How much longer?

Jay Honeck wrote:
I think your desire to blame environmentalists is an
oversimplification of a complicated situation. I think your
description of short-sighted leadership is probably pretty correct,
but not for the reasons you like to believe.

Of course there are many aspects of the energy problem. They are all,
however, exacerbated by stupid, over-the-top environmental rules that
are abused by folks with a not-so-hidden agenda.

Just TRY to get something as simple as, oh, say, a runway extension
completed, and observe the almost unbelievable quantity of environmental
red tape that must be overcome. Now imagine building an OIL REFINERY.
Ain't gonna happen with the current set of rules.

If I were "King for a day", I would decree the following "4 Steps to
American Energy Independence":

1. New refineries are not being built because draconian environmental
rules prevent them from being constructed. As of now, all environmental
restrictions on oil refinery construction are lifted.

2. New oil is not being pumped because draconian environmental rules
prevent new oil fields from being developed. As of now all
environmental restrictions on development of known oil reserves are lifted.

3. New nuclear power plants are not being built because draconian
environmental rules prevent their construction. As of now all
environmental restrictions on construction of new nuclear plants are
lifted.

4. By decree, hydrogen fuel is now the way of the future -- period.
From this point on, by my decree, the scientific and industrial
capacity of the United States will be used to perfect a hydrogen
distribution system to replace our current gasoline distribution system,
and all cars will be powered by hydrogen. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/6hklhf

These four steps will, in a matter of a decade, resolve 90% of our
problems. Unfortunately, it will take another Great Depression to shake
our system enough to force a repeal of the environmental restrictions
that make resolving our energy problems impossible.

Well, Jay, just let me say I'm glad you aren't king! :-)

"Alan" wrote in message
...
In article Jim Logajan
writes:
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

3. New nuclear power plants are not being built because draconian
environmental rules prevent their construction. As of now all
environmental restrictions on construction of new nuclear plants are
lifted.

Not needed:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...n6xZeeLKqBXnLg

2 plants in the country? Good to get started, but We should probably
be building 20 - 30 in California alone.

However:
California law prohibits the construction of any new nuclear power
plants in California until the Energy Commission finds that the
federal government has approved and there exists a demonstrated
technology for the permanent disposal of spent fuel from these
facilities.
Source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html

We need to do something about that. We should be recycling this
slightly used nuclear fuel, not throwing it away.

Very true. I don't know how much of the energy we are currently using from
out nuclear fuel, but there is certainly a tremendous resource remaining and
we should be using it as fully as we are able.

[ Now, I would suggest that all electrical power to Sacramento (the
CA capitol) be shut off until the legislature comes to their senses. ]

4. By decree, hydrogen fuel is now the way of the future -- period.
From this point on, by my decree, the scientific and industrial
capacity of the United States will be used to perfect a hydrogen
distribution system to replace our current gasoline distribution
system, and all cars will be powered by hydrogen. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/6hklhf

Well at least you linked to an article that makes clear that the hydrogen
has to be generated from another source of energy. H2 sucks anyway on
several counts - and your last decree will essentially ground all small
aircraft, including your own. Contrary to your ultimate goal, I assume.

Indeed. Hydrogen is a difficult fuel, with fairly low energy density
for a givin volume. It is also difficult to handle and transport safely.

Currently, the only known way of cramming hydrogen into a small enough
volume to be of use in your airplane is, ironically, by _lightly_ binding
the H atoms to something like, oh say, carbon. A hydrocarbon.

Which makes for a better fuel, safer, and well suited to running our
aircraft.

All we need to do is extract the carbon from the atmosphere, and I have
seen hints that such may be reasonably doable.

Alan

My only dissagreement here is that I wonder whether extracting carbon from
the atmosphere is really necessary, or even usefull. There seems to be
evidence that increased CO2 in the atmosphere results in increased plant
growth--and that means that plants will extract the CO2 for us, with no
polution nor industrial effort, and will yeild food and other products in
the process.

Peter

(Alan) wrote in
:

In article Bertie the
Bunyip writes:
"Mike Isaksen" wrote in
news:KRwKj.1375$XC1.1247 @trndny08:


"Alan" wrote ...
Bertie the Bunyip writes:
I will fly as long as there is air. Gasoline be damned.
I started without it and I'll finish withour if needs be.

You say you started without - how?
Even gliders seem to need tows.

Maybe he'll build an electric motor rope launch skid powered by wind
turbines.



