone can say.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    3. Re:global dimming by Phroggy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, the difference between low temperatures and high temperatures increased by two degrees. Whether the net result would be warming or cooling, we don't know for sure, because as you say it's too small a sample size.

      You should read about global dimming.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    4. Re:global dimming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I know the beach comment is just some throw-away sarcasm, but it is important to distinguish between climate and weather. Modeling the local weather in the short term is exceptionally difficult, but climate (which deals in large-scale averages) is much more tractable. One helps you decide where to go on vacation, and the other helps you decide where to build a permanent home.

    5. Re:global dimming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So are contrails in and of themselves good or bad? I don't think anyone can say.
      I know people who can and will tell you that contrails are "bad": astronomers in Europe and the US southwest. Every day (and night) they watch the contrails from the thousands of aircraft passing overhead become a layer of cloud above their telescopes.
    6. Re:global dimming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone who believes any of the figures coming out of the Anthropic Global Warming team may be a concerned human being, but they sure aren't a scientist. Look at Surfacestations.org for the mess that is our temperature recording system, or Climate Audit for the cheating that is going on with proxy temperature estimates..... lightbulbs in the Stevenson Screens, for god's sake!

    7. Re:global dimming by some+damn+guy · · Score: 1

      Is it funny that both of you used the same source but made completely opposite statements about the same phenomena?

      I mean it IS wikipedia, but still...

      At any rate, I can settle this: PBS's Nova said they have a cooling effect and the temp went up after 9/11. THAT makes it true.

    8. Re:global dimming by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      There's lots of consensus on our guesses about climate and how it's changing. About the only resistance to the consensus is manufactured by the polluting industries, which aren't going to go along just because we know better what's happening. The more we've learned, the more they've generated complaints about what we know.

      We've also got a lot of action on climate change. But most of it is bad, like pumping pollution into the sky. Converting more of that action to conserving our balanced environment would probably mean less total action, but less of it requiring extra mitigating actions.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    9. Re:global dimming by foniksonik · · Score: 1

      Weather would be easier to predict if it weren't for all those pesky people and their unpredictable behavior. Put a crap load of heat producing engines in a big long line somewhere for say 30 minutes every morning and there's got to be a net effect on the atmosphere, not to mention the carbon and other particles in the air, changing it's density.

      I wonder if our weather prediction system could be impressively enhanced by integrating our traffic patterns into the equations.

      --
      A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
    10. Re:global dimming by jank1887 · · Score: 1

      THAT's IT! the environmentalists carried out the 9/11 attacks! It was an internal job, but we've been looking at the wrong 'wing'!!! I knew one day greenpeace would go too far!!! (dodges attack from Bill Maher)

    11. Re:global dimming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I (and some others I know) resist the consensus because insofar as we have ever had "consensuses", they have generally turned out to be fantastically wrong, and I'm certainly not part of your polluting industry cartel. When we eventually get it right, we won't need to throw around words like "consensus" and "skeptic", because we'll just manifestly know what the truth is. Consensus is just Appeal to Authority anyway, with the authority being that of numbers. Science, fortunately, is not a democracy.

    12. Re:global dimming by Mike89 · · Score: 1

      the temp went up after 9/11
      This may sound redundant, but did they take into account the fact FIRE = HOT? I mean, two 100+ story buildings burnt.. that's gotta make some heat.
    13. Re:global dimming by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Numbers are not an authority, they're facts. You might say consensus is an "appeal to authority" if you agree with the consensus without testing it out. But if you're going to disagree with the consensus without testing that out, then your anticonsensus belief is an appeal to a flimsy authority. Moreover, you're living your life mostly in consensus. If you just disbelieve the consensus on climate change, you're being arbitrary. So unless you believe that consistency is another mere "appeal to authority", you're just being a pain in the ass for its own sake. Which, if you don't disclose that central fact defining your public promotion against the consensus, is dishonest.

      Skepticism is essential. Which means actually testing and evaluating the facts. Faking it by just flying in the face of consensus is for children, not for adults who expect to be taken seriously. On such a serious issue.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    14. Re:global dimming by Aceticon · · Score: 1

      Contrails are not due to the water vapor put out by the engines.

      They are actually generated in the tip of the wings and are due to the disturbance of the cold, low density, high-humidity (for that temperature) air caused by the passage of the plane.

      This is why you only see contrails at high altitude (low temperature, low pressure) and then only in some days (since the air at those heights does not always contain the same amount of water vapor).

      The source of this information is, unfortunately, offline: I believe i read it in the "The Air Law and Meteorology" study book for the PPL (European Private Pilot License).

      However, if when flying in a commercial jet, you sit next to the window, just behind a wing and you look out and the plane is generating contrails, you will see that the contrails seem to be forming at the wingtips (which matches the expected place, since the wingtips is where the most turbulent effects are located - the source of this info is yet another PPL study book)

    15. Re:global dimming by mengel · · Score: 1

      And that same Nova pointed out that resarchers have now demonstrated that the affect of both CO2 and "dimming" from particulates in the air were underestimated; as both pull in opposite directions. As we shift to "cleaner" fuels, the decreased dimming will increase the "pan evaporation" rate, and raise the water vapor levels, and that will really start the whole thing churning...

      --
      - "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
    16. Re:global dimming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Numbers are not an authority, they're facts."

      And a consensus isn't numbers.

      Which means your post falls apart.

    17. Re:global dimming by davidsyes · · Score: 1

      Well, why don't they just recapture all that moisture into the plane. Might leave the pax feeling quite damp, and maybe drunk/dizzy.

      Alternatively, recapture whatever vapor they CAN, and compress it into flasks. Sell the compressed fluids on ground.

      Or, design the plan to capture the fluid, compress it, then jettison the flasks to land by parachute.

      Of course, it would be a helluva logistics problem shuttling around all those flasks. Not to mention the nightmares the TSA and Dept of Homeland InSecurity would have making sure those flasks are ICBMs on final trajectory...

      And, there Acts of God clauses would go out the window when those flasks end up on rooftops.

      But, technically, how MUCH of the fluid/vapor can be recaptured? Can it be CHILLED or compressed and then release at a LOWER temperature? Might we then get some global COOLING if all new aircraft and retrofitted a/c actually acted as "flying air conditioning units"? A/C^2 (A/C Squared... I coined it...hopefully it means something...)

      If not that, then can some sort of ducting (as on military helicopters) be used for cooling the air before it gets too far from the plane?

      --
      Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
    18. Re:global dimming by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1
      No, they said

      Consensus is just Appeal to Authority anyway, with the authority being that of numbers. Science, fortunately, is not a democracy.

      So just shut up already, Anonymous inane Coward.
      --

      --
      make install -not war

    19. Re:global dimming by 2marcus · · Score: 1
      According to the IPCC AR4, Working Group 1, pg. 186-187, on average contrails and aviation-induced-cloudiness have a positive radiative forcing: therefore, reducing contrails will lead to cooling.

      Also see the wikipedia page actually devoted to contrails which says the same thing.

      Of course, this is a complex issue, and it depends on altitude, time of day, and humidity as to whether any individual aircraft's contrails have positive, negative, or zero impact. There has been some research (personal communication) done into whether aircraft routes could be planned so as to avoid areas that form contrails in order to reduce warming due to contrails...

    20. Re:global dimming by 2marcus · · Score: 1
      Contrails can be formed _both_ by turbulence _and_ by engine exhaust as shown in nice pictures in Wikipedia.

      However, the PhD atmospheric scientist I know who was working on aircraft contrails and climate change interactions seemed to mostly concentrate on the heat and humidity of engine exhaust combined with whether the ambient conditions are saturated and whether a line drawn from the engine exhaust conditions to ambient conditions passes through a critical supersaturation point. This is backed up by papers such as this AMS paper.

    21. Re:global dimming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Contrails aren't so much due to the emission of water vapor by the engines as that the engines are much hotter than their surroundings and emitting particles which causes the condensation of water vapor that's already present.

    22. Re:global dimming by stoolpigeon · · Score: 1

      somebody already said it but contrails can be formed by both and those formed by turbulence don't need to be formed at high altitude. I've watched contrails of the wings of enough hornets on final to verify that - and that'd be sea level.
       
      I've also watched contrails forming directly behind the engines of aircraft - with my own eyes - through binoculars. So you don't need to point me to any papers - I've got enough direct experience. This reminds me of the time someone tried to show me the math on why I was wrong about experiences I've had with bird shot falling around me while dove hunting. I couldn't argue the math - but I know what happens, I've been there.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    23. Re:global dimming by Eclipse-now · · Score: 1

      That's interesting because according to Tim Flannery's book "Weather Makers" after 9/11 average temperatures rose a little because of all the jets being grounded, reducing the contrail induced global dimming. Also, scientists calculated the climate effects of the Mt Pinatubo eruption and consequent dimming from sulfuric particulates. It is a complex business hey?

  3. Hopefully this works. by snl2587 · · Score: 1

    Interesting...this is the first "synfuel" I've seen that claims a near-zero greenhouse gas emission (although the CO2 is still extracted and sequestered, making me wonder exactly what the heck they're planning on doing with it); even the ethanol based fuels still emit some in proportion to the gasoline content.
    Still, it would be nice if they could eliminate coal usage altogether. I suppose that's the next step.

    1. Re:Hopefully this works. by Orange+Crush · · Score: 4, Informative

      this is the first "synfuel" I've seen that claims a near-zero greenhouse gas emission

      Near-zero net emissions. The fuel itself releases CO2 when burned, while the plants from which the fuel is derived pull it right back out of the air for the next batch of fuel.

    2. Re:Hopefully this works. by Conspicuous+Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Except that what the article states makes no sense.

      An "especially attractive feature" of processing coal and biomass together to make synfuels is that it requires only half the amount of biomaterial as pure biofuel production, while still making fuels with near-zero greenhouse gas emissions, Williams said.

      If they're using 50% coal and 50% biomass won't the result will still be a hydrocarbon? In which case their actual CO2 emissions will be pretty much as normal, with around 50% of those emissions theoretically offset in the process of growing the biomass in the first place.
      It's certainly not going to be anywhere near zero emissions unless they're proposing some way to filter the CO2 out of the jet exhaust.

      Even a 50% reduction in net warming using this method seems unfeasible, because emitting greenhouse gases up in the stratosphere causes more net warming than emitting them on the ground, i forget the exact factor, I thinks it's estimated to be around 50% more. And that's still ignoring the fact that putting human beings and industry into competition for limited arable land resources is a horrible idea in the first place.

      Maybe this is serious research and I'm just missing some important point, but it sounds horribly like airline industry FUD to me...

    3. Re:Hopefully this works. by dbIII · · Score: 2, Informative

      I used to be pretty skeptical about sequestration but apparently it has been an oil drilling technique for years to push gas down to drive the oil out so we shouldn't dismiss it completely out of hand. I wouldn't expect the gas to stay there but there's a lot of methane etc. that has been down there for millions of years already. Note that I'm using the dictionary definition of gas and not US slang for fuel.

    4. Re:Hopefully this works. by JonathanR · · Score: 2, Interesting

      CO2 injection is a useful tool for oil engineers for maintaining the flow of oil within a reservoir. It is not really about keeping reservoir pressure up, but more about enhancing flow by lowering the effective crude viscosity. Having said that, what CO2 you pump into the reservior will also come up with the crude, resulting in additional CO2 handling costs.

      So don't expect CO2 sequestration to be the climate change saviour. The use in oil production is still limited to certain field geologies and crude types. Straight sequestration of CO2 in old gas reservoirs will be very expensive. The current use of CO2 injection is to enhance oil production, not purely for the purpose of sequestration - i.e. there's currently a net economic benefit. It's not a technique that's used willy-nilly, just for the heck of it.

      There will have to be huge penalties for CO2 emissions before any companies will bother with commercial geosequestration.

    5. Re:Hopefully this works. by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Having said that, what CO2 you pump into the reservior will also come up with the crude

      That makes sense so it's possible that I've been misled a bit on this point. I really do not understand how it can stay down there. I've got mixed feelings about huge penalties - things got extremely weird with climate change issues when economists got involved and tried to work out how to make money out of it. You don't just want to shift industry offshore to carbon tax havens or give the nuclear people so much of an unfair advantage that they can get 1960's white elephant designs to make a profit instead of developing something worth the effort to build on it's own merits.

    6. Re:Hopefully this works. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but the environmentalists will still not like it because it isn't about saving the planet any more (if it ever was) it is about power, control and getting to tell other people what to do.

    7. Re:Hopefully this works. by Gospodin · · Score: 1

      You don't just want to... give the nuclear people so much of an unfair advantage that they can get 1960's white elephant designs to make a profit instead of developing something worth the effort to build on it's own merits.

