On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 04:06:08 GMT,
wrote:


On 22-Apr-2006, Roger wrote:

We are going to see the
demand for high grade avgas drop to the point where it will become
unavailable. Then we'll have to find gas without alcohol and
additives so we can burn it in the high compression engines.


I think that there will still be enough demand for a suitable high octane
aviation gasoline that it will be made available -- at some price. The real

It's that "some price" that is scary.

key is that Continental and Lycoming need to get to work on building engines
(and airframe manufacturers need to make fuel tanks and lines) that work
with premium mogas, including those with ethanol. Otherwise, the future for
light GA aircraft will be diesel

But I think that mogas as we know it is going to go away and in the
not too distant future.



Hydrogen, when looked at on a large scale, makes all this other stuff
look cheap.

Depends on the original energy source. Right now, photovoltaic systems can
be constructed for about $1 per delivered watt, or $1 million per megawatt,

True, but so far that is on a very localized basis. Plus for hydrogen
you are limited to the distribution system that has yet to be
implemented except on a small scale. Electricity is easier to
transport and the electric farm you list below is one whale of a good
start. Unfortunately our power grid is only capable of *almost*
meeting peak demands. Cars user far more energy so that would mean
either trucking vast amounts of Hydrogen, increasing the size of our
electric grid several fold over what we have now, or a combination of
both with the latter being the most likely. I think though that the
bio fuels will probably outdo the Hydrogen overall in the big
picture.. It's easier to increase trucking incrementally than it is to
increase the power grid.

The electric car is probably the least desirable as it would require
the greatest infrastructure change and is the least efficient "over
all".

Add into this the bio-fuels and the need for Hydrogen and electric
powered cars is greatly reduced. At least the Metal Hydrides used for
Hydrogen storage make a take full of H2 safer than one full of gas.

BTW, Hydrogen is treated more like the batter in the electric car than
a fuel. There is a loss in net energy with its production and another
loss in its use just as there is in using a battery to store
electrical energy.

and prices are coming down. Vast photoelectric farms in the desert could

On a local basis, going solar power to really power the home is about
$20,000 and that is for Florida. Up here in the frozen, cloudy north
it's not very practical unless you can develop a way of capturing a
lot and then storing it .

I saw the figure given as a solar farm 100 miles on a side out in the
desert could power the entire US. That would be one expensive
undertaking:-)) Both from the solar farm and the distribution.
OTOH single farms large enough to replace a couple of fossil fuel
powered electric generation plants are not out of the question. Using
parabolic mirrors to collect heat to power generators would be much
more compact and at current costs probably run about 10 to 20% (my
SWAG) of a photovoltaic farm capable of creating the same power.
A couple of 10 or 12' dishes used to heat water could probably heat
enough water in one day to heat my home for 3 to 5 days. I know a 10'
dish can collect a *lot* of heat ever since I painted one with some
excess aircraft paint and it melted the feed horn.

produce copious amounts of cheap, environmentally innocuous electricity.
But how to transform that electric energy to a form that can readily be used
for highway transportation? Hydrogen from water dissociation.

It takes a lot of electricity to produce the Hydrogen on a large
scale. I used to work with the world's largest electrolytic Hydrogen
generator. The O2 was just blown off to the atmosphere as a
byproduct. That company used to have daily tankers of liquid H2
coming in and they had a tank farm for liquid H2.

The processes that used the H2 have been modified and streamlined to
the point where they use a very small percent of the H2, yet the basic
process that uses it has multiplied many fold.

Actually the tank farm AND the H2 generation cell are both gone with
just a *relatively* small tank remaining and I am speaking in relative
terms. That place is BIG and they are in the process of basically
doubling their capacity again.

One of the things I can refer to specifically is the change is the
basic charge to the customer. 30 some years ago the end product ran
as much as $165$ US per gram. Now the raw material is more pure than
that refined product and sells "some where" in the $2 to $5 a Kilogram
range.

That is a tremendous increase in efficiency.
Take that tot he Hybrid cars which I can say from experience my wife's
gets 50 MPG average. However hybrid cars take a different mind set.
These are not "economy cars". They are expensive cars (at present)
that get very good gas mileage. So although they save a *lot* at the
pump the overall operating cost has to be as much as many of the gas
guzzlers. OTOH the overall operating cost is far less than the new
luxury gas guzzlers.

As A personal opinion I see various forms of hybrid cars using various
fuels as being the current and at least short term way to go. They
alone in their current form "could be" enough to make us independent
from foreign oil and reduce the green house gases to acceptable
levels. In the mean time the alternative energy sources can be
developed to the point of being economically competitive, or even
economically superior.

The unfortunate down side is the people who really need the cars that
get high mileage can not afford them. Currently their only answer is
car pooling, driving less, mass transit, or moving closer to the
center of their activities.

One other step that is not going to be popular or painless is to empty
the high school parking lots and we could very easily see that happen.

As much as I'm afraid of being the one to put the first scratch on it,
I am now driving my wife's car (when it's available) and I don't need
the SUV for hauling *lots* of stuff. I can drive that thing to the
airport three times on about the same gas as it takes to get the SUV
there once and it gets good gas mileage. 20 years ago it would have
been considered outstanding.

They are talking 5 to 9 degrees over the next century. If it goes to
5 or 6 degrees, it is going to drastically alter some coast lines and
economies. If it really does go to 9 degrees some one needs to read up
on the "Permian Extension" (SP?)

Yes, we simply have to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, the leading
source of the greenhouse gas CO2. Burning biodiesel and ethanol also
produces CO2, of course, but growing the chlorophyll-based plants from which
these fuels are derived absorbs as much CO2 as is produced when they are
burned. No net add of CO2 to the atmosphere. Hydrogen/water cycle
generates zero greenhouse gases or any other pollutant.

IF you are using the biomass produced fuels to produce the materials
(crops) and produce more fuel, you have a net reduction.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


-Elliott Drucker