Slashdot Mirror
France Passes Law To Ban All Oil, Gas Production By 2040 (cbsnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: France's parliament has approved a law banning all exploration and production of oil and natural gas by 2040 within the country and its overseas territories. Under that law that passed a final vote on Tuesday, existing drilling permits will not be renewed and no new exploration licenses will be granted. The French government claims the ban is a world first. However, it is largely symbolic since oil and gas produced in France accounts for just 1 percent of domestic consumption. The rest is imported. French President Emmanuel Macron responded to the approval of the law on Twitter, saying in part: "Very proud that France has become the first country in the world today to ban any new oil exploration licenses with immediate effect and all oil extraction by 2040."
Only until they realize that there are many non-fuel related uses of oil such as plastics, pharmaceuticals, clothing/fabrics, asphalt etc. Then there is the question about how to power their aircraft.
Electrolysis. Powered by ... nuclear reactors. Or even renewables.
I never said it was an energy SOURCE, just a good way to store energy.
How to store it? Engineering problem that's been solved in multiple ways. Read about hydrogen-powered aircraft before yipping and yapping sarcastically.
...at a terrible cost of keeping it liquified, for a short period of time, and with a density of only 70 kg per cubic meter. At an energy density one fourth that of jet fuel. And without any concern for fuel price (tens of dollars per kilogram).
Neither of those vehicles you mention made it into orbit without non-hydrogen propulsion. S-V needed a lot of kerosene, and the STS effectively burned a lot of rubber to get into orbit. And the reason why hydrogen was even used was the impact of Isp in the rocket equation on the efficiency of upper stages, with Isp for a rocket being effectively the exhaust velocity, which is much higher if your fuel is hydrogen rich, and there's nothing richer in hydrogen than hydrogen. Jets, however, face a completely different problem since the exhaust velocity is immaterial; they're heating lots of air with comparatively little fuel, and here's where the 25% energy density of hydrogen bites you in the ass: even at massive Isps allowed for by pushing lots of mildly hot air around, the constant drag means that you need a lot of fuel for long-distance flights. Now multiply the tank volume by four. And, oh, add insulation for a 250 K temperature differential between the airplane skin and the tank...
Ezekiel 23:20