      Don't worry, if that happens we'll just implement radiation taxes!

      --
      ...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
  4. New Computational Models? by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So they're going to reduce the greenhouse gas output of planes in a vein bid to offset the greenhouse emissions caused by running their super computer to calculate ways of reducing the greenhouse emissions caused by planes?

    Why don't they better model the public transport systems in many cities and develop better ways of moving dumb people about. Who hasn't noticed the 9-5 suit wearing office junkie driving their SUV in peak hour to the city then complaining about the hour(s) travelling time, the cost of fuel and parking? I'd sure they could do something about those people (possibly involving gasses) and really make the world a better place.

    --
    I drink to make other people interesting!
    1. Re:New Computational Models? by snl2587 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I assume other teams are working on that other question. Given how much jet fuel is used daily, this small step towards reducing greenhouse gases is certainly welcome.

    2. Re:New Computational Models? by bucky0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is better public transportation going to decrease the carbon emissions when I fly from Atlanta to London in a month? The article is about improving the efficiency of Jet transportation, not cars. Those emissions effect the atmosphere much differently because they're injected at a much higher atmosphere.

      --

      -Bucky
    3. Re:New Computational Models? by rustalot42684 · · Score: 1

      I'd sure they could do something about those people (possibly involving gasses) and really make the world a better place. Yes, but what to do with all the bodies? Burning them is no good, that just makes more greenhouse gasses... Perhaps they could be used as landfill?
    4. Re:New Computational Models? by feepness · · Score: 3, Funny

      So they're going to reduce the greenhouse gas output of planes in a vein bid to offset the greenhouse emissions caused by running their super computer to calculate ways of reducing the greenhouse emissions caused by planes? Don't worry, another team is working on simulating the greenhouse gas output of supercomputer simulations of jet engines in a bid to better understand and reduce them.
    5. Re:New Computational Models? by john82 · · Score: 1

      Why don't they better model the public transport systems in many cities and develop better ways of moving dumb people about. Who hasn't noticed the 9-5 suit wearing office junkie driving their SUV in peak hour to the city then complaining about the hour(s) travelling time, the cost of fuel and parking? I'd sure they could do something about those people (possibly involving gasses) and really make the world a better place.

      Judging from your comment, I have a hard time believing your own supposed superiority. Btw, that would be VAIN not VEIN Einstein.

    6. Re:New Computational Models? by rts008 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "...in a vein bid..."
      And I raise you an artery and two lymph nodes.

      Sheesh, and YOU of all people throwing out the whole "dumb people" line. Hah!

      Let's not forget this Super Genius (ala Wile E. Coyote) line of yours:
      "I'd sure they could do something about those people (possibly involving gasses) and really make the world a better place."

      'I'd sure they..." WTF? Where did you learn Engrish? 'All your base belong to us!' style of 'Skool of Interweb Riting'?

      As for the gassing these dumb people to make the world a better place-BZZZZT!! Wrong answer! You are courting Godwin's law with that- this specific thing has been tried before, and after the courts got finished with the whole War Crimes deal in the latter 1940's, the MASSAD made a huge impact on the survivors of the trials and those not actually brought to trial.

      There was prior art though, so also check out the Spanish Inquisition, most Jihads, etc.- there are many, many more. ( Idi Amin just came to mind- how could we forget him!)
      Genocide and massive homicide ALWAYS results in mistrust of 'The Authorities' wherever it occurs, and rightfully so. Who;s next? Me? Why? WTF is going on?

      So yeh, crawl back in your Mom's basement and terrorise the spiders or something, you dull troll. Who knows, maybe you can poke around in the basement long enough to find that argoyle sock the dryer ate 4 years ago!

      Also, your sig: that may work for you with your narrow point of view, but there may not be enough alcohol for the rest of us to see you as interesting.

      I'm only replying because I currently don't have mod points, so I can't mod you -1 Troll. Flamebait, Asshat Clown, or whatever seemed appropriate depending on how much I had been drinking! From painful experience, I already know I can not drink enough to make your post interesting, insightful, or knowledgeable...my first thought about you and your post was actually "kill it before it can breed!"

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    7. Re:New Computational Models? by JoshJ · · Score: 1

      "who;s"..."argoyle sock"... "kill it before it can breed"... If I had mod points, I'd mod you -1, Hypocrite. ;)

    8. Re:New Computational Models? by JonathanR · · Score: 4, Informative

      The other point is that airplane travel is usually selected for huge travel distances, of the sort that you would avoid using your car. Quoting passenger miles per gallon or whatever (A380 is about 2.9 litres/100 passenger kilometres) and making comparisons to automobile fuel consumption (10-20 litres/100 kilometres) is a nonsense - you don't jump in your car and fly to the other side of the world quite like you do in a plane. It is quite possible to exceed your annual auto mileage with one international plane trip.

    9. Re:New Computational Models? by rts008 · · Score: 1

      Lost our sense of humour, have we?

      I suppose you did not get much exposure to Monty Python or Second City TV.

      Oh well, your loss, not mine....mod as you will, I have Karma to Burn(tm), baby! Let 'er rip!

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    10. Re:New Computational Models? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other words the slashdot editors took a fairly random university press-release that they couldn't grasp completely and put it on the front page.

      Wake me up at www.digg.com when the standard has improved.

    11. Re:New Computational Models? by khallow · · Score: 1

      Who hasn't noticed the 9-5 suit wearing office junkie driving their SUV in peak hour to the city then complaining about the hour(s) travelling time, the cost of fuel and parking?

      I haven't noticed this problem. Here's my secret solution. Ignore it and it's no longer a problem. Note I'm not ignoring global warming, I'm ignoring whining people who are completely irrelevant to any global warming issue.
    12. Re:New Computational Models? by daybot · · Score: 1

      Crikey, calm down dear! - the parent post was pretty rubbish, but you must be having a bad day!

    13. Re:New Computational Models? by helicon_00 · · Score: 1

      How does knowledge in a different domain than you prefer invalidate the potential benefits of better understanding the combustion dynamics within jet engines.

      From the article: "In order to make alternative jet fuel sources feasible, they need to be compatible with petroleum and produce similar combustion performance," Dryer said. "This will only be possible if we fully understand how both petroleum and alternative fuels burn and design engines based on this fundamental knowledge."

      Furthermore until an alternative method of travel for large distances with a similar time transit is widely available, Jets remain a reality we must deal with.

    14. Re:New Computational Models? by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 1

      I agree ignoring them removes the problem of them being annoying. They are, however, not irrelevant to the global warming problem. Greenhouse gas emissions from cars contribute to the problem. Peak hour driving (the 9-5 commuters) is the most inefficient way to use fuel. It's start, stop, start, stop. Big cars are less efficient by virtue of total mass and total wind resistance. Airline travel is just one part of a much larger problem.

      A lot of these cars have no place on the road. If you're in an office 9-5 in the city then you should be on the public transport most days. It's more efficient and it's actually less stressful; you don't have to worry about all the other bad drivers. There are obviously cases where a car is needed; if you have an urgent appointment during the day or have to work very early or late.

      This is why I say someone really should be investigating ways of improving the public transport systems; during peak hours it's easy enough to get a bus or train where I live, but if you work outside of those hours or need to duck off for a bit then it's nearly impossible to make even a short journey without your car.

      --
      I drink to make other people interesting!
    15. Re:New Computational Models? by khallow · · Score: 1

      As I see it, you casting this as a moral argument: big cars are more inefficient; big cars have no place on the road; if you work 9-5 you should be on public transportation. The problem is that it isn't a moral argument. There's more than six billion people and they all have reasons for chosing to use whatever transportation they use. I think it's hubris to think that you know better than these people what transportation modes are best for them. My belief is that it's a terrible idea to assign moral values to something that should be purely an economic decision.

      If certain choices generate externalities (like increased CO2 emissions), then the solution is to charge for the externality and use the money to address the externality either by undoing it (that is sending the money directly to the people that experience the costs) or by mitigating the costs. In that way, we need no longer concern ourselves with SUV drivers or other wouldbe carbon emitting miscreants. They pay for the problem they cause. Then we don't need to regulate or punish them. Nor do we need to convert them to some other form of transportation. If something better than SUVs is out there, then people will switch naturally since it'll be cheaper than SUVs. Finally, that means that if someone really wants an SUV, we aren't hindering them out of some petty concern.

      In other words, if you turn morality into economics, then you end up with fewer sinners.

  5. And Totally Illegal to use. by Beer_Smurf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unless this fuel meets the exact spec of existing jet fuel.
    Each aircraft type will have to be tested and certificated for use with this fuel.
    This is very, very costly and time consuming.

    1. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by stoolpigeon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If a few large corporations can really clean up on this - it wont be a problem. You'd be amazed how fast laws can change when high profits can be tied to even the impression of environmental gain.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    2. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Scutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is very, very costly and time consuming.

      Exactly! I agree 100%! It's hard to do, so why even try?

      --

      "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
    3. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you can't justify the economics of doing so, most for-profit companies (especially the airlines, on razor-thin margins as it is) won't bother. You think any more people will fly because the jet they're traveling in makes them feel better about the environment? Think that'll offset the number who can't afford to fly anymore because their ticket price just quadrupled to afford retrofitting the entire fleet?

    4. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by john82 · · Score: 1

      Given that one of these research projects is funded by NetJets, which is owned by Warren Buffett and includes Bill Gates on the Board of Directors, I would expect that there's something to this. Neither Buffett or Gates are particularly known for throwing their own money away in pointless exercises.

    5. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by rts008 · · Score: 1

      While I have no real knowledge on jet fuels, I feel comfortable with most 'milspec' requirements. I could be very wrong (really!), but I always thought that JP4 was not much more than 'strict guidelines determined the final product' highly refined kerosene ('coal oil' to the greybeards- oh crap!....I'm turning grey....and BALD!!)

      I can see where each type will have to test and certify this, and will be costly and time consuming. I have faith in the engineers involved to consider high altitude aircraft parameters, as not all fuels act the same at differing altitudes- old news!

      Maybe they can come up with fuel that actually exceeds specs aand is a 'win-win' situation? It's a worthy hope.

      This one of those instances that I think the upfront/short-term costs will be outweighed by the long view. (now to convince the stockholders...)

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    6. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Informative

      Each aircraft type will have to be tested and certificated for use with this fuel.

      Nope, each aircraft engine type will have to be tested and certified. A PITA, sure - just do it once and your done.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    7. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by kartune85 · · Score: 0

      I can't help but think the whole global warming/emissions issue is really not that significant. After reading about the concerns of cow emissions, a completly natural animal that's been around for thousands of years, producing more emissions than cars, and bushfires (also 100% natural) producing all these harmful greenhouse gases, I can't help but think that our jet-fuels, cars, planes, things designed and built over the past 100 years or so, aren't making as much of an impact as we are led to believe.

      Rather than eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, I wonder if there are more effective ways of absorbing some of those emissions. For example, putting more money into planting trees (I'm not a tree-hugger, if that's what you're thinking, it's just an example), to absorb CO2 emissions, etc.

      --
      "Failure to conform to majority belief does not make you a troll."
    8. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by kwerle · · Score: 1

      I think you'd be amazed how fast companies will bother as soon as just a few European or Asian (Japan) countries decide they won't supply dirty fuel.

      I have a hard time imagining a clean jet fuel, though. Maybe I will RTFA.

    9. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by JonathanR · · Score: 1

      Yes, you are mistaken. Jet fuel is usually straight-run kero (an unadulterated, distilled fraction of a sweet crude oil), with controls for particulates and water, plus a some additives (in ppm concentrations). Sour crudes SRK fraction obviously have to be cleaned up (by catalytic hydrotreating), but the end result is pretty much the same.

    10. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by background+image · · Score: 1

      I can't help but think the whole global warming/emissions issue is really not that significant. After reading about the concerns of cow emissions, a completly natural animal that's been around for thousands of years, producing more emissions than cars, and bushfires (also 100% natural) producing all these harmful greenhouse gases, I can't help but think that our jet-fuels, cars, planes, things designed and built over the past 100 years or so, aren't making as much of an impact as we are led to believe.

      Don't be dense.

      The carbon emitted by cows and brush fires was already 'in circulation' in the biosphere. Cows fart, cows die and decompose, and carbon enters the atmosphere. But that carbon was extracted from the atmosphere by the plants the cows ate in the first place.

      Similarly for brush and forest fires, forests develop, locking away carbon in trees and other plants, then burn, releasing carbon back to the atmosphere which is then taken up by other plants.

      In neither case does the overall amount of carbon in the system that consists of the biosphere and atmosphere actually change.

