T

TThurston

Well Known Member
This article seems like a fairly interesting discussion of alternative fuel developments: http://www.economist.com/node/17358802. Not so much regarding a 100LL replacement, but as ethanol-related issues.

Perhaps this is not the right forum for this post. If not, please move or delete it.
 
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After many years as a supporter, I am now convinced that while biofuels MIGHT be a niche interim solution, long term they are a dead-end.

Why? It comes down to two things. First, the efficiency of converting sunlight into a Kw hr of energy. Second, the energy-density of the converted fuel.

In order for the concept to work we must first convert sunlight into usable stored energy, then release that energy later on at a time and place of our choosing. In order to do this with biofuel, we must first convert it into something like gasoline (along with whatever inefficiency of sunlight conversion is inherent in that bio-process, including any multi-step human interaction in the process) and then later burn that fuel in an internal combustion engine (very inefficient when compared to the conversion of electricity to power in an electric motor). In that second step, electric motors are already around 95% efficient - so in order to best electricity we must either a) be much more efficient in the initial conversion of sunlight into stored energy or b) be able to store many times more Kw hrs / kilogram of storage medium or c) both a and b. Now today, we face a hurdle with b) because batteries aren't all that good - but they are improving 6-8% a year (depending on who you listen to) and so in a few years will kick butt. Too, solar conversion to electricity today is only about 15% efficient with the best solar cells. I don't know how well photosynthesis compares to this, suspect it is a bit better, but also know that there are technologies proven to be upwards of 85% efficient in the lab for direct conversion.

Net-net is that within a few years direct conversion of solar to electric and storage of same will be far more efficient than any biofuel, and won't require dangerous combustion.
 
Breister, that analogy is flawed. There is no requirement that a 100LL solution must beat the efficiency of a battery/electrical device.

If people want a battery operated plane...go for it. I doubt that we will see it work to power even an RV in a user friendly mode for a long time....if ever.

Think we will see battery operated jets? Maybe, but not any time soon. I vote closer to never.

At some point people will see the foolishness of a Prius, Volt or ethanol.

Maybe Swift will be a viable solution. I can't comment on the factors involved from going from a test fuel to full scale production. Time will tell.

I just read a USA Today article on electric cars. We can start with several conditions that must be met before they are viable replacements for the internal combustion engine:

1) They must have at least 80% of the range of a normal engine. Facts: With a reported range of 100 miles they are far from meeting that requirement.

2) They must reach their 100% (or greater than 95%) energy state (Full gas tank or full battery charge from any starting condition including 0% in less than 15 minutes. Facts: The charging period for an electric car at 220V is in the neighborhood of eight hours so they fail here.

3) They must not cost more than 20% more than a comparable internal combustion engine. Facts: I don't have the article here but they may be double to triple the cost of a normal vehicle. Again they fail.

So even for cars electric power in the foreseeable future is not viable. Adapting that technology to aircraft is also a flawed approach today.

Biofuels may work for normal engines if they can be mass produced economically. We shall see.

In the meantime, all you electric car folks check into the cost of a battery system replacement.
 
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Ron Lee said:
Breister, that analogy is flawed. There is no requirement that a 100LL solution must beat the efficiency of a battery/electrical device.

If people want a battery operated plane...go for it. I doubt that we will see it work to power even an RV in a user friendly mode for a long time....if ever.

Think we will see battery operated jets? Maybe, but not any time soon. I vote closer to never.

At some point people will see the foolishness of a Prius, Volt or ethanol.

Maybe Swift will be a viable solution. I can't comment on the factors involved from going from a test fuel to full scale production. Time will tell.

I just read a USA Today article on electric cars. We can start with several conditions that must be met before they are viable replacements for the internal combustion engine:

1) They must have at least 80% of the range of a normal engine. Facts: With a reported range of 100 miles they are far from meeting that requirement.

2) They must reach their 100% (or greater than 95%) energy state (Full gas tank or full battery charge from any starting condition including 0% in less than 15 minutes. Facts: The charging period for an electric car at 220V is in the neighborhood of eight hours so they fail here.

3) They must not cost more than 20% more than a comparable internal combustion engine. Facts: I don't have the article here but they may be double to triple the cost of a normal vehicle. Again they fail.

So even for cars electric power in the foreseeable future is not viable. Adapting that technology to aircraft is also a flawed approach today.