Could do. There's lots of ways you can winch launch. The current world
record distance flight was launched off the back of a car. Probably a
thirty second tow, if that.

I doubt that this was an electric car charged from solar or wind
power,
was it? I'll bet it burned gasoline (or perhaps diesel fuel).

Point is, there's a million ways to skin a cat. If neceesity dictated,
a way would be found.

And your answer is?


I could fly a hang glider or an airplane powered by anyhting I cared to
grow. It's only an answer for me.


Unless you have a better answer, I suggest folks start building
nuclear
power plants, and looking hard at extracting carbon from the
atmosphere to combine with hydrogen from water to produce various
petroleum fuels. We are not prepared to deal with hydrogen -- I can
just imagine the news stories about the result of accidents at
hydrogen fueling stations.

Well, Not so keen on the nukes unless they get that contraption at
Cadarache going. I was pointing out "where there is a will there is a
way" as an antidote to whiney Jay wondering where his bottle has gone.



Bertie

(Alan) wrote in
:

In article Bertie the
Bunyip writes:
"Mike Isaksen" wrote in
news:KRwKj.1375$XC1.1247 @trndny08:


"Alan" wrote ...
Bertie the Bunyip writes:
I will fly as long as there is air. Gasoline be damned.
I started without it and I'll finish withour if needs be.

You say you started without - how?
Even gliders seem to need tows.

Maybe he'll build an electric motor rope launch skid powered by wind
turbines.



Could do. There's lots of ways you can winch launch. The current world
record distance flight was launched off the back of a car. Probably a
thirty second tow, if that.

I doubt that this was an electric car charged from solar or wind
power,
was it? I'll bet it burned gasoline (or perhaps diesel fuel).

Point is, there's a million ways to skin a cat. If neceesity dictated,
a way would be found.

And your answer is?

Unless you have a better answer, I suggest folks start building
nuclear
power plants, and looking hard at extracting carbon from the
atmosphere to combine with hydrogen from water to produce various
petroleum fuels. We are not prepared to deal with hydrogen -- I can
just imagine the news stories about the result of accidents at
hydrogen fueling stations.


BTW, hydrogen is no real problem in regards to that. It can be used
safely in surface transport and fuelled safely as well. The real problem
with it is making it.
It's not so good for airplanes. You have three storage options, one, as
a straight gas inside a cylinder, which is not such a good idea for a
lot of reasons. The volume required, even at a relatively high pressure,
to give you any sort of range, would be ferocious. A second option is to
carry it as a liquid, which requires extremely low temps. Fine for a
once off use, but once you leave your contraption parked for any length
of time the H2 is going to want to get out once it warms up a bit.
NASA was flying a Musketeer about thirty years ago with a liquid
hydrogen setup. It had thermos bottle fuel tanks that NASA said could
keep a cup of coffee hot for ten years, but even this approach is
fraught with problems. The Russians were flying a jet airliner on H2 as
an experiment in the 70's as well and the first succesful jet engine run
by von Ohain in the thirties was run on H2.The russians needed most of
the fuselage volume to carry the fuel. Not a great commercial idea.
Also, the DC-10 was actually designed with possible conversion to H2 in
mind. It would have required fuselage plugs to install fuel tanks in a
stretched fuselage as the volume available in the wings would not have
been sufficient. Note that the energy value by weight is considerably
better for hydrogen, so you'd go further for a given fuel weight penalty
in an airplane as opposed hydrocafbon fuels. Bit scary to have two big
fuselage tanks filled with the stuff as a loose gas, though. Having said
that you're sitting on a lot of high explosive in the center tank on an
airliner anyway.
The third option is to have fuel tanks filled with a metal hydride. This
allows a good deal of hydrogen to be carried at a low pressure and if
the tank ruptures the only fire would be at the hydride surface. This
third option is much less of a risk than carrying gasoline. Much much
less. But the tanks are extremely heavy. A tank to carry enough fuel to
propel a family sized car an equivelant distance to 15 gallon fuel tank
would weigh in the region of 300-400 lbs. Less for a good fuel cell
powered car.It's clearly not a runner for an airplane.
Still, it's an option I would go for now for my car if the H2 was made
in a friendly manner. There are people doing this at home, BTW, using
solar and/or wind. It's expensive to gear up for it. Very expensive. But
it can be done and it would be cheaper were it done on a larger scale
and with metal hydride tanks it's very safe. If you want, you can do
this right now. Today. Converting an IC car to hydrogen is not difficult
and the stuff to do it is freely available. The new Morgan sports car is
available as a dual fuel car. And there is a fuel cell powered
motorcycle for sale as well, the "NV". It's a kind of a trail bike.
Neither is cheap, but again, neither is that much more expensive than a
standard issue contraption
There are already many countries using LPG for fuel. The refueling
challenges are exactly the same and it's being done safely, so that's no
excuse either... In any case look at the death and destruction on the
roads we count as acceptable in our love affair with the car. Do you
think a handful of refuelling explosions would stop people if it were
the only way? Thankfully that's not an issue anyway.
The only real problem with hydrogen for surface use is the clean
manufacture of it and that is a big problem. It's a plentiful resource
only if you can extract it from water without using something dirty and
nasty to do so.