      This is very, very different from spending decades pumping additional carbon (all the carbon in all that coal, oil and gas has been present in the biosphere or atmosphere for many millions of years) into the atmosphere as fast as we can dream up new ways to do it.

    11. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by rts008 · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the informative reply. I am aware that 'milspec' can be very general in cases like this, but expected performance of said milspec item is usually pretty uniform. (no pun intended-it just slipped)

      "High grade kerosene' was the way JP4 was explained to me. I guess my job did not really need me to understand any more than JP4 is same-same as kerosene for anything I would use it for. (in no practical or possible scenario would I ever be involved in supporting or operating jet aircraft!)

      But the Field Manual's made no difference between JP4 and kerosene for any of the Multi-Fuel engines used in almost every wheeled vehicle from the venerable duece and a half (2 1/2 ton cargo truck- a 10x10WD offroader!) on up. (if IRC, they were made by Continental for GM-the preferred fuel was #2 diesal, but could use gasoline with oil mixed in if necassary...but that was long ago)

      I realise now that you mention it, they would have to work around some problems like 'waxing' and viscosity changes at the much lower temps at high speed+high altitude, plus many more factors not usually encountered in moderate climates and altitudes, much less the different g forces involved.

      --
      Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    12. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by timmarhy · · Score: 1
      Don't be dense

      the actual % of C02 added to the atmosphere by man is TINY by comparison.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    13. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Uh, no, you're wrong, each aircraft will have to be tested. Most of the problems will not be in the engines; they'll be in the o-rings, gaskets and sealants used in the fuel system. Much of that is in the aircraft, not the engine. So the GP is right, and you are wrong.

      Concrete example, the Grumman AA-1 through AA-1C and AA5 and AA-5A have the engineering work done to allow them to burn ethanol free auto fuel. The AG-5B specifically does not. And yes, the reformulation with ethanol affects the aircraft fuel system, not as much the engine accessories (carb and fuel pump).

      Every airframe will have to be tested.

    14. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by bestiarosa · · Score: 1

      Tiny as you wish, but sufficient to cause climatic changes detrimental to human society as we know it.

      --
      :(){ :|:& };:
    15. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you can't justify the economics of doing so,

        Well, a hypothetical President Al Gore could "justify" the fuck out of doing so via legal mandate, so what's your point?
        I mean seriously, give 'em a choice, purchase the new fuels or find a nice place to retire. Let 'em consider "the economics" of not pissing on my lawn.

    16. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quite. The fuel system is part of the aircraft and that also will have to be tested and certified.

    17. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even with certs, I think this will make things more interesting for pilots too. Fuel A gives such and such performance and economy, while fuel B for that engine gives another set of values. And who knows what blends will do...

      I'd hate to have the fuelies on the ground not tell what they're putting in the tank and have the pilot facing a short runway for takeoff or a long flight ahead.

    18. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Beer_Smurf · · Score: 1

      "Nope, each aircraft engine type will have to be tested and certified. A PITA, sure - just do it once and your done."

      You are quite mistaken.
      Just because an engine gets approval for use of a given fuel, does not mean you can use it in an aircraft that uses that engine.
      The approved fuels for a given airframe are spelled out for that aircraft.
      You would need to test against all the aircraft systems and get FAA approval for each model aircraft.
      The mod would also involve placarding, air crew and ground crew training, flight manual updates, maintenenance and component manual updates, etc.

    19. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Aceticon · · Score: 1

      Each aircraft type will have to be tested and certificated for use with this fuel.

      Nope, each aircraft engine type will have to be tested and certified. A PITA, sure - just do it once and your done.

      Nope, they actually test the aircraft too. Mostly because there might be effects from the fuel, such as corrosion of the fuel hoses and the fuel tanks.

      Go search for MOGAS (the Aviation term for the gas used by cars) on the Internet and read about the sorts of tests necessary for certifying a plane to legally use MOGAS.
    20. Re:And Totally Illegal to use. by Arterion · · Score: 1

      Well, you also have to consider the price of oil is ever-increasing, as is the demand. It's quite likely that the supply of oil will eventually peak (google peak oil), but without a similar decline in demand, or even rate of demand increase.

      I don't know when that will happen, exactly, but I wouldn't want to be caught empty-handed when my golden ticket expired. At some point, the planes that can fly without oil will be the only planes in the sky. We might be able to convert almost all consumer transport to electric or hydrogen (assuming we can produce the energy they would use somehow), but right now, jet fuel is the only thing to fuel jets -- and if we can find an way to make it without using oil, we have a vested interest in doing so, from just about every perspective, economic and otherwise.

      --
      "That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
  6. Curses! by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 2, Funny

    Of course, you know, this means the end of the horse-drawn zeppelin!

  7. Re:sage by sqrt(2) · · Score: 1

    You realize you can't sage threads on slashdot, right?

    --
    If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
  8. The perfect rocket/jet fuel. by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    But of course: it's salami.

    Or in the words of Mythbuster's Jamie: "This may look like a salami, it may smell like a salami, it may even taste like a salami, but it's rocket fuel."

  9. Aviation without Fuel by MackTheWife · · Score: 1

    While the exercise seems quite noble it seems partly pointless considering that all the fuel will have run out long before greenhouse effect brings our civilization to its logical conclusion. Effort could be better spent devising methods of rapid transport that weren't reliant on carbon-based fuels.

    1. Re:Aviation without Fuel by JonathanR · · Score: 1

      Even the most optimistic estimates for Peak Oil are within our expected lifetimes (and I'm in my late 30's), so you are correct. Add to that the declining reserves of _sweet_ crude, and you can surely expect the cost of conventional jet fuels to escalate, just from a refining veiwpoint.

    2. Re:Aviation without Fuel by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 1

      To be sustainable it does not have to be carbon free. Just "carbon net zero". For example diesel is "net zero" if you make it from corn oil. But right now It's more cost effective to pump to fuel out of the ground. Heck, you can get $70 per barrel for oil and it only costs you athe effort to colect it. It's like fishing. the fish are free, all you have to do is go get them.

  10. By all means lets go ahead and do this... by Sosarian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But haven't I read a number of stories just this week that Ocean Shipping and Cement Production are bigger CO2 emitters than airlines?

    1. Re:By all means lets go ahead and do this... by rustalot42684 · · Score: 1

      As has been said many times; it's not the size that counts, it's how you use it (to a degree). Because the emissions are released high in the atmosphere, they do more damage.

    2. Re:By all means lets go ahead and do this... by burni · · Score: 1

      Well, it's rather not that simple, the emmision of CO2 by aircraft takes place
      in the higher atmosphere, it's believed and there are hints that this CO2 emmitted there,
      will take longer to reenter the CO2 cycle of woods or the ocean, than those emmitted at ground level.

    3. Re:By all means lets go ahead and do this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > But haven't I read a number of stories just this week that
      > Ocean Shipping and Cement Production are bigger CO2 emitters
      > than airlines?

      Quite possibly, but those industries serve a vital purpose.

      Air travel is a wasteful luxury, and air shipment caters to
      a perceived but shallow demand for urgency. Civilisation would
      continue without either.

    4. Re:By all means lets go ahead and do this... by Asic+Eng · · Score: 1

      Well, it should also be considered that demand for air travel is growing. So while it's CO2 contribution is not so great yet, it will be more significant in the future.

    5. Re:By all means lets go ahead and do this... by Sosarian · · Score: 1

      Those were all great replies, I have no idea why some of them are scored at (-1) though.

  11. Ummm.... I have an easy solution by wamerocity · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's so obvious, I don't know why they haven't done this earlier. They just need to make a HYBRID plane model! Just load it up with 5000 lbs of batteries. Silly scientists...

    --
    "Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
    1. Re:Ummm.... I have an easy solution by tjl2015 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Ask and ye shall receive!

      Some guys in Japan made a piloted plane that flew on 160 AA batteries: http://www.primidi.com/2006/07/17.html#a1571

      Still, I'm a little more impressed by what NASA pulled off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Prototype

    2. Re:Ummm.... I have an easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look on the bright side if you throw the model off a 2,000 cliff it's fly for a least 2,000 feet. More if you throw it really really hard.

    3. Re:Ummm.... I have an easy solution by Dr.+Cody · · Score: 2, Funny

      I just have this hilarious picture in my head of a light aircraft shitting AAA batteries as it soars through the air.

    4. Re:Ummm.... I have an easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's an electric conversion of a kitplane: http://www.sonexaircraft.com/press/releases/pr_072407.html

      Only runs for half an hour though.

  12. Don't get too excited by Heir+Of+The+Mess · · Score: 3, Interesting

    $7.5 million is nothing to the military, especially the Airforce. They blow $100 of millions on customized database applications, billions on building single aircraft, and trillions on R&D for Airframes. $7.5 million is like some spare change they give to some college students to work on a project for 5 years that will end up being canned.

    BMW have probably invested a lot more into research into alternative fuels like hydrogen and still haven't come up with something that has us all dumping our hydrocarbon ways.

    What needs to be worked on is a more novel way of taking in air and forcing it out the back, past that you need to work out how to apply external forces to aircraft. We're looking at a lot more than $7.5 mil for that kind of physics lab experimentation.

    --
    Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
    1. Re:Don't get too excited by r_jensen11 · · Score: 1
      7.5MM is certainly nothing to sneeze at! In fact, that will almost get you 1/4 of an F-18!

      http://www.fighter-planes.com/info/f18.htm

      General Characteristics, E and F models
      Primary Function: Multi-role attack and fighter aircraft
      Contractor: McDonnell Douglas
      Unit Cost: $ 35 million
      Propulsion: Two F414-GE-400 turbofan engines
      Thrust: 22,000 pounds (9,977 kg) static thrust per engine
      Length: 60.3 feet (18.5 meters)
      Height: 16 feet (4.87 meters)
      Maximum Take Off Gross Weight: 66,000 pounds (29,932 kg)
      Wingspan: 44.9 feet (13.68 meters)
      Ceiling: 50,000+ feet
      Speed: Mach 1.8+
      Crew:
      A,C and E models: One
      B,D and F models: Two
      Armament: One 20mm M-61A1 Vulcan cannon;
      External payload: AIM 9 Sidewinder, AIM 7 Sparrow, AIM-120 AMRAAM, Harpoon, Harm, Shrike, SLAM, SLAM-ER, Walleye, Maverick missiles; Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW); Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM); various general purpose bombs, mines and rockets.
      First Flight December 1995
  13. Chemtrails by psychicsword · · Score: 1

    Ecologically Sound Jet Fuel I thought that is what Chemtrails were for :P

    Good to hear that some people are fixing at least one possible "cause" of "global warming", which doesn't seem to be happening with our fuel for cars.
    1. Re:Chemtrails by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, isn't it stupid to try tackle multiple problems at same time, as opposed to single-mindedly only ever solving the largest one, and only when that one is completely solved, move on to other problems?

  14. This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Several studies have indicated that despite the carbon emissions, the vapor trails of commercial jets actually create a net COOLING effect due to albedo. The conclusion of one research paper from a reputable institution stated that if we want to alleviate global warming due to CO2, we should actively encourage jet travel!

    Jesus, people. In our zeal to protect the environment (which I share), let's concentrate on the REAL problems please! And stop all this irrelevant noise which just distracts us from those real problems.

    1. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Cecil · · Score: 2, Funny

      Venus is permanently covered in cloud and has the highest albedo in the solar system. I wonder how that's working out for them... oh, that's right, it's hotter than Mercury.

      Cough up these studies, please.

    2. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Bongo+Bill · · Score: 1

      There's much more to environmentalism than global warming.

      --
      ...but is it art?
    3. Re:This Is Ridiculous by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Informative
      Global warming is one such distraction. you all realise C02 isn't what creates the green house effect right?

      there's various holes in the global warming C02 theory.

      1. other planets are also warming

      2. C02 lags temp. increases

      3. The hottest years on record predate industrialisation.

      The idea that jet travel is a green house problem is pure, undiluted bullcrap. infact it's reading on my bullshit meter cracked the guage.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    4. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Yes. But according to the post TFA was about carbon emissions and global warming. Please try to follow the topic. Thanks.

    5. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      I am certainly aware of this. In fact, the best evidence shows that historically, CO2 lags temperature increases by a full 800 years!

      But I was not the one making a big deal out of something that, according to their own arguments, is a net benefit, not a problem. Go figure.

    6. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

      Since the modders did not like me taking you to task in the subject line, I will answer you more seriously here.

      I am not obligated to do your homework on this subject for you. I do have bookmarks to papers on the subject but I am not going to look them up for you just for a silly slashdot argument. Do your own homework and research your own subjects.

      I will anticipate you and state that I fully expect you to reply with "nice excuse" or some such. Balderdash. No excuses, just reasons.