Biofuels may work for normal engines if they can be mass produced economically. We shall see.

In the meantime, all you electric car folks check into the cost of a battery system replacement.
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Ron,
I understand what you are saying. However, I would point out that these points are not specifically technological limitations as much as they are market limitations. The points you raise are the same issues that face all new changes in ways we do things. Eventually it will take a paradigm shift for any new method of doing something before the masses will accept the new method as a viable alternative to the existing method.

Your points actually sound like similar arguments against most all of the major innovations of man. scientific discoveries such as the discovery that the world is not flat; that the earth revolves around the sun; numerous medical discoveries; the printing press; steam engines that later led to the internal combustion engine which later led to the automobile; radio communications, harnessing of electricity, even flying itself, were all frowned upon by the, then current, established way of doing things as not viable alternatives to the status quo.

They all eventually made their way into our collective consciences and to our established way of life. Now that we have generations upon generations of established use of those means of doing things, we are still constantly trapped again by our unyielding ideas that nothing will work out to be better than what we already have.

Yes, it is true that if we do not change anything about how we currently operate we will be hard pressed to improve upon the existing technology with a totally different technology. So that leaves the notion that in order for the new technology to replace the old, we will have to move away from the current means of operation and embrace something entirely new and different.

This is the true stumbling block of any new way of doing things. It is the stumbling block fo the idea of using electricity to power our mobility. Until individuals, then groups of individuals, then society as a whole, accepts the idea that there could be a different way of doing things the new technology will not replace the old.
 
Ron, your "USA TODAY" article treats perceived market assumptions as if they were written in stone. Sorry, but it just sounds like knee jerk denial to me. Couple years ago the old fossil who ramrodded Government Motors stood behind a podium and told us all that GM wouldn't make a hybrid because "we don't believe the american public will buy a hybrid". Look what happened next. My guess is that biofuels will someday power airliners and big rigs. Everything else will be electric. I'll take bets on this unless the "Mr Fusion" reactor from Back To The Future becomes reality.
Really, are we gonna put up 15% efficiency forever?
 
Alternative Fuels Developments

Give Ron Lee a break, folks. He is simply pointing out that the support for biofuels is losing one of its supporters, Al Gore. Aluminum foil hat and flat earther are just not appropriate.

If you took the time to read the article, it pointed out that 41% of the US corn production is being used for fuel. Did you hear me? And some of you have a paradigm that using food for fuel is ok. Something here for South Park, I think.

I think it would be dandy if my tax dollars were used to develop a replacement fuel for 100ll, and I think it would be nice if your tax dollars bought me the replacement engine for my O-320 that could safely use this new fuel. I haven't had anything free in quite a while, but hey, to each according to their need.

Couple years ago the old fossil who ramrodded Government Motors stood behind a podium and told us all that GM wouldn't make a hybrid because "we don't believe the american public will buy a hybrid". Look what happened next.

What happened next? The government stepped in.

So the point is...don't pick on Ron because he values his and your freedoms, and has a different view of how technological advances occur.

Do your magic, Paul.

Mike Bauer
N918MB RV6
Burning Unleaded Premium Without Ethanol
 
Not pickin on Ron, he's okay. I guess I'm just saying that markets often don't grow by themselves, they are created.
 
Thanks Mike, but I am not being picked on. I have the conviction of being right.

We in the USA spend about $8 billion in taxpayer money yearly to support a fuel additive that does not make sense. Aerhead, please explain to me how that meets your market support viewpoint. If the public wants it and it meets a need, it would not need $8 billion a year in tax subsidies.

Then it has caused how much increase in food costs because of the diversion of a food to fuel? More billions?

How much have we wasted on plants to make ethanol?

Now Al Gore, who supposedly cast the deciding vote to start us on the ethanol folly track, seems to admit that he did it just to get votes.

Swift fuel was touted in recent years as providing more energy than 100LL and costing less. If they accomplish that and it works in the entire GA fleet, I don't care if they make it from fairy dust.

But failures like ethanol need to be stopped and not continued because of some holy allegiance to "saving the Earth."
 
Intersting

Of course the whole "going electric to save the environment" argument also has a significant flaw..I.e where does that "earth saving" electricity come from?..Right now 52% of power in the US is from Coal..Read CO2, mercury and other noxins.