Bertie

Jay Honeck wrote:


1. New refineries are not being built because draconian environmental
rules prevent them from being constructed. As of now, all environmental
restrictions on oil refinery construction are lifted.

A bigger reason that new oil refineries aren't being built, as well as
nuclear waste facilities, is that no one wants one near his playground.
Everyone wants a new refinery in someone else's backyard. Any way you
cut it, oil companies undeniably have the profits to build refineries,
but where is it going to be located?
You can't blame environmentalists for everything you don't like. Over
the last almost eight years I haven't noticed any environmentalists
running the show in Washington. Quite the opposite, in fact, but the
price of oil continues to climb, obviously due to factors other than
your phantom environmentalists.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:36KKj.111170$yE1.33995@attbi_s21:

Dan, time to send Jay some photos of the "new" plane for the Rogue's
Gallery.

I did; months ago.

Sorry, guys. I "lost that lovin' feelin'" for the 'groups -- and,
thus, the Rogue's Gallery -- after the trolls took over. When most of
the regulars were driven off the groups, there didn't seem much point
in maintaining the gallery anymore.

Gee, maybe we should add pictures of the trolls to the gallery? If
anyone has any pictures they'd like to submit of, oh, say, a bunyip,
I'd be glad to add them.



Aww, I thought I didn't exist in your world anymore Jay.





Bertie

Buttman wrote in news:ftg4tq$l39$1
@registered.motzarella.org:

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:07:11 +0000, Jay Honeck sayeth:

If
anyone has any pictures they'd like to submit of, oh, say, a bunyip, I'd
be glad to add them.

Found one:

http://www2.badtux.net/uploaded_imag...man-733339.jpg


Oh dear. That'd probably really hurt if I was fat or if I dressed poorly.

OTOH, there's no mistaking the fact that you and Jay are fjukktards.


Bertie

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:LfXKj.112154$yE1.66521@attbi_s21:

I think your desire to blame environmentalists is an
oversimplification of a complicated situation. I think your
description of short-sighted leadership is probably pretty correct,
but not for the reasons you like to believe.

Of course there are many aspects of the energy problem. They are all,
however, exacerbated by stupid, over-the-top environmental rules that
are abused by folks with a not-so-hidden agenda.

Just TRY to get something as simple as, oh, say, a runway extension
completed, and observe the almost unbelievable quantity of
environmental red tape that must be overcome. Now imagine building an
OIL REFINERY. Ain't gonna happen with the current set of rules.

If I were "King for a day", I would decree the following "4 Steps to
American Energy Independence":

1. New refineries are not being built because draconian environmental
rules prevent them from being constructed. As of now, all
environmental restrictions on oil refinery construction are lifted.


idiot.

2. New oil is not being pumped because draconian environmental rules
prevent new oil fields from being developed. As of now all
environmental restrictions on development of known oil reserves are
lifted.


Nope, wrong again, fjukktard.

3. New nuclear power plants are not being built because draconian
environmental rules prevent their construction. As of now all
environmental restrictions on construction of new nuclear plants are
lifted.


Yeah, god forbid that a few thousand deaths and an area the size of New
Jersey being made uninhabitable gets between you and your mindless
aerial hazard forays into the wild blue.

4. By decree, hydrogen fuel is now the way of the future -- period.
From this point on, by my decree, the scientific and industrial
capacity of the United States will be used to perfect a hydrogen
distribution system to replace our current gasoline distribution
system, and all cars will be powered by hydrogen. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/6hklhf


You are a moron. Hydrogen is not a fuel, it is a medium. What you gonna
make it with, Jay?