    7. Re:This Is Ridiculous by dbIII · · Score: 1

      It's a Roland article - the science does not have to make sense. At least it isn't perpetual motion this time.

    8. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Cecil · · Score: 1

      Do your own homework and research your own subjects.

      I've already done so.

      You're the one spewing empirically disproved ideas. The last link in particular is extremely pointed, direct and concise in its destruction of your blatantly false assertion.

      And you have the audacity to accuse me of posing strawmen. Go back under your bridge, troll.

    9. Re:This Is Ridiculous by ypps · · Score: 1

      That's fascinating! I would love to skim through some of those studies. I suspect that they are either very new and ground-breaking, or very old and already proven wrong by newer studies. Care to post any references?

      I love flying by the way - so don't take this sarcastically. I would truly love to hear that flying is good for the environment.

    10. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0, Troll

      Pardon the hell out of me, but bringing up Venus was in fact just that: a straw man argument. It has absolutely no bearing on contrails in Earth's atmosphere, and you reasonably should have known that.

      I stand by that. As for the other, if you want to believe that your sources are better than mine, fine. But you don't even know what they are, because as I have already stated, I am not going to do your homework for you. The point is simply that it is not worth bothering to argue with you about it.

    11. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0, Troll

      I have references, but not at hand. If I have the spare time to look them up, I will be happy to put them here in reply. I suspect that you might find some mention on Google. But of course, as with any such, consider the sources.

    12. Re:This Is Ridiculous by stonecypher · · Score: 1

      Several studies have indicated that despite the carbon emissions, the vapor trails of commercial jets actually create a net COOLING effect due to albedo.
      And with a greener fuel, the net cooling effect will be bigger per plane. What's your point? In a cumulative system, a bigger minus is still a plus, if you'll forgive the choice of phrasing. It's not like the effects of the jet stop once it crosses the zero line.

      The conclusion of one research paper from a reputable institution
      Oh honestly.

      In our zeal to protect the environment (which I share), let's concentrate on the REAL problems please!
      Believe it or not, this one project does not actually exclude all other projects from progress. It's a small budget project to take a swing at a small benefit. SlashDot posted it because it's interesting. Have a valium.

      noise which just distracts us from those real problems.
      And do you have a suggestion about what those real problems are, or are you just histrionic and looking for attention?
      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    13. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      Venus is permanently covered in cloud and has the highest albedo in the solar system. I wonder how that's working out for them... oh, that's right, it's hotter than Mercury.

      Cough up these studies, please.

      Eh? Venus has a much, much, much thicker atmosphere that's almost pure CO2, clouds made of sulfuric acid, and a surface that periodically erupts into huge masses of magma (no tectonic plates... it has to vent all that internal heat somehow).

      By contrast, you have a planet (Earth) with a Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere, regular heat venting via tectonics (and vulcanism), and mostly water vapor clouds with a much lighter air pressure overall.

      Methinks the albedo is the only thing keeping Venus from becoming even hotter than it is (Mercury gets a pass because it's airless and smaller - a lot smaller. Oh, and with no air, there's no heat retention, nor heat convection, etc etc etc).

      Cripes - forget apples and oranges - this is an apples and granite countertops argument.

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    14. Re:This Is Ridiculous by khallow · · Score: 1

      I'm sure some of the helpful bots around here will dump a few realclimate links for you. But here's my take:

      1. solar influx has already been taken into account by all global warming models.

      2. The CO2 lag model breaks in the present of substantial human-generated CO2, meaning we can't use it now.

      3. This just indicates the modest nature of current climate change (btw, there are no true global temperature "records" preceding industrialization). It doesn't invalidate the premise that human-generated CO2 is causing measurable global warming.

      I suppose there's still holes in the theory, and the global warming effect is rather small right now. But it's not an excuse to use obselete arguments.
    15. Re:This Is Ridiculous by pipatron · · Score: 1

      This is one of the most childish post I've read on slashdot (well, ignoring the blatant trolls). Why don't you just admit that you can't find any sources? Unless you do, no one will bother to take you seriously. You claim something that people generally don't believe, so of course it's up to you to prove it.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    16. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > C02 lags temp. increases

      Because increasing temperature causes greenhouse gases to rise. Various factors like plant cover and a limit on emission rates keep this from being a runaway effect. This means that slashing and burning the plant cover and pumping CO2 straight into the atmosphere might not be entirely a good idea.

      When the hydromethane in the oceans and the permafrost starts to release, we're really boned. At this point, maybe we should be.

    17. Re:This Is Ridiculous by SIIHP · · Score: 1

      "You claim something that people generally don't believe"

      Source?

      --
      I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
    18. Re:This Is Ridiculous by 2marcus · · Score: 1

      The IPCC (AR4, Working Group I, pg. 186-187) summary of current best science seems to indicate that aviation induced cloudiness on average creates warming. Sorry. I'd be interested in seeing the paper that claims otherwise, though. (You can also look at the wikipedia page on contrails which says the same thing as the IPCC)

    19. Re:This Is Ridiculous by 2marcus · · Score: 1

      IPCC AR4 Working Group I, pg 186-187. That's fairly definitive in terms of summarizing the state of the science. Also, wikipedia on contrails (less definitive). Admittedly, the best estimate is 0.01 W/m2 with 95% bounds from -0.007 to +0.02, so there is still some doubt as to the sign...

    20. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Because that is not the case, I do. I just don't want to bother. But of course you are welcome to think that is ridiculous if you want. It's a free country. Net. Whatever.

    21. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      There are not just small, but large possible sources of error (according to the very source you cite, the amounts may vary by a factor of three or more). So, indeed, the sign even in that report is under some question. Further, those particular figures do not include the persistent cirrus formation caused by the contrails. On the other hand, on the very next page the same report gives positive radiative forcing figures for natural cirrus clouds, which is a rather dubious conclusion.

    22. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Interesting... for the effort of answering you politely (since you asked politely), and offering to give you citations if I find the time to look them up, my reply was modded negatively for "troll". I suspect that someone who was involved in another part of this discussion found the opportunity to do some modding. There was one party who did not ask, but rather demanded that I find some information from him. I did not feel obligated to cooperate given the tone of his demand.

    23. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Why must every post with whom some disagree, be suspect for "seeking attention"?? I find that to be pretty a pretty arrogant attitude. Nothing personal, you understand... some other posters were rather rude.

      Bigger concerns? How about problems that we KNOW are serious, rather than just hypothetical? For example, economist Bjorn Lomborg (closest English spelling) calculates that the cost of reducing CO2 levels enough to keep the earth cooler by approximately 1/2 degree over the next hudred years (and that is even assuming that the CO2-driven model of global warming is correct as presented... something that is far from demonstrated)... that same cost would be enough to completely eliminate human hunger on earth.

      Which do you think is better? 1/2 degree cooler (if the scare mongers are correct), or NO CHILDREN ON EARTH STARVING? A small hypothetical change or a big real one? That is just one small example.

      That is the kind of thing I mean by real problems, or at least real issues. A miniscule amount of warming from jet contrails, which may not even exist and some claim is not, is not exactly earth-shattering. We have other, bigger fish to fry.

    24. Re:This Is Ridiculous by ypps · · Score: 1

      Well, the "signal to noise ratio" of moderation down here is low (replies of replies of replies a while after the article was posted).

      On topic (in case anyone is still reading this). My best source for information on this issue is this report from 2005: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/schweiz/mz/2005/00000014/00000004/art00013

      Back in 2005 the contribution to radiative forcing from contrails was still considered to be positive (contributing to warming). The net radiative forcing of an aircraft was estimated to be 1.9 times the RF of CO2 alone. But this does not take cloud formation into account. The error bars are huge, but unfortunately they don't allow for any negative RF. Unless the theory is wrong and has been replaced by something completely new lately.

    25. Re:This Is Ridiculous by stonecypher · · Score: 1

      Why must every post with whom some disagree, be suspect for "seeking attention"??

      You seem to be confused. It's not every post with whom I disagree to which I react as I reacted to you. The way people treat you is because of how you act.

      I find that to be pretty a pretty arrogant attitude.

      Yes, and I find it arrogant for someone to get up on a soapbox preaching about how everyone's doing everything wrong without any actual apparent suggestion about what else should be being done, when the things you suggest are wrong are actually fairly right. What's your point?

      I find that to be pretty a pretty arrogant attitude. Nothing personal, you understand

      Making a personal insult then saying "nothing personal" is simple cowardice. At least have the spine to stand up for what you say for a full paragraph.

      some other posters were rather rude.

      Uh huh. You were one of them. Quit pointing the finger.

      Bigger concerns? How about problems that we KNOW are serious, rather than just hypothetical? For example, economist Bjorn Lomborg (closest English spelling) calculates that the cost of reducing CO2 levels enough to keep the earth cooler by approximately 1/2 degree over the next hudred years (and that is even assuming that the CO2-driven model of global warming is correct as presented... something that is far from demonstrated)... that same cost would be enough to completely eliminate human hunger on earth.

      Well, let's see. Maybe you should start by looking up what caused the Ethiopian and the Zaire droughts over the last 30 years. Then, take a look at world food production. We're actually already producing more than enough food. The problem is the infrastructure: you can't reasonably get most food from the production centers to the starving areas before it's rotten, unless you can it, which at that scale would be a tremendous drain on limited metal resources (before you flip out about bauxite, there's more to an aluminum can than aluminum; try looking it up.) And no, you can't dehydrate it, because the water's their problem in the first place.

      So, okay. We have enough food. What would we need to get it to them? Infrastructure. And so, if we get it to them, what problem naturally goes up?

      Now, let's look at it from the other direction. The world's weather patterns are already changing. There are already several major anoxic areas in the ocean, one of which is starting to cover America's second largest fishery. Areas that used to get huge amounts of rain find themselves petering off. Africa's breadbasket is weakening; in the 1960s, Africa was a food exporter .

      Which do you think is better? 1/2 degree cooler (if the scare mongers are correct), or NO CHILDREN ON EARTH STARVING?

      Well, if that were really the choice, I'd agree with you. Which do you think is better? Santa Claus fighting off the martians, or Jerry Springer being the Reasonable President of Earth?

      Much of our current food problems are caused by global warming , and even then we have a food surplus. The real problem is the distribution infrastructure, and if you'd bother to read the books of the guy you're half-citing, you'll discover that at no point does he attempt to take infrastructure into account. Maybe you didn't know this, but Americans are capitalists. We've already got entrepreneurs trying to take on global warming as a capital intensive research problem, because it's profitable to pull dirt out of the sky. Do you really, honestly believe that we wouldn't have capitalists solving the hunger problem if it were really cheaper than the global warming problem?

      I mean, we didn't even know about global warming until the 60s. Do you think starvation is new, or what?

      A small hypothetical change or a big real one?

      A

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
    26. Re:This Is Ridiculous by 2marcus · · Score: 1

      Why is positive radiative forcing for natural cirrus clouds dubious? Yes, they reflect sunlight during the day (cooling). But they trap IR radiated from the planet 24 hours a day (warming). A priori, I wouldn't know which effect would be larger, and the majority of the people who study the issue seem to have decided that certain kinds of clouds are cooling and some are warming, and that natural cirrus are in the latter category. Yes, there's uncertainty, but without a fairly definitive study saying otherwise, I'd have to say that the balance of evidence points towards airplane contrails as a warming influence (including the persistent cirrus formation).

    27. Re:This Is Ridiculous by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      You have completely missed the point... not that I am very surprised.

      NOBODY in their right minds has -- and I certainly have not -- been arguing that the globe has not been getting warmer! That is not the issue and never was. The globe has been trending warmer for the last 6,000 years! The data are clear. Someone would have to be an idiot or totally uninformed to make such a claim.

      The issue is whether any of that warming is actually being caused by people, and if so, why, and of course the question few bother to ask: how much?

      The proponents of "man-made global warming" have seized upon the CO2-based warming model as their poster child. Unfortunately for them in the long run, that model has some serious problems. For example, in order for the CO2-based warming model to work, the upper atmosphere must be warming in proportion to the surface. However, it simply is not. Weather balloon and satellite data just do not find the upper-atmosphere warming that would have to be there if the CO2 warming model were true. You can look that up for yourself. Use actual data, dude, not what you find on the 10:00 news. But enough of the basic background.

      Kilimanjaro is a classic example of misuse of information. Glad you brought it up. It has long been known -- there are studies out there, dude, a couple minutes with Google will find them easily, don't ask me to do it for you -- that the melting of the glaciers and other adverse ecological effects are quite clearly the result of continuing deforestation at lower altitudes. If they want the devastation to stop, all they have to do is stop cutting, and start replanting the forests. I got you on that one. I challenge you to find real data that says otherwise.