So burning fossle fuel vs burning coal..Well it could be that burning fuel is close to being as efficient that making electricity. The powerful coal lobby will never let any real alternatives cut into their market share..Unless it runs out of course.

The boutique wind farms and solar panels are a drop in the ocean, thats why there is very little lobbying to prevent them..Now if we ever got serious about nuclear (nucular) just watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth then!

Frank
 
Ron Lee said:
At some point people will see the foolishness of a Prius.....
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Foolishness? It gives me 50 mpg every time I use it. Beats the heck out of my pickup for the 16 mile drive to the airport. Pretty much, every 400 miles I put in eight gallons of gas - ordinary gasoline from the pump - in the Prius. The pickup won't even go 400 miles on a tank.
 
Think of a Fuel cell as a battery you pour electrolyte thru

Fuel cells are about 35% more efficient than piston (Carnot cycle) engines for power generation.
You run the hydrocarbon fuel into the cell, and electricity is created. The electricity powers a load (motor). The USA has lots of untapped natural gas.
As fuel cells become more common, and better, lighter ones are developed that run on cruder fuel stocks, they will take over the remote power generation industry, then enter the transportation industry.
Experimental planes will be the first to fly with fuel cell derived electricity.
Battery powered planes are the precursor to fuel cell planes.
The question? Are you willing to trust complex control computers in your propulsion, or are magnetos as complex as you are willing to go?
The combined weight of the fuel cell generator and the propulsion motor might always be more than a lycoming engine of equivalent power, but if the fuel consumption is less, the weight of fuel offset might make it work.
Operationally, you would have to start and warm up the fuel cell, and test the power output before flight. The motor would be nice and smooth.
Noises would be process fans and pumps for the fuel cell, and propeller noise.
What does that mean to us, today, while we build our RV's? NOTHING now get back to work!! :rolleyes:
Just kidding, There will be changes in the future, but the development costs are beyond most of us for the near future that we would build an RV in.
 
Not arguing about the 8 billion on ethanol. It's a scam. Don't forsee fry oil replacing Jet-A until scarcity sets in. I do disagree about electric cars though. There are proven setups that can go 300 miles on a battery. Range extending ICE makes charging not a problem most of the time. Battery swapping is also in the works. Problem is it's real expensive still. That will change. As for "boutique solar", I've lived on PV panels for 15 years now. This computer is running on stored sunlight right now. You can't tell me it doesn't work, and you can't tell me it's not practical. I just finished painting my RV-10 fuselage on "boutique solar panels". If every suburbanite would put panels on their roof it would put a huge dent in our energy imports. Boeing supposedly has put a cell driven electric drive in a Diamond HK36. Yuneec claims to be up to an hour and a half flight time already. We're just gettin rolling here. As for dissing the Prius, I'll say it again: My Prius smokes my Dodge magnum pickup and yields 50 MPG. You should se see it go past a bunch of diesel pickups going up a pass. As for coal, it's much less polluting and more efficient to centrally generate "coal electricity" than it is to pour gasoline into an engine that only yields 15% return. If that weren't the case, it would be cheaper to power your home on a genset (been there before).
 
Solar..not yet

The only place we could make it work financially on our buildings was in So cal where the electric rates are close to three times what we pay in the Pcific NW..Oh and the sun shines more too.

One day they will get more efficient, but not yet I fear.
 
Solar thermal is the most effective of the solar technologies. You guys should take a look at what the Iranians are doing with it! :D

(runs quickly away and hides)
 
Been following the solar racket since I majored in alternative energy in the seventies. Biggest reason payback times are so long is actually due to the gouge most people pay for installation. Panels can now be had for less than $2/watt. A homeowner who does his own shopping and installation can get payback time down under 3 years given a $ .12/kw-hr rate. This would be for an average sunlight area. Places with extreme sun can even shorten that. Don't just read an article and take it as gospel. Price out some panels, grid tie inverter, fat wire, etc. and run the numbers against your local rate. Find out what your power company will pay (retail vs avoided cost). Check State and federal grants/rebates. I think a lot of you will be surprised. Then tell me solar is "not yet". Grid-tie systems are THE answer. No batteries means no wasted juice, no replacement costs. Every homeowner who grid-ties actually UNLOADS the grid instead of straining it. You can't lose, seriously. Every gallon of fuel saved on the ground is one more gallon we can burn in an aircraft (until we run out).
 
