Water fuel

[RVbySDI]

Originally Posted by John Courte

I know all about Mr. Fusion. Question is, will I have to modify the cowling
or the baggage compartment to fit it in the airplane.

Well, I am pretty sure you better have a cowl and firewall with some sheilding material in place to block that radiation. How much power do you suppose it would have to generate to be able to lift off a lead firewall?

All kidding aside, back in the 50's the Air Force did some experimenting with a nuclear (or is that nukular???) propulsion to power an experimental jet aircraft. There were numurous test flights but it ultimately was scrapped because they were unable to successfully shield the crew from radiation.

[rv8ch]

Originally Posted by Jamie

Someone should just invent a Mr. Fusion for aircraft and I would be happy.

My buds at CERN are working on it, but it's slow going.

With regard to the nuclear plant thing -- you're right. The politicos are opposed to it because of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, but many people aren't aware that coal burning releases much more radioactive material than nuclear plants -- namely uranium and thorium.

Perhaps we should capture that uranium and use it to power the nukes!

It's interesting to look at the percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power plants by country. Interestingly, it seems uranium is not even as abundant as oil, so switching to nuclear might not be such a great idea.

[jonbakerok]

The sun rains more energy on our planet every day than mankind has used since the discovery of fire.

Two-thirds of the surface of our planet is covered in H2O.

Anyone else see a connection here?

The problem is the thin layer of gas over our heads that absorbs or reflects most of that solar energy and screws up the efficiency of our solar cells. So why don't we just do the power conversion UP THERE? The power could be beamed back down as microwave radiation.

It like it's raining money 100 miles from here and we're too lazy to drive over and get some.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but it's actually been floating around for decades. In fact, the engineering has been done and there's really no technical reason not to do it.

Meanwhile, we spend billions to extract increasingly rare, complex organic molecules from wells miles below the ocean. And then, instead of using these rare molecules to make things -- we put them in our cars and burn them.

God must be thinking "Jeesh.. I give them a book. I send them to school. And what do they do? They eat the book."

[jmbaute]

Thought I?d chime in on this since I?ve been running my VW on waste vegetable oil for about a year?I get it from a guy with a connection with a Chinese restaurant, and pay 0.70 a gallon. While I?ve been watching the Diesel aircraft engine developments closely, I don?t think I?ll ever have the stones to run my aircraft on this stuff, but at least what I save on driving around town helps offset 100LL prices. My wife & I combined spend about $60 a month on auto fuel (one veggie car + one fuel efficient gasoline car, short commute). Now, my avgas bill is another story entirely!

There are many sides to the biofuels debates, and I admit they?ll never be a total solution, but I do feel like I?m making a difference not only in my pocketbook but in this country?s foreign energy dependence and in the environment (a small drop in a big bucket).


PS- I saw where UGA and Georgia Tech are researching pine trees as a source for ethanol, so there are many untapped renewable sources out there waiting to be utilized. Solar is the ultimate?maybe someday.