      The other one is that I am not the one confused about contrails, you are. Please read the rest of the conversation before you chip in. The original mention was of jets causing overall warming. I am aware of the carbon contribution from the fuel (and even that assumes that you buy into the flawed CO2 warming model). My POINT was, that the water-vapor contrails tend to reduce warming, to an extent greater than the carbon load would cause warming. If you were not being so knee-jerk judmental about my comments, maybe you would have noticed that like other people did.

  15. Close by Leuf · · Score: 1

    Actually the real solution is their "Border Slingshot" scaled up. Simply winch back your own slingshot and you are gently whisked off to your destination. In a few years we'll look back at how silly we were with this whole airplane thing.

  16. What about when the oil runs out? by tjl2015 · · Score: 1
    Now, regardless of whether jets contribute to global warming, (once the contrail effect is taken into account), another problem still remains. With ever-increasing demand and peaking supplies, eventually the cost of jet fuel will become to high to be economically practical. With the scale of defense budgets and not having to operate at a profit, the military can probably hold out a lot longer than the passenger airlines. Still, eventually a point will be reached when jet fuel is too expensive to be practical for all large-scale use, both civilian and military. The question is then, what is the state of aviation beyond jet fuel?

    I think certain batteries/fuel cells/electrical systems could be used. However, these would likely be extremely slow prop planes with limited capacity. The type of large-scale, cheap, and rapid air transport brought about in the 'jet' age would seem to be impossible.

    What I've often wondered is if it's possible to modify a jet engine to directly burn hydrogen, producing thrust directly rather than through a fuel cell -> electric ->propeller based system. The energy obviously wouldn't be free; the hydrogen would have to be produced from nuclear, solar, or some other power source. It would be expensive, but it might still let us keep our planes in the air.

    1. Re:What about when the oil runs out? by apathy+maybe · · Score: 1

      Kerosene. Vegetable oil. Etc.

      You know, what planes used to run on. Of course, we will have to stop using jets...

      That'll mean taking longer to get from point A to point B, using less people etc. But I'm sure none of us will mind, what with the development of remote communications devices, soon all that pesky business travellers will be able to stay at home! (And go yachting remotely as well, sham that...)

      Planes were in the air before jet fuel was created, and I'm sure they can keep going after the rock oil is all gone.

      --
      I wank in the shower.
    2. Re:What about when the oil runs out? by mdsolar · · Score: 1

      The think about fuel for aviation is that you realy do need high energy density in both volume and mass. Hydrogen is a good fuel in terms of energy per unit mass, but it is difficult to get teh volume down. In current engine designs you want to watch the flash point as well as low temperature behavior. This is a big question alternative fuels. Developing alternatives is considered to be a military necessity owing to potential supply disruptions. This group is looking at synthetic fuel production form a mix of coal and biomass.
      --
      Soar away from rising prices with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html

    3. Re:What about when the oil runs out? by tylernt · · Score: 1

      What I've often wondered is if it's possible to modify a jet engine to directly burn hydrogen, producing thrust directly rather than through a fuel cell -> electric ->propeller based system. The energy obviously wouldn't be free; the hydrogen would have to be produced from nuclear, solar, or some other power source. It would be expensive, but it might still let us keep our planes in the air.
      Jet fuel has an energy density of 40 to 50 MJ/kg, hydrogen has 120 to 140, so I think you're on to something there. Google thinks so too:

      http://www.google.com/search?q=hydrogen+jet+turbine

      I don't know if you can easily store enough hydrogen for a DC-10's transoceanic voyage in a dense enough manner though -- you might need some pretty large and heavy pressure vessels to contain it.
      --
      DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
    4. Re:What about when the oil runs out? by ypps · · Score: 1

      Kerosene? You mean like JET-A?? Contrary to common belief, jet engines are extremely "fuel-agnostic". Pretty much anything that burns and expands will do for fuel. You could even use an alcohol like ethanol to drive a jet (but the fumes would be poisonous). The airline industry probably chose kerosene because it's cheap and has a high flash point.

  17. Nice "Straw Man" Argument! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And I suppose that the thick atmosphere of Jupiter makes it warm, too?

    I made a valid point. Don't be an ass.

  18. Maglev by BlueParrot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For flights that don't cross the oceans it seems to me that Maglev trains is the way to go. They can actually reach higher speeds than a commercial airliner, and if you want to be really sci-fi you could operate them inside an evacuated tube, effectively eliminating air-resistance, and thus allowing velocities far above the speed of sound. Power would of course come from nuclear reactors, because as we all know, nuclear reactors cure cancer... ( no, really ).

    1. Re:Maglev by Heir+Of+The+Mess · · Score: 1

      One of the articles was about a jet engine research project funded by the airforce, but after reading your comment I can see clearly that they are wasting their money looking at this flying thing. Obviously what they should be doing is researching how they can lay maglev track at Mach 2.0, and have the bombs flying down the track just behind the head of construction.

      It's genius! You send down the bombs, then you send down the troops to go in and secure what's left of the place and then you can send supplies in by the same track. Maglev capability is obviously a serious military advantage. With the Japanese, Germans, and Chinese vying for top spot with this tech we could see a new world Military leader emerge.

      There could even be some possiblities there for commercial applications too, except that the infrastructure costs exceed what you would make back on such a project.

      --
      Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
  19. I bet these engines would emit water vapor by The+New+Stan+Price · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Which is the giant greenhouse elephant in the room, but nobody pays attention to it because it doesn't help the world socialist cause.

  20. Airport Security by Airw0lf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Some people would actively seek out the trains given how much of a hassle airport security is. Everything would of course be fine until some nutjob figured out a way to blow up a maglev train...

  21. Infoporn Fact by Knoglinger · · Score: 1

    Currently the average MPG for airline passengers is: 60 miles per gallon per passenger. This is from a Lufthansa brochure. ~~~~

    1. Re:Infoporn Fact by Knoglinger · · Score: 1

      And for the rest of the world (where I am from) it is 4l/100km. ~~~~

    2. Re:Infoporn Fact by mr_matticus · · Score: 1

      That's just a fancy way of telling the truth: a commercial airliner gets about 1/3 of a mile to the "gallon" (when converted from the proper "pounds" to "gallons at sea level and standard temperature").

      Alternatively, one could say that my car gets 125 miles per gallon per passenger when carrying four passengers. It just makes planes sound better (they're only off by half this way, instead of an order of magnitude).

      It's still quite a feat, given the power requirements of flying and the HUGE savings as opposed to using multiple cars and/or buses.

    3. Re:Infoporn Fact by JonathanR · · Score: 1

      A foolish argument though. You wouldn't consider drivng your car the sort of distances that you fly. You should consider the average consumption per passenger trip.

    4. Re:Infoporn Fact by spinfire · · Score: 1

      You ignore the fact that cars are rarely used even close to capacity whereas airliners usually are (especially on long haul flights). It simply isn't economical to operate airliners below a certain load factor. The marginal cost of an airline seat (additional crew needed, weight, food, etc) amounts to something on the order of $30 on a typical flight, so the dominant costs of aviation are fixed. Sometimes certain routes need to be operated at lower loads, but this is balanced by more efficient routes. This is dictated by the economics of air travel, and is becoming even more true as fuel cost increases.

      Of course, this is true in cars, too - the marginal cost of an additional passenger is very low. But because of the nature of car travel, cars are often operated with just one or two people in them, even SUVs and vans with high capacity.

    5. Re:Infoporn Fact by mr_matticus · · Score: 1

      If you'll read more closely, you'd see it was not ignored in the slightest. Marginal cost ("mpg per passenger" has little to do with it, which is the entire point of the post. It attempts to spread what is a more or less fixed fuel demand across the fact that lots of people benefit from the flight.

      It doesn't work that way. Yes, it is better to fly than to have 200 people arrange personal transportation options in terms of net environmental impact. No, that does not mean that jets are fuel efficient.

  22. Good ideas by blindseer · · Score: 1

    ... but not because of global warming.

    First off, I am not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. I think it is caused by solar activity, which should be proven correct or not in the next decade if the predictions of less solar activity comes true.

    I think the idea of getting our fuels from local sources is going to become increasingly important for our national security and standard of living. The government, especially the Department of Defense, is quite aware of this. Synthesized hydrocarbons is not a new idea. It's been done. The claim of a net zero effect on the environment just sounds so incredible to me. As long as one is burning hydrocarbons there is still going to be CO2 and, more importantly, water coming out of the tail pipe. I emphasize water because that is a more powerful, plentiful, and seemingly invisible greenhouse gas than CO2. I say invisible because no one is talking about it. I doubt anyone will because as preposterous as it may sound to call CO2 a "pollutant" it would be even more so to claim that water is a pollutant.

    While the article mentions that the carbon emissions will be offset by the biomass from which the fuel is derived there is no mention of where the energy is coming from to produce this fuel. What this syhtetic fuel process does is take molecules from a low potential energy state (water, biomass) and turn it into a higher potential energy state (jet fuel). That energy has to come from somewhere. There just is not enough energy density in traditional "green" energy sources (wind, water, solar, biomass) to match what one can get from burning coal, petroleum, or natural gas. The only place to get enough energy for this process to fuel the planes at a price even close to what we have come to expect is to burn that coal to fire that jet fuel plant. All they are doing is shifting the CO2 emissions from the plane in the air to the fuel plant on the ground.

    The only way this process is going to meet the claims of net zero carbon into the air (and still be economically viable) is to power this by nuclear energy. I find it quite aggravating that articles such as these do not make that connection. I guess it is because of the audience they are speaking to, or that the scientists themselves are so caught up in their work (and their funding) that they fail to make a mention of that fact, or are themselves oblivious to where the energy will come from.

    If we want to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the air we need nuclear power. We need it now and it great quantities. That is the only solution that I see. All this talk about hydrogen this, solar that, and energy efficient what-cha-ma-call-its only distracts from that very important detail. We need more nuclear power plants.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    1. Re:Good ideas by big_paul76 · · Score: 1

      "First off, I am not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. I think it is caused by solar activity, which should be proven correct or not in the next decade if the predictions of less solar activity comes true."

      Um, OK, and you did your Phd work in meteorology/climate science where?

      I don't mean to make an "appeal to authority" type argument, but Jesus, what are you basing that on? Just because 99% of scientific community thinks you're wrong, that doesn't make you Galileo. You have to be right, as well.

      Never mind that, even if we concede that fossil fuel burning has zero effect on global warming (which I don't, but let's do a little suspension of disbelief for the sake of the argument) isn't peak oil a concern?

      Even if the peak oil people are partly right, then we still need to get a large supply of _renewable_ energy to replace a worldwide consumption of what, 187 million barrels of oil a day? That means building a nuclear plant in every city with a population > 100,000 like, yesterday.

      Expensive? Sure. But it won't be any cheaper if we start in 50 years when oil's at $200/barrel in 2007 dollars...

      --
      The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
    2. Re:Good ideas by The+New+Stan+Price · · Score: 0

      Um, OK, and you did your Phd work in meteorology/climate science where?

      You mean like all those "consensus" people in the medical "community" who were sending women to an early DEATH by giving them hormone therapy and causing them to get breast cancer all these years?

    3. Re:Good ideas by blindseer · · Score: 1

      I'm basing my hypothesis on the claims of those that oppose the theory of human caused global warming. Those that believe the primary driver behind global warming is solar activity, while in the minority, have been more convincing to myself than the CO2 believers. Solar activity and global temperature have been well recorded by civilization for about 400 years, and by proxy for millions, and those records show a high correlation between solar activity and climate change. If I am wrong, and I am perfectly willing to accept that I may be wrong, then all we have to do is wait to see how the sun and the climate changes in the next decade or two to see if I am wrong.

      Records have shown that the sun is now more active than it has been in recorded history, something that many choose to ignore when discussing climate change. All I want to point out is that those that think human activity is warming the earth just might be wrong, just like I might be wrong. The fact is we don't have enough facts to definitively state either side is correct.

      Despite the cause of the global warming (I am quite convinced that the earth is warming) this idea of turning biomass into jet fuel to reduce CO2 output is lunacy. I've done a bit of reading on alternative means of producing carbon based fuels and none of them are truly CO2 net zero while remaining economically feasible except when nuclear energy is involved.

      If people want to reduce CO2 in the air (assuming that is the cause of global warming or other undesirable condition) then we need nuclear power. If we, as members of oil importing states or countries, want to achieve energy independence then we need nuclear power. Research into turning biomass into jet fuel, while a noble effort, is far from saving the planet unless the energy to drive the process is derived from somewhere other than coal, natural gas, or the very biomass needed as feedstock. That means nuclear power because there just is not enough solar, wind, wave, or biomass to go around.