Ron Lee said:
Breister, that analogy is flawed. There is no requirement that a 100LL solution must beat the efficiency of a battery/electrical device.
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Incorrect - ultimately it must. Why? Because, all things compared, any two processes which convert sunlight to stored energy will be competing for land. If process A which converts sunlight to a petroleum-replacing fuel is 30% efficient while process B which converts sunlight into electricity stored in a super battery (not invented yet, but seems probable in the long term) is 90% efficient, then it will take 3 times as much land using process A to obtain the same amount of net stored energy. That ignores the fact that internal combustion engines only use about 1/3 of the stored energy in the fuel. Thus, combining the two it seems probable that in the long term converting sunlight to liquid fuel burned in an internal combustion engine will require 9 times as much land to accomplish the same amount of effective work.

If people want a battery operated plane...go for it. I doubt that we will see it work to power even an RV in a user friendly mode for a long time....if ever.
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I was speaking of the long term. IMHO, that day is a lot closer than most people think it is - but even at our current average pace of about 6% battery improvement per year break-even will happen in 10-15 years. It seems unlikely that we will run out of gas in that short period.

Think we will see battery operated jets? Maybe, but not any time soon. I vote closer to never.

At some point people will see the foolishness of a Prius, Volt or ethanol.

Maybe Swift will be a viable solution. I can't comment on the factors involved from going from a test fuel to full scale production. Time will tell.
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I met with them in their lab. Nice folks. There is in fact a dollar point at which they become a viable alternative, but their process requires over-sized plants which will likely be idle part of each year. Very inefficient.

I just read a USA Today article on electric cars. We can start with several conditions that must be met before they are viable replacements for the internal combustion engine:

1) They must have at least 80% of the range of a normal engine. Facts: With a reported range of 100 miles they are far from meeting that requirement.
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True today; this hurdle will be overcome.

2) They must reach their 100% (or greater than 95%) energy state (Full gas tank or full battery charge from any starting condition including 0% in less than 15 minutes. Facts: The charging period for an electric car at 220V is in the neighborhood of eight hours so they fail here.
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That depends, and the information given is not clear. You can charge enough juice for about 5 miles of driving in one hour using a 110v outlet, double that for 220v. 8 hours at 220v thus yields about 80 miles of driving - further than most people commute each day; the majority of people commute only around 40.

However, all of this can be changed if the home charging station is based upon it's own storage pack (which would keep you from needing to have extremely high peak demand when charging). Such a setup would allow charging at much higher voltages and in shorter time. Again, the hurdle is the same - cheap batteries.

3) They must not cost more than 20% more than a comparable internal combustion engine. Facts: I don't have the article here but they may be double to triple the cost of a normal vehicle. Again they fail.
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Yep. The motor / controller is probably already cheaper for the same or better performance; the batteries are wanting.

So even for cars electric power in the foreseeable future is not viable. Adapting that technology to aircraft is also a flawed approach today.
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Agreed. Which is why I said "in the long term."

Biofuels may work for normal engines if they can be mass produced economically. We shall see.

In the meantime, all you electric car folks check into the cost of a battery system replacement.
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I do. Every week. For those interested in being in-the-know about the latest developments, I like the MIT Technology Review.
 
Ron Lee said:
<snip>But failures like ethanol need to be stopped and not continued because of some holy allegiance to "saving the Earth."
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Absolutely agree. Whole point of my other post was that there is absolutely no need for government to stick their noses in here because we can already predict with some accuracy that their "solutions" are stop-gap nonsense mis-allocating resources to impractical solutions.

I think it's great that people are trying other solutions, but let's not waste taxpayer money subsidizing fingers in the dike when a whole new dam is on it's way.
 