Bertie

"Peter Dohm" wrote in
:


"Alan" wrote in message
...
In article Jim Logajan
writes:
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

3. New nuclear power plants are not being built because draconian
environmental rules prevent their construction. As of now all
environmental restrictions on construction of new nuclear plants
are lifted.

Not needed:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...n6xZeeLKqBXnLg

2 plants in the country? Good to get started, but We should
probably
be building 20 - 30 in California alone.

However:
California law prohibits the construction of any new nuclear power
plants in California until the Energy Commission finds that the
federal government has approved and there exists a demonstrated
technology for the permanent disposal of spent fuel from these
facilities.
Source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/nuclear/california.html

We need to do something about that. We should be recycling this
slightly used nuclear fuel, not throwing it away.

Very true. I don't know how much of the energy we are currently using
from out nuclear fuel, but there is certainly a tremendous resource
remaining and we should be using it as fully as we are able.

[ Now, I would suggest that all electrical power to Sacramento (the
CA capitol) be shut off until the legislature comes to their senses.
]

4. By decree, hydrogen fuel is now the way of the future -- period.
From this point on, by my decree, the scientific and industrial
capacity of the United States will be used to perfect a hydrogen
distribution system to replace our current gasoline distribution
system, and all cars will be powered by hydrogen. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/6hklhf

Well at least you linked to an article that makes clear that the
hydrogen has to be generated from another source of energy. H2 sucks
anyway on several counts - and your last decree will essentially
ground all small aircraft, including your own. Contrary to your
ultimate goal, I assume.

Indeed. Hydrogen is a difficult fuel, with fairly low energy
density
for a givin volume. It is also difficult to handle and transport
safely.

Currently, the only known way of cramming hydrogen into a small
enough volume to be of use in your airplane is, ironically, by
_lightly_ binding the H atoms to something like, oh say, carbon. A
hydrocarbon.

Which makes for a better fuel, safer, and well suited to running our
aircraft.

All we need to do is extract the carbon from the atmosphere, and I
have
seen hints that such may be reasonably doable.

Alan

My only dissagreement here is that I wonder whether extracting carbon
from the atmosphere is really necessary, or even usefull. There seems
to be evidence that increased CO2 in the atmosphere results in
increased plant growth--and that means that plants will extract the
CO2 for us, with no polution nor industrial effort, and will yeild
food and other products in the process.

Yes, the increased CO2 in the atmosphere does lend itself to increased
plant growth. In fact,it's a bit of a mystery, or at least it has been a
bit of a mystery that all the CO2 we've produced over the last 200 years
hasn['t increased the carbon in the atmosphere as much as it should
have. The explanation is the rainforests. The increased CO2 in the
atmosphere has partly been absorbed by the rainforests, particularly the
Amazon. Sounds like a good thing, eh? Not neccesarily. The problem is
twofold. First, we're still cutting it down to beat the the band, lately
one of the main culpriots has been the thirst for biofuels. Indonesia
has been decimating its rainforests for land to grow crops for fuel for
the industrialised world. At the current rate, their forest will be
completely gone in a few more years. And of course, we're still chopping
it down for hardwoods and grazing lands as well. the bigger problem is,
the rainforests have had a fairly steady diet of CO2 for millenia and an
increase upsets the balance and may well result in a forst that grows so
quickly that it outstrips the nutrients in the soil and the result could
be desertification of the region or, at least a modification to
scrubland. Either way, no more rain forest and no more CO2 accumulator.





Bertie

Bertie

Dylan Smith wrote in
:

On 2008-04-08, Jay Maynard wrote:
Alternatives are impractical until there's a complete, comprehensive
distribution infrastructure in place. That'll take 20 years. There's
also a significant chicken-and-egg problem.

Diesel from algae has the potential for 10000 usg/acre used (and is
more of an industrial than agricultural process). So far it's not been
developed because oil has been so cheap.



Really? Haven't heard anything at all of this process.. I'll have to
have a look around unless you can shortcut me to somewhere ...




Bertie

The infrastructure already exists for that sort of fuel.

There's also no chicken and egg problem for using fuel more wisely.
We've only been wasteful of it because it's been so cheap it's not
been worth using it efficiently. There are significant efficiencies
that can be had that do not result in "economic squalor". For example,
insulating my Victorian house halved my winter heating bills and made
the house more pleasant to live in. Hardly 'squalor', in fact the very
opposite.