      We need nuclear power plants. We need them now, and in large numbers.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  23. I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems likely to me this suffers from several serious problems:

    (1) I can't easily believe it's more efficient. Granted, you use a fair amount of energy raising a jetliner to 40,000 feet, but it can't be that much, compared to what you need to use to keep it levitated and push air out of the way at 600 knots for hours and hours -- and a maglev train needs to do that, too. Indeed, air resistance is surely much higher on the maglev train, which has to operate near sea level instead of at the significantly lower air pressures in the stratosphere.

    (2) You've got an incredible infrastructure problem. Essentially, you've got to build the entire Interstate highway system over again -- only this time it can't be just smooth concrete, it's got to be ultrasmooth, ultrastraight rails kept in alignment to the nearest micrometer along thousands of miles, in rain or shine, snow or mud or hurricane or flood, and with marvelous superconducting magnet windings all along them that have to be kept in absolutely perfect working order all the time, because you can't afford one small booboo in your levitation when you're flying along near the speed of sound 1.5 inches off the ground. I can't even imagine how you're going to switch maglev trains from one track to another while they're blistering along at 600 MPH. Those are going to be some very, very expensive switches.

    Thing is, with airplanes you only need to build airports, and that's really only just laying down a big long strip of concrete and installing radar. You don't need to build much stuff between destination cities. You also don't need to lay down power along the entire route of every route they fly, because the motor goes along with the carriage.

    (3) You've got an amazing safety issue. In the stratosphere there's not much you can run into at jet speeds, fortunately. But on the ground? Say a 50 pound rock falls off a rock face and dings the marvelous superconducting track, so that when the maglev train comes along 20 minutes later it hits a "dry spot" and the carriage dips down 3 inches and hits the ground at 600 knots. BOOM. You'd have to identify the passengers by DNA analysis of tiny bone fragments.

    (4) Noise? I live next to a major rail line, and those things are noisy enough at 60-80 MPH. If they came by at 600, it wouldn't be possible to live within half a mile of the track. How does that square with the fact that most of the travel would be to and through major urban areas? Thing about airplanes is, except for within a few miles of the airport, you can't hear them because they fly two miles or more above us.

    1. Re:I can think of some problems by tylernt · · Score: 1

      Subterranean evacuated tubes address issues 1, 3, and 4.

      --
      DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
    2. Re:I can think of some problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While you have some good points, they are mutually contradictory. Infrastructure and safety are related, and solving one of them will solve the other. Once we decide to blow half our GNP (ass-sourced statistical metric) on infrastructure, we can deal with the efficiency aspect at the same time ("can" does not equal "will" but...).

      If the train levitates, there is no interaction between rail and train, and thus no noise except for the wind.

      As the sibling points out, using tunnels that are evacuated of air (probably in segments so that parts can be shut down and maintained without breaking the system as a whole) and located below ground (at least in cities) we can eliminate most of the problems that you mention at the cost of... well... increasing costs. Massively. Subterrenean infrastructure usually costs a magnitude (if that is enough) more than surface infrastructure, but adds the convenience of using a larger chunk of old Terra.

      There are of course other benefits to a maglev system:
      Transport of goods can now be eliminated from the surface transporting system to an even greater extent.
      It will require distributed power generation (not just power distribution) so we will be forced to accept powerplants in all of our backyards. The powerplants in question will most likely be nuclear in nature, and will drive down costs of household energy (it will not be economical to drive the maglev using current power generation levels) as well as decrease carbon-based power generation dependency.
      Public transport will be cool again (if only for a little while) and we may (will) be able to track our citizens easier (definitely a plus for all wanna-be Big Brothers). ...and finally, we'll be one step closer to that glorious sci-fi future some of us read about, even though we are still lacking on the personal jetpack and flying car capabilities. Levitating trains? Cross that one off from the list!

    3. Re:I can think of some problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aircraft have wings sticking out the sides that must significantly increase air resistance, which increases even further with load, since increased load requires a higher angle of attack. A Maglev train on the other hand can be comparably slender and long, further reducing the aur resistance in comparison to a plane.
      MagLevs usually have 4-6" of clearance between the train and the tracks. Small "dings" are irrelevant. Rocks cannot fall on Maglev tracks, since those are usually installed above ground. Loss of power is not a large problem, since the trains usually have glides/runners that they will hit when levitation fails. If you can't imagine switches, look up "Transrapid" somewhere and find out how it is done. Who said that maglev magnets need to be superconducting?

    4. Re:I can think of some problems by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1
      I think the Big Dig experience kind of makes tunnels a bit more susceptible to stuff falling out of the ceiling.

      Not to mention tunnels are a bit expensive. Like $500 million or more per mile. Tunneling from LA to New York City (2462 miles by plane) would be a minimum of $1.2 TRILLION dollars.

      And what happens if a train stalls? The whole system backs up... No thanks, I'll stick with the planes, thank you (and I fly around 200,000 miles per year).

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    5. Re:I can think of some problems by zoefff · · Score: 1

      (1): when one uses superconducting magnets, it doesn't use energy to stay levitated. It is like standing on the ground. you cannot compare air resistance only based on magnitude, because the jetliner and maglev do not share the same shape.

    6. Re:I can think of some problems by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      "Thing is, with airplanes you only need to build airports, and that's really only just laying down a big long strip of concrete and installing radar."

      Neither of these conditions are true. You need neither concrete nor radar to have an airport (although concrete is a reasonable desire). Only Class B, C, and D airports have radar and controlled airspace. There are more Class E radar-less uncontrolled airports than any other kind, and they aggregately handle many more flights. My plane lands on a grass strip just fine, and I only fly to controlled airports if it's convenient and time-saving to do so.

    7. Re:I can think of some problems by cwebster · · Score: 1

      (1) I can't easily believe it's more efficient. Granted, you use a fair amount of energy raising a jetliner to 40,000 feet, but it can't be that much, compared to what you need to use to keep it levitated and push air out of the way at 600 knots for hours and hours -- and a maglev train needs to do that, too. Indeed, air resistance is surely much higher on the maglev train, which has to operate near sea level instead of at the significantly lower air pressures in the stratosphere. I fly a relatively small airplane (max gross takeoff 53000#). Total fuel flow when we set the thrust for takeoff is 6000#/hr. When climb thrust is set this goes down a bit and when we get to cruise altitude and start accelerating (climbing ~ M.65 and accelerating toward .76-.80) fuel flow can be somewhere in the 3-4000#/hr depending on temp aloft and some other factors. Once we reach cruise speed the fuel flow to maintain that speed is lower, only 2400-2600#/hr total. You also touch on the benefits of altitude. The speeds you see quoted for cruise speeds are typically true airspeed or groundspeed. Airplanes operate off of indicated airspeed which is derived from the interaction with air molecules. Cruising in the mid 30's @ mach .78 is only around 250 kts indicated airspeed but yields 450 kts true airspeed. True airspeed is the actual movement of the airplane through the airmass but lift/drag effects are predicated upon the indicated speed (as well as the mach number which comes into effect at higher speeds and altitudes). At sea level to have a true airspeed of 450 kts you need to be indicating pretty much 450 kts which would require much more thrust and produce much more drag than achieving that true airspeed at altitude.

    8. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well...

      If the train levitates, there is no interaction between rail and train, and thus no noise except for the wind.

      Imagine how much noise a tornado makes. And that's a mere 300 MPH wind. Now imagine a 600 MPH tornado. How close could you stand without losing your hearing?

      Also this:

      Subterrenean infrastructure usually costs a magnitude (if that is enough)

      Not even a hair's breadth of a smidgen of close enough, when you are talking subterranean evacuated infrastructure. You might as well be talking about constructing stuff in orbit. At least as a starting point, imagine the cost of building tunnels underwater, where your tunnel only has to be water-tight, not gas-tight. The tunnel under the English Channel cost about $15 billion for 32 miles, or about $0.5 billion per mile. That's probably a good starting estimate.

    9. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      If the wings contributed substantially to the air resistance of an airplane, then supersonic airplanes would have similar fuselages as subsonic airplanes, but very different wings. That's not the case. If you look at a supersonic plane, you will see they take enormous pains to reduce the frontal area of the fuselage, and do pretty much zip to reduce the frontal area of the wings.

      No, a maglev train can't be made indefinitely long and narrow. People won't ride in something only 1 seat wide with a 10-inch wide aisle and 6 inches of headroom. And how are you going to get it around a corner, without making the corner incredibly wide, or breaking the train into a zillion cars? Ugh. I would be quite surprised if you could make a train any narrower than an airplane, which is about as narrow as people are generally willing to sit in.

      Rocks can't fall on maglev tracks? Because....? There won't be rocks located above the tracks? The tracks will never go through or under mountains? Armies of illegal immigrants will be hired to police the tracks? The tracks will be in bulletproof tunnels that never crack or drop piece of concrete? I'm missing something here.

      I can sure imagine switches that work with magnetic levitation tracks and let your train go through them at 300-500 MPH. I just can't imagine them costing less than, say, a round $1 billion each.

      Who said that maglev magnets need to be superconducting?

      Er...anyone who proposes a system that doesn't cost a bazillion dollars to operate? What would you say it costs to operate 10,000 miles of powerful electromagnets continuously? Or are you going to carefully start and stop them as the trains go by? Imagine the hysteresis losses with gigahenries of inductance!

    10. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      Oh come on. Are you imagining magical room-temperature superconductors? All practical superconducting wire at present needs to be cooled with liquid helium, which is exceedingly expensive stuff. Even if you imagine the high Tc ceramic superconductors so ballyhooed twenty years ago can -- finally -- be made into wire, you've still got to cool it with liquid nitrogen, which ain't cheap, not on a continent-wide scale.

      the jetliner and maglev do not share the same shape.

      They don't? From the point of view of air resistance to forward motion, what matters is what they look like from the front, not from the top. If I stand in front of a train and a jetliner, they look remarkably similar, I'd say.

    11. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      Good point, and with the increasing annoyance of commercial travel in this nannystate fraidypants state into which we've worked yourself -- bending over and spreading your cheeks for a cavity search in the boarding area is only a matter of time, I'm afraid -- more and more folks are going to be doing just that.

      Probably for way less than the cost of building magical maglev trains operating through vacuum tunnels, it would be possible to design and build and deploy a monster fleet of ultrasafe highly computer-assisted air taxis that anyone competent enough to drive a car could use to "drive" himself through the air from city to city, whenever he needed to go more than 500 miles in a day. Which completely eliminates the threat of hijacking or holding an airliner hostage or even using an airplane as a manned missile (assuming the little air taxis don't weigh much more than an SUV or so).

    12. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      Hey, thanks for the facts. Very interesting stuff.

    13. Re:I can think of some problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Conventional bullet trains, such as the french TGV or german ICE would do nicely, though.

    14. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      Mmm, doubt it. Notice that there's still only one TGV line even in France. That suggests it's more of a showpiece than a paying proposition, even in Europe where population densities are so dense.

      There are a few place in the US where high-speed rail makes sense, but they already have it, like the Metro between DC and New York. A good case can be made for SF to LA, too, and the proof of this is that this is one of the few Amtrak lines that actually makes money and is routinely booked up, even though the line stops in Bakersfield and you have to take a fucking bus over the mountains to get to LA itself. Spend $1 billion to dig tunnels and put up bridges so you can ride the train from LA downtown to SF downtown in three hours (that's only averaging about 150 miles/hour) and you would get tons of traffic. The airplane flight is nominally an hour, but you have to tack on at least two more hours of airport hassle.

      Probably there are a few other places, too. But most of the US is actually best served by what it's got, which is Interstates and airports and airplanes. There's a reason we have all that infrastructure, and it isn't because our fathers were too stupid to see the obviously better solution, or were all in thrall to a vast secret conspiracy. It's because when you have a lightly populated enormous country, it's more economical to ship people around in small, lightweight, self-propelled vehicles that need little to no roadway and which operate either on-demand or nearly on-demand. Shoehorning in a system with enormous fixed costs per mile for its roadway, and cursed with relatively inflexible scheduling and routing to boot, sounds pretty dumb.

      Yes, the technology is cool. But being cool doesn't make it sensible.

    15. Re:I can think of some problems by steeler359 · · Score: 1

      Mmm, doubt it. Notice that there's still only one TGV line even in France. That suggests it's more of a showpiece than a paying proposition, even in Europe where population densities are so dense



      I think you're wrong there, I'm no train buff, but there's substantially more than one TGV line (LGV) in France (see here). According to the accompanying article, there are eight, with 5 more under construction and 9 more planned. With 1700 km of track, it would appear that the TGV moves a lot of people around the country and has done so for many years

      --
      There's no place like /~
    16. Re:I can think of some problems by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      The Max Gross takeoff weight of my plane is 2550 pounds, which is half the weight of my SUV. It holds 50 gallons of fuel, which isn't enough to bring down an important building by any means.