I think it's great that people are trying other solutions, but let's not waste taxpayer money subsidizing fingers in the dike when a whole new dam is on it's way.
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I like that statement.
 
aerhed said:
As for dissing the Prius, I'll say it again: My Prius smokes my Dodge magnum pickup and yields 50 MPG. You should se see it go past a bunch of diesel pickups going up a pass.
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Haven't we discussed this one before? Its a pretty unfair comparison, they are two completely different vehicles. I've been hauling 175 gallons of water in my diesel pickup about every other day since the irrigation company turned off the canal. I don't expect my parents prius to be able to do that, or even try. I also haul 10 tons of hay on the 24' flatbed trailer hooked up to the gooseneck mount on the diesel pickup. even if you stuffed 2 or 3 bales of hay in the prius per trip you'd have so much more fuel costs and time wasted to make the equivalent load hauling trip. There is no comparison. Same with you hauling up a pass comparing to diesel trucks, it doesn't make any rational sense. We might as well compare a yuneec to a 380 and say the small one is so much quieter!

poking fun at the prius makes sense when you compare the purchase price and longevity to a conventional compact econo type car, which is exactly what the prius is if it didn't have the regenerator/ elec motor and battery

someday i think the smaller RV and longer wing RV will be a fair match to electric, but i think it is a long way aways, even with supposedly 8% increases per year in battery tech.

ps i bought a honda civic back in 94 i think, it had the same size as the prius, even more room in the back (it was a hatchback model), it got 50 miles to the gallon regularly on the highway/ freeway, and guess what? It cost me 10,000$ from the dealer. now for some reason they say its great how the "fit" makes 33 mpg or something like that? where has all the fuel economy gone? does all the emission control really suck that much mpg out of the smaller vehicles?
 
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Haven't we discussed this one before? Its a pretty unfair comparison, they are two completely different vehicles. I've been hauling 175 gallons of water in my diesel pickup about every other day since the irrigation company turned off the canal. I don't expect my parents prius to be able to do that, or even try. I also haul 10 tons of hay on the 24' flatbed trailer hooked up to the gooseneck mount on the diesel pickup. even if you stuffed 2 or 3 bales of hay in the prius per trip you'd have so much more fuel costs and time wasted to make the equivalent load hauling trip. There is no comparison.
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I think I can make this comparison when there's only one guy & no load on these pickups I pass. I also haul hay and water with my pickup, but I usually take the prius to the feed store, plenty of room. Have also hauled an airplane engine in the prius. Point is: Using a hog as your runabout is kinda like flying solo cross-country in a Beaver. If that's all you got, okay, but you'd be happier in an RV (notice how I brought this back around to RV's). Prius cost about 25K new. How much is a new Dura-Max? As for battery scoffers, my mom has an 01 prius & my wife has an 02 model. Both hybrid batteries are still in great shape, tires are way cheaper than any of my trucks (still have 3). Plus, I don't think the priuses will ever need a brake job. When you need a truck, you need a truck. That doesn't mean you need to buy a $40k truck every 3-4 years because you wore it out going to the grocery store. I live in a drilling boom town. Don't think I haven't heard it all. I've had guys box me in and intentionally belch diesel smoke at me to show their disdain. I'm used to it. Same as ignorant spam-canners making faces at my "homebuilt".
 
aerhed said:
I think I can make this comparison when there's only one guy & no load on these pickups I pass. I also haul hay and water with my pickup, but I usually take the prius to the feed store, plenty of room. Have also hauled an airplane engine in the prius. Point is: Using a hog as your runabout is kinda like flying solo cross-country in a Beaver. If that's all you got, okay, but you'd be happier in an RV (notice how I brought this back around to RV's). Prius cost about 25K new. How much is a new Dura-Max? As for battery scoffers, my mom has an 01 prius & my wife has an 02 model. Both hybrid batteries are still in great shape, tires are way cheaper than any of my trucks (still have 3). Plus, I don't think the priuses will ever need a brake job. When you need a truck, you need a truck. That doesn't mean you need to buy a $40k truck every 3-4 years because you wore it out going to the grocery store. I live in a drilling boom town. Don't think I haven't heard it all. I've had guys box me in and intentionally belch diesel smoke at me to show their disdain. I'm used to it. Same as ignorant spam-canners making faces at my "homebuilt".
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if you need the truck for its hauling capacity, sometimes it will have to be driven at less than that capacity. thats just the way of life. My ford was bought 1/2 year old in 99, its still running well for me. battery scoffers: heres a http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...ttery-life-replacement-cost-2.html#post941410 persons experience having a battery go bad. it happens, i'm just not sure anyone knows reliable numbers other than these random personal experiences. My parents prius' battery was discharged once had to get hauled to the shop. the battery was still good though.

an RV 12 with an electric motor and battery would be pretty cool if the weight can be managed.
 
Danny, perhaps someone can try it. But given current technology, what you you think your range would be?

Airspeed?

Useful load?

Recharge time to continue a cross country?

Cost to implement?

Then once you answer those tell me if it is realistic.
 
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I don't think it is possible with current technology. But look at the rapid change in model motors, from commercial intro of brushless motors just in the last decade, to sensored motors that have higher than 80% efficiencies. All it really took was someone to connect a new prototype with the buying public. I think similar engine, controller, and battery technologies will be found and applied to full size (or nearly full size) airplanes. no one knows the timeline though, but i can guess it is usually going to be longer than any electric motor fan would like.
 
Sport Aviation had an article about year ago I think on an electric sonex. (I'm trying to remember the details without hunting for the article)

They had an hour of charge, and let it charge overnight and during the day when they were at work. For their purpose of very cheap pattern work / local sightseeing, it sounded like it worked really well. I think they also had conventionally powered airplanes for their cross-country adventures.

A lot of my flight training was 1 hour local flights so it doesn't sound like an unreasonable idea to me. I'm guessing an hour of electricity is a whole lot less than an hour of avgas.
 
fuel

Fossil fuel is the most efficient fuel we have. It takes a gallon of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of corn ethanol so how is that efficient. We are burning fuel to add ethanol to our fuel. Some hybrid cars are a joke. they don't get that good of fuel mileage . I have had several Saturn cars that would get 40mpg and now they quit mqking them because of politics. Electric cars have there place but not where I live. We do not have the electrical grid that would support a whole lot of electric cars. fossil fuel is still the most efficient fuel to produce and least costly.
 
an RV 12 with an electric motor and battery would be pretty cool if the weight can be managed.
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At least you wouldn't have to worry about spilling fuel on the back window. This is good discussion. Makes people think, at least. Have you seen R/C electrics do a prop hang while someone plucks them out of the air? Now that'd be a good way to land an "A" model! Just need some guy with giant fingers to set you on the ramp.
 
For those concerned about the environment, or simply interested in what's coming soon, here are a few interesting developments:

CO2 scrubber for coal plants - economically reduce CO2 emissions by 90%. Impact: If applied globally, would reduce coal plant emissions to pre-industrial levels.

Liquid Battery that never wears out. Impact: If deployed at power sub-stations around the country along with the associated electronics (charger / inverter), would allow leveling power loads so that all power plants could operate continuously at optimum (e.g. least polluting / most efficient) levels. Such stationary batteries are critical to future inclusion of variable energy sources such as solar and wind power. It would also help alleviate concerns about upgrading the transmission infrastructure to handle the additional burden of a growing fleet of electric vehicles. Finally, they may start building such things into the foundations of new homes - so that every home has a built-in backup power system. No more power outages!

Metal-Air Ionic Batteries. Impact: Potentially 11 times the energy density of the best lithium-ion batteries. This is the holy grail, folks - because this is right in the vicinity of equaling the energy density of gasoline. Will this be the technology that takes us there? Too soon to tell, but one thing is fairly certain - once we have proven the feasibility in the lab, it's just a matter of reducing manufacturing costs. Given that electricity is ultimately around 10% of the cost per kilowatt of delivered power, the batteries can be fairly expensive and still make sense in the long run (e.g. for airplanes).
 
vgb said:
fossil fuel is still the most efficient fuel to produce and least costly.
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The cost math is not quite as simple as it appears. Don't forget to figure in the low efficiency for an internal combustion engine (at best only 30-40%) and the trillions of dollars spent (not to mention lives) to secure the source of mid-east oil and the cost of gasoline is quite higher.
 