      Someone tried to make an "ultra-safe highly computer-assisted" airplane. It's called a Cirrus, and it's the most dangerous thing anyone ever put into the sky. The thing even has its own parachute - for the whole plane - so when the going gets tough, the pilot can just give up and plow the plane into the ground instead of landing it safely like they're supposed to..

    17. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      I thought the whole-plane parachute thingy was selling well?

      Anyway, it's not an argument for the impossibility of making an airplane even idiots can fly safely. It just says it's trickier than it seems at first, which is pretty much true of any technological development.

      Heck, it's happened with cars, I'd say. When I learned to drive it was a given you had to master a clutch, and manual steering (which in a moderately heavy car means you can't really turn the wheel when the car isn't moving, so you have to think ahead a bit). I even had one car with a manual choke, which had to be used at various times during winter driving. Go back a little further and you don't have synchromeshes in your gearbox, so you have to listen to match engine and gear speed pretty well if you don't want to grind your gears when you shift. Then there was maintenance: you had to know at least to check the oil, radiator and battery water regularly, and if you weren't rich you knew how to change the oil, bleed and adjust the brakes, replace the air and fuel filters, replace and gap the sparkplugs, adjust the idle, and time the engine.

      All that's gone now. No one thinks about changing the mix on the carburetor depending on outside temp, altitude, and whether the engine is warm. You can change gears pretty much anywhere, even assuming you have a gearshift at all, and so on. Your power-assist steering very nicely adapts to car speed, so at low or zero speed you get plenty of hydraulic assist, and at highway speed you get very little for good road feel. Cars are pretty much point and press (accelerator or brake) devices. Traction control, ABS brakes, tensioning belts and airbags make them amazingly safe, too -- all without driver knowledge or involvement. As for maintenance, the modern car hardly needs any before it hits 100,000 miles.

      I can imagine the same thing happening in airplanes, if people want it to. Yes, it would take some of the skill out of flying, and I imagine skilled pilots might regret that, figuring very reasonably that the most failure-prone device on the vehicle is always the nut behind the wheel. But if you think about it, or apply the Peter Principle, pretty much all technology evolves and improves until its major failure mode is user error.

    18. Re:I can think of some problems by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

      By George, you're right. My recollection was a decade or so out of date. Fascinating.

      Thanks!

  24. SPIN Translation = Synthetic Fuel from COAL !!! by Zymergy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Jet turbine power plants have have 2 SIGNIFICANT advantages:
    (1)They can operate with just about any type of chemically and thermally stable combustible fluid with a sufficient energy density having consistent and reliable combustion properties.
    and
    (2) They are not hampered by the well-known significant inefficiencies introduced by exhaust emissions systems such as mufflers, catalytic converters, EGR systems, etc..

    NOTE: Modern Jet fuels are hydrocarbon BLENDS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel
    These blends are created as cheaply as possible to meet specific fuel properties and standards, including their energy content, and intended use: http://www.csgnetwork.com/jetfuel.html
    There have been many well-intentioned pushes for "replacement" Jet fuels, including a "safer" version which was intended to reduce fire balls when Jets crashed, but it was a flop as it introduced safety concerns as the 'safety' additive increased the possibility of a flame-out (it basically made the flash point of the fuel higher and reduced the flammability of jet fuel mist) and it cost way too much for little if any margin of safety it would have introduced. (Most people in jet crashes do not die from a fireball of jet fuel, but from actually hitting the mountain, crashing into the ground/ocean, or basically some form of 'Aortic Dissection' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_dissection )

    I say that this is really a SPIN and a PR campaign.

    Everyone looks good waving the environmental flag, but when compared to boats, trains, and trucking, jets are NEVER environmentally friendly. (Jets have to fight gravity continuously when moving goods and people = INEFFICIENT)
    TFA ( http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S18/96/92S56/index.xml ) is a Press Release about research into processing "Biomass" into Jet fuel And, oh ya BYW, COAL!! THAT'S RIGHT, COAL!
    We are talking about fuel from "other than" OIL Sources = SYNTHETIC FUEL (AKA SynFuel), specifically SYNTHETIC "JET" FUEL. http://www.syntroleum.com/pr_individualpressrelease.aspx?NewsID=907157

    This really has EVERYTHING to do with the price of oil being SKY HIGH (pun intended): http://www.peak-oil-news.info/new-synthetic-jet-fuel/
    Everyone knows that Aviation drinks fuel of any kind faster than other transportation types (when you realize the efficiency ratio of Distance traveled with quantity of cargo compared to actual fuel used per unit cargo (person, metric ton, etc..) for that given distance)
    We are talking about stirring up money to get more research into the conversion of Coal into Synthetic Jet fuel (and other fuels) and we'll get to work with biomass too.
    Oil is so expensive these days it is becoming just as cheap to chemically engineer/create (from scratch!) synthetic Jet Fuels from Coal. (which the US still has hundreds of years worth)
    Why expensively pump it out of the deep ocean, or the middle east, and then transport around the planet (BYW, they use ships for this because of their efficiency, not jet aircraft) when you can just dig up some local Coal or Bitumen Tar Sand deposit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands and make your own synthetic fuel.
    (Now observe the pollutants released and the energy required during the "upgrading" of Coal/Bitumen into the new Synthetic Jet Fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upgrader )
    FYI: The Germans made Synthetic Jet Fuel during WWII because they had Coal but not so much oil...

  25. Hydrogen, lots of potential and a pain in the ass by Shihar · · Score: 2, Informative

    The energy/mass ratio is not and never really has been the issue with hydrogen. The issue with hydrogen is the energy energy/volume ratio. Hydrogen's big problem is that it takes a lot of energy to squeeze into a small enough space to be worth while. Even if you are willing to burn the energy to compress hydrogen down into something that is tolerably dense, you are now talking about either A) a very heavy and expensive cooling system that is keeping it in liquid form or B) an extremely heavy, expensive, and marginally dangerous high pressure tank or C) both.

    There are some potential tricks around this dilemma, but the truth is that we are still a fair ways off. The path towards hydrogen as a fuel source is less than obvious. Hydrogen has a lot of potential, but as it stands, it is a pain in the ass and expensive to make, it is a pain in the ass and expensive to store, and it really while shifts the environmental issues onto the grid where they are perhaps more easily tackled, it is not a silver bullet.

    I am not poo-pooing hydrogen. Hell, I WORK for a hydrogen fuel cell company. I am just pointing out that the problem is much harder than it appears, and the golden future much further off than you might think. On top of that, there are lots of competing alternatives to hydrogen that might very well prove to be more utilitarian.

  26. One of the ingredients of Russian solid rocket fue by melted · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Speaking of which, one of the ingredients of Russian solid rocket fuel (for military rockets) was rice husk - a byproduct of rice production. They actually cultivated short grain rice that would have a disproportionate amounts of husk specifically for this, and grew it in Southern Russia near Krasnodar. The grain itself was edible, of course, but it was not particularly good from the culinary point of view.

  27. Re:sage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sage goes in the email field

  28. What paper you reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "After reading about the concerns of cow emissions"

    What a coincidence, I read about this too!!

    Can't remember the title of the newspaper, but it was the one with the guy who was abducted by aliens in 52 on the front cover, with the "absolutely, dead to rights, confirmed elvis sighting" in the sidebar.

    Think I must have skimmed the page on cow emissions just before I reached around and used it to wipe my butt - best possible use for it really.

  29. Re:One of the ingredients of Russian solid rocket by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't Hitler have to use a shitload of potatoes to make fuel for his V2 rockets?

  30. Flying planes on snake oil and magic beans.... by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 1

    From the article:

    Coal, a relatively cheap and readily available source of energy, has an emissions profile at least as harmful as petroleum.
    ...snip...

    An "especially attractive feature" of processing coal and biomass together to make synfuels is that it requires only half the amount of biomaterial as pure biofuel production, while still making fuels with near-zero greenhouse gas emissions, Williams said.
    Right, so coal is "at least as harmful" as oil. But it's OK, because using it in a 50:50 mix with biofuels will magically reduce it's carbon footprint to zero.

    Yes, I do understand the net zero of the biomass, but I've yet to see a biomass crop that absorbs twice the amount of CO2 it emits.

    What sort of science is this?

    HAL.

    --
    Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
  31. Depends from where to where by Moraelin · · Score: 1

    It depends from where to where, I guess.

    On one hand, you're indeed not going take a train or drive a car across the Atlantic. That much is obviously true.

    On the other hand, flying across the USA or Europe is a whole other thing. I always wondered why don't more countries build their own equivalent of the French TGV (really fast train, basically.) When you consider what joke flying always was, and only got worse, you don't even need _too_ high speed to reach your destination faster than with an airplane.

    Just add the whole coming one hour early for the security check and finding your gate, the whole waiting on the runway because the luggage truck didn't come on time, the waiting for your luggage at the other end, etc. Add stuff like that airports are built outside the town and you have to drive there. Now divide the distance by _that_ total time, and you average speed for the whole experience isn't that hot any more.

    I mean, I'm too lazy to search for the actual data right now, but let's say an airplane cruises at a generous 1000 km/h, which is transsonic or close enough. Let's say yout travel 1000 km with it. Not a long trip, to be sure, but also high enough for many people to take a plane anyway. Ok, so that plane would spend only 1 hour in the air. From my experience with air travel, however, you're not getting much change out of 3 hours for that trip, once you factor in all the inconveniences of modern air travel. So a train would only need a bit over 300 km/h to compete with that. It's feasible.

    Now also consider that travel by train is a _hell_ of a lot more comfortable (unless you pay an arm and a leg for first class on the plane, I guess), doesn't put you through all those inconveniences, is a lot more reliable (it would take a _hell_ of a storm to keep a train from departing), and you don't get your luggage lost or dropped on concrete (or if you do, you only have yourself to blame.) Dunno about you, but I'd prefer that train every time it was possible.

    And for the eco-slant, well, trains run on electricity. It is possible to run them on hydro power or nuclear power just as well. Now those have their own debatable downsides, but neither produces any CO2.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:Depends from where to where by Alex+Pennace · · Score: 1

      I mean, I'm too lazy to search for the actual data right now, but let's say an airplane cruises at a generous 1000 km/h, which is transsonic or close enough. Let's say yout travel 1000 km with it. Not a long trip, to be sure, but also high enough for many people to take a plane anyway. Ok, so that plane would spend only 1 hour in the air. From my experience with air travel, however, you're not getting much change out of 3 hours for that trip, once you factor in all the inconveniences of modern air travel. So a train would only need a bit over 300 km/h to compete with that. It's feasible. It isn't just hypothetical. Boston to New York commuters are best served by the high speed (well, 150 MPH) train linking the two cities, and it has the added advantage of putting you on the correct island in New York too.

    2. Re:Depends from where to where by bucky0 · · Score: 1

      Well, if we're talking about the convenience factor, if it's less than 3 hours or so, it's much simpler for me to just drive wherever I'm going. That way, I don't deal with being at the train station and I have the convenience of having a car when I get to my destination. There's not many towns that have enough public transportation so that you could show up and not need some way of getting around.

      --

      -Bucky
  32. Consider a smaller car, then by Moraelin · · Score: 1

    Jesus F. Christ... if you use 10-20 litres / 100 km, then you really should consider a smaller car for a change. If nothing else, for how much you pay for fuel.

    There are already cars that run on 3 litres diesel / 100 km. The VW Lupo 3L comes to mind, for example, and that wasn't even a hybrid or anything. Just plain old internal combustion engine.

    Want something with a bit more power under the hood and acceleration? Toyota claims 4.2l/100km on the highway for their Prius. Or a Honda Civic Hybrid claims 4.3l/100km under the same conditions.

    At any rate, the comparison is very much possible. If you have 1 passenger with you, with such a car you're already comfortably below the 2.9 litres/100 passenger kilometres you mention for the A380.

    Heck, even an Audi R8 only burns some 10.2l/100km on the highway, or so Audi claims. And that's, you know, their highest end car. It's a V8 engine, a bit over 4 litres. It takes that kind of a motor to reach 10 litres / 100 km on the highway, and even that doesn't come even close to 20 litres / 100km.

    I keep talking about fuel use on the highway because, really, that's the only thing worth comparing to an airplane. You wouldn't take a plane around town, so there's no point in comparing the car's fuel use in town to an airplane.