When the scheduled 14,000 year warming trend ends (it's near enough, see Burt Rutan's presentation) and the falacy of global warming is abandoned, Power systems will again be judged on merit, not politics and crony capitalism.
Maybe sooner if the global economy continues to collapse. Austerity programs are already spreading across Europe, and every debter nation will have to face the fact that all those laws to promote fairness and reelect incumbants have bogged down the economy. Subsidies for 'green jobs' will dry up. Good ideas can make it on merit alone.
Electric cars make sense if the trips are short. Communites will adapt, city parking meters will be recharge stands. Just swipe your debit card.
Personal parking spaces at work will become even more cherished for the recharge stand. This is how limited battery capacity is mitigated.
Batteries will slide out like cassettes, so flight lessons can continue all day.
Gasoline and synthetic equivalents will still be available. Cars and trucks will have computers that tune the engine for whatever fuel. Sort of diesels with spark plugs that are also combustion sensors. Folks in the exburbs and countryside might not find electric cars useful.
Nothing will be like it was, yet it will still be the same. You can still fly a Jenny, drive your cherished Pickup and park it next to your new fangled Electrik plane.
The next issue is infrastructure. I never noticed anyone other than this forum mention it. It took a century to develop our liquid hydrocarbon delivery system to what it is now. Electric grid improvements seem the most possible on the established system if new power plants are permitted & built. Methane Hydrates and Natural gas...we have lots of it.
 
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Oil Structure

As you can guess from my name, I am no scientist, but have a few thoughts:
1) Gasoline infrastructure developed in about 20 years to meet the demand of the times. It has continued to develop as the demands changed. Some of us worked as tank fillers (sorry, driveway salesmen) as recently as the late '70s;
2) Government intervention has slowed the progress of every innovation in history, with the possible exception of the internet. It could be that exotic propulsion will be the latest exception, but I doubt it. No new idea has taken off without private investment and a skeptical public changing over time;
3) Unintended/unforeseen consequences are never part of the math. Try as we might, we never get them all right. Are solar panels, electric cars, wind power, ethanol, or nuclear propulsion developing enough to be the next big thing? Who knows. We have, however, been working on ALL OF THEM for at least 100 years and none of them have taken off. Time and again, they have promised to fix what ails us. With few exceptions, we still fill up at gas stations;
4) Finally, where's my Flying Car? Popular Science and Popular Mechanics have been promising me one for 50 years. All it needed to be was small, fast, easily converted to flight, the same price as a normal small airplane/sports car, and legal. I can't wait any longer; an RV7 will have to suffice. Now I will need a hangar, a runway, pilot certificates, etc. This is making me angrier than I can articulate. Where's my Flying Car? :)D Humorous ending, in case you couldn't tell. I'll send my home address by email to anyone who wants to come over and slap me for heresy, poor writing, bad jokes, or illogic.)
Rick Vinas
San Antonio
RV7/A Empennage nearly done
 
Infrastructure

SHIPCHIEF said:
When the scheduled 14,000 year warming trend ends (it's near enough, see Burt Rutan's presentation) and the falacy of global warming is abandoned, Power systems will again be judged on merit, not politics and crony capitalism.
Maybe sooner if the global economy continues to collapse. Austerity programs are already spreading across Europe, and every debter nation will have to face the fact that all those laws to promote fairness and reelect incumbants have bogged down the economy. Subsidies for 'green jobs' will dry up. Good ideas can make it on merit alone.
Electric cars make sense if the trips are short. Communites will adapt, city parking meters will be recharge stands. Just swipe your debit card.
Personal parking spaces at work will become even more cherished for the recharge stand. This is how limited battery capacity is mitigated.
Batteries will slide out like cassettes, so flight lessons can continue all day.
Gasoline and synthetic equivalents will still be available. Cars and trucks will have computers that tune the engine for whatever fuel. Sort of diesels with spark plugs that are also combustion sensors. Folks in the exburbs and countryside might not find electric cars useful.
Nothing will be like it was, yet it will still be the same. You can still fly a Jenny, drive your cherished Pickup and park it next to your new fangled Electrik plane.
The next issue is infrastructure. I never noticed anyone other than this forum mention it. It took a century to develop our liquid hydrocarbon delivery system to what it is now. Electric grid improvements seem the most possible on the established system if new power plants are permitted & built. Methane Hydrates and Natural gas...we have lots of it.
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It is my understanding that it wasn't inventing the light bulb that made Edison wealthy. It was developing the the power grid to deliver the electricity to light the bulbs. General Electric was originally the Edison General Electric Company. So you are correct that infrastructure is the biggest issue to solve. It will be natural for people involved in the current infrastructure, e.g., gasoline companies with huge tanker truck fleets, to resist change. Who can blame them? No one likes to lose his job. Transition to new technology is harder than Edison developing the power grid. He had no vested interests to compete with.

LarryT
 
grass for gas [ lawn grass that is]

Does anybody know what happened to the grass for gas alternate fuel
 
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