    So basically, what I'm saying is:

    1. Let's all stop pretending that air travel is soo economic and environment friendly.

    2. If your car actually burns 20 litres / 100 km, you might was to consider getting an actual car instead of driving a tank ;)

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:Consider a smaller car, then by bucky0 · · Score: 1
      I drive a V6 mustang (3.8L engine) and I got 8.7 L/100km on my last tank. My last car ( 4 cyl 1985 Accord ) got 6.7 consistently.

      So basically, what I'm saying is:

      1. Let's all stop pretending that air travel is soo economic and environment friendly. That's why they're developing more efficient fuels :)
      --

      -Bucky
  33. Tanks indeed. by mattcasters · · Score: 1

    From this comment I must conclude that you obviously haven't been to the south-central states of the US.
    Spent a few weeks there and didn't see a single Prius. Compared to the gas guzzlers you see over there, anything is more ecological including 50 year old jet planes.

    --
    News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
    1. Re:Tanks indeed. by bucky0 · · Score: 1

      I live in Nashville and travel to Alabama often. I've been to the south.

      The south isn't the flood of SUVs and pickup trucks people make it out to be. I drive a 11 year old V6 mustang and my last tank of gas, I got about 27-28 mpg. There's plenty if prius's (how do you pluralize that?) running around as well as small hondas and other efficient cars. There's more trucks here, but I can say from living here that the number is going down and it was never as big a proportion as other people make it out to be.

      --

      -Bucky
  34. Contrails are bad by giafly · · Score: 2, Funny

    So are contrails in and of themselves good or bad? I don't think anyone can say.
    It's all in the name. If they were good they'd be called protrails. Also let's agree that I won't graffiti your plane if you won't graffiti my my sky.
    --
    Reduce, reuse, cycle
    1. Re:Contrails are bad by davidsyes · · Score: 1

      Congress != Progress

      Procreate != Concreate

      Conjugate != Projugate

      Condom != Prodom

      Condomnation != ehh... umm, where's this going?

      --
      Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  35. Fred Dryer? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1
    Princeton Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Fred Dryer has a lofty goal: end the nation's reliance on oil for jet travel.


    No crime at Princeton will go unsolved with Hunter on the job!


    Wasn't he the guy that starred in the mostly-lame 80's cop show Hunter? Nice change of careers from washed-up actor to Mech & Aero Engineer at Princeton.


    --
    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  36. Al Gore Doesn't Have to Feel Guilty by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

    Now the Profit of Doom, Al Gore, Scientific Fraud, Scare Mongerer, and Nobel Laureate, doesn't have to feel guilty about being a hypocrit, flying around in a G Star.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    1. Re:Al Gore Doesn't Have to Feel Guilty by hickory-smoked · · Score: 1

      You know what I love about the climate change denial argument? It rests entirely on ad hominem fallacies, without ever addressing what is or is not happening.

    2. Re:Al Gore Doesn't Have to Feel Guilty by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

      You know what I love about the climate change denial argument? It rests entirely on ad hominem fallacies, without ever addressing what is or is not happening.

      Hey, Buckwheat, try clicking a few links. Nowhere in my post or my posts, or my "journal" do I deny that climate change is happening. Fools would. I've just not swallowed the "man caused" kool-aid.

      It is not an ad hominen if the writer notes that the subject preaches a change of behavior to avoid calamity, but does not make those changes himself.

      As for not providing back up claims, try clicking through to my journal. Got it, Sparky? You're just half a level down from those who don't RTFM.

      But, try this, while you are spinning.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    3. Re:Al Gore Doesn't Have to Feel Guilty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oooo, WED called you buckwheat and sparky. More "proof"!

  37. What the studies actually say by singer-scientist · · Score: 1

    The current best estimate seems to be that aircraft emissions cause around twice the warming than you would get if the equivalent amount of CO2 was released at ground level, not including the affects of the resulting clouds (which probably makes it significantly worse).

    http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf, as interpreted at http://www.tricoronagreen.com/tricorona/page.php?p=climateimpact

    If so, I guess that invalidates the whole approach described in the article.

  38. You're being obtuse. by FatSean · · Score: 1

    Thousands of years of cows, eh? You should really do some research on the number of cows living on the planet as compared to date. You'll find that we now have orders of magnitude more cows on our planet than before.

    I'm just glad that the economic impacts of global warming will be hurting the cheap-skate deniers before they hit me. Enjoy your expensive food and heating/cool!

    --
    Blar.
  39. Great... by kannibul · · Score: 1

    I see even higher airline fares.

    Add to that, the reason for the change is something that happens naturally (global warming and cooling) - nature takes care of itself in spite of what we do. To think that we (a handful of industrialized nations) can have such an impact as to cause the "out of control" issue that the media portrays, we'd been extinct at the turn of the century - and I'm not talking about the one that happened a few years ago...

    If we would just spent half the money researching this kind of junk in planting trees, we'd be better off - 1) Obvious CO2 reference 2) Shade, and 3) Cheaper wood to harvest.

    Is CO2 the problem - no, water vapor is the problem. What do catalytic converters do to cars? convert the gases to water vapor. What are we pushing for? Hydrogen fueled cars - what will that produce as a by-product? Water vapor...

    References:
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1110_051110_warming.html

    There are others, but I'm not going to bother, since I bet this will fall mostly on deaf ears...

  40. Jet Fuel is Irrelivant by rsantmann · · Score: 2, Informative

    I would be suprised if jet fuel makes up .01% of CO2 emissions. Heating (35%), Electricity (42%), and Car Traffic (19%) together make up 96% of green house gas emissions.[1] This is just a convienent sales tactic to make people feel about themselves without actually doing anything. [1] http://www.ytv.fi/ENG/future/climate_change/greenhouse_gas_emissions/frontpage.htm

  41. ouch by Quadraginta · · Score: 1

    Well, that they do. Also magical Star Trek transporters, which are about as likely.

    Remember the SSC in the late 80s? That needed a mere 50 miles or so of evacuated 6-inch diameter tunnel, in a ring, with very little in the way of switching. Cost was estimated as $14 billion 1985 dollars ($25 billion 2007 dollars) before it was canceled.

    Normal interstates cost about an average of $1 million per mile to build, and we have about 55,000 miles of them. Now imagine a mere 10,000 miles, say, of evacuated tunnel, enough to provide main lines from coast to coast, and north and south, more or less duplicating I-5, I-95, I-40, and I-80. Hard to imagine a cost of less than $200 million per mile, about half what the SSC estimated cost was, and a mere 200 times what it costs to just lay down a flat ribbon of concrete (plus the occasional bridge). At that rate, it would cost $20 trillion just to get the network of evacuated tubes built, roughly all of the Federal tax receipts (including Social Security) for the next 10 years.

  42. You're a liar by SIIHP · · Score: 1

    "There's lots of consensus on our guesses about climate and how it's changing."

    Too bad consensus isn't data.

    "About the only resistance to the consensus is manufactured by the polluting industries, which aren't going to go along just because we know better what's happening."

    That's just a lie and you know it. Unfortunately, you're exactly the kind of individual who will lie when it suits you, like now.

    --
    I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
    1. Re:You're a liar by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      No, you're a lying Greenhouse denier. About the only resistance to the consensus is manufactured by the polluting industries. Unless you're counting the tobacco and other industries that join the party for their own antiscience agenda. And even counting those liars, there's less "scientific" resistance to the consensus than there is on all kinds of other important facts and models, which aren't as "controversial" because they don't put massive liabilities onto those activist industries.

      You are the liar. Your own lies are manufactured for you by that industry. You've got nothing but lies. You don't even have the buzz anymore, as more people can see what's clearly going on.

      Now get on with your usual lies about how come everyone's walking around in shorts today, nearly November in NYC, while the North Pole won't be refreezing, while the planet is in a state it hasn't seen in hundreds of thousands of years, but which we've been steadily cooking up for the past century. Just don't think you can lie to me about it.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

  43. Re:One of the ingredients of Russian solid rocket by scottv67 · · Score: 1

    Didn't Hitler have to use a shitload of potatoes to make fuel for his V2 rockets?

    Didn't Mussolini make the trains run on thyme?

  44. Bernoulli by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In particular, the air pressure is high under the wings and low above the wings. This causes the air to swirl out from under the wing around the wingtip to the top of the wing. This forms a high velocity vortex. The only way to accelerate this air is by converting pressure (potential energy) into velocity (kinetic energy). (Google Bernoulli's Principle) Wherever there's a circular motion, the pressure has to drop as you approach the center of the circle, that pressure difference is what counteracts the "centrifugal forces". The pressure in the center can drop low enough to drop the temperature below the dewpoint (PV=RT). So you get condensation.

    I have seen these form on the wingtips even at low altitude when the air is near 100% humidity.

  45. Holy crap you're a loser by SIIHP · · Score: 1

    "No, you're a lying Greenhouse denier."

    Please post evidence that supports you. Show where I have denied global climate change.

    Save your time you won;t find any.

    "You are the liar."

    Then post the quote. I'll wait.

    By the way, I called you on your lies and your response was "I'm rubber you're glue."

    Which is about all that you're capable of.

    "About the only resistance to the consensus is manufactured by the polluting industries"

    It was a lie the first time you spewed it and it's a lie now, source it or SHUT YOUR FUCKING LYING MOUTH.

    I don't want to labor through another of your ignorant rants until your SOURCE YOUR FUCKING STATEMENT.

    Or do what an honest man would and admit you can't. But you won't because it's more important to you to run off at the mouth and lie than tell the truth.

    And while you're at it, save the "you're a liar, you're a denier" garbage. I fully believe that the climate is changing. SEE THAT? DO YOU FUCKING SEE THAT YOU COWARDLY FUCKING TROLL? THE VERY THING YOU LIED ABOUT IN ATTACKING ME, I SAY I SUPPORT IN PLAIN SIGHT.

    So, go ahead an call me a denier you fucking moron, just make sure you're ready to refute THAT FUCKING STATEMENT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR IDIOT FACE, and deal with the fact that there is not one iota of evidence that I have ever believed otherwise.

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    I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
    1. Re:Holy crap you're a loser by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I'm rubber, you're glue.

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      make install -not war

  46. Holy crap you're proving you're a loser by SIIHP · · Score: 1

    "I don't want to labor through another of your ignorant rants until your SOURCE YOUR FUCKING STATEMENT."

    Just admit you can't and get it over with.

    I like how you completely shut the fuck up once you realized how stupid your post was though, it's very satisfying to shut a troll like you up.

    --
    I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
  47. Two things... by SIIHP · · Score: 1

    First, it was a joke that you failed to get.

    Second, go back and reread it until you realize WHAT I was asking for a source for. You'll notice that you didn't get that part either.

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    I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
  48. Orders of magnitude more cows... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and orders of magnitude fewer buffalo.

  49. Re:Holy crap you're proving you're a loser by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    That makes you a loser.

    You're a troll.

    You shut the fuck up.

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    make install -not war

  50. Re:Udderly obtuse. by kartune85 · · Score: 0

    Thousands of years of cows, eh? You should really do some research on the number of cows living on the planet as compared to date. You'll find that we now have orders of magnitude more cows on our planet than before. I typed "cow + population + world began", unfortunately I didn't find any reliable sources of information. Did you have any links to how many cattle were around up until, say, 1000 B.C.? I'm interested in the flatulation (or was that fluctuation) of the cow population over the past few milleniums.
    If the cows are multiplying nowadays, isn't that part of a natural process? Man needs food, man likes eating cows, other man sees market in cow sales, man breeds lots of cows to supply market.

    From what I've seen, and this is just my view point (not necessarily factual), the global warming epidemic seems to be a ploy to take control of businesses and individuals, by means of scare tactics using speculation.
    After watching the Great Global Warming Swindle, and the subsequent ABC interview, it is quite evident that Global Warming is a theory that started in the 70's, amongst fears of heading into an ice age, by a European scientist and was latched onto by Margaret Thatcher to support her political movements. I'm not saying that the theory in the Great Global Warming Swindle isn't flawed itself, but it pushes some very good points.
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    "Failure to conform to majority belief does not make you a troll."
  51. Thanks again, you keep proving me right about you by SIIHP · · Score: 1

    "I like how you completely shut the fuck up once you realized how stupid your post was though, it's very satisfying to shut a troll like you up."

    I like how you restated your "rubber...glue" argument again, as though it works any better the second way you tried it.

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    I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
  52. Re:Udderly obtuse. by VendettaMF · · Score: 1

    I didn't find any reliable sources of information.

    Yeah, I know how you feel. You'd think with the number of pages of "begats" he'd have thought to dedicate just 3 or 4 to a detailed count of livestock numbers across the planet through the generations. Ah well, not to worry. You know for a fact that there were only seven pairs in action after the flood, right?

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    kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.