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Biodiesel is very much a viable thing, it’s just not cost effective yet until something is done about the cheap price of oil. It’s a chicken and egg problem, it’s expensive because we don’t have the infrastructure, nobody buys it because it’s expensive, since nobody buys it, nobody builds the infrastructure. Oops all capitalism.
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Sep 24, 2019 10:51
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Aviation fuel is not only exempt from the pollution costs, it's also exempt from pretty much all other taxes because of the protected status aviation has had. Another factor is that one country can't easily start taxing it, as all airlines would jump through any number of hoops to fuel anywhere else but there. But if everyone agrees to tax fossil jet fuel, while at the same time offering a non-fossil fuel alternative which is safe and doesn't consist entirely of poor people or their food, the economy thing is solved overnight. If it means fewer people can fly, fine. There's too much flying already.
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Sep 24, 2019 11:06
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Ola posted:Aviation fuel is not only exempt from the pollution costs, it's also exempt from pretty much all other taxes because of the protected status aviation has had. Another factor is that one country can't easily start taxing it, as all airlines would jump through any number of hoops to fuel anywhere else but there. Nah, in that scenario, everyone would just have to connect through Dubai regardless of their origin or destination. Emirati airlines already have a competitive advantage when it comes to fuel costs (and indentured labour). The replacement fuel has to be cheaper than the current cost of fuel, averaged out over however many years fuel futures were purchased. It doesn't have to be a lot, airlines are pretty good at making upfront capital expenditures for reduced future operating costs. That's why if they ever figure out electrification of flight, whoever builds the first airplane won't be able to build enough to keep up with demand, regardless of the cost of the aircraft.
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Sep 24, 2019 12:04
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Finger Prince posted:The replacement fuel has to be cheaper than the current cost of fuel Which can be accomplished with taxes and subsidies, which is exactly the sort of thing taxes and subsidies should be used for.
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Sep 24, 2019 12:07
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Finger Prince posted:Nah, in that scenario, everyone would just have to connect through Dubai regardless of their origin or destination. I think this would give a non-fossil flight between say Los Angeles and San Francisco a competitive advantage.
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Sep 24, 2019 12:09
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Hitler: “Make me a symmetrical plane.” B&V: “Sure thing.”  Hitler: “…it can only have one cockpit.” B&V: “Got it.” 
Platystemon fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 12:20
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Platystemon posted:Hitler: “Make me a symmetrical plane.” As much as it was a poo poo period of time for humans and what we did to one another, it would be amazing observing the bat poo poo crazy ideas everyone tried in the pursuit of more power.
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Sep 24, 2019 13:29
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Platystemon posted:
So that's where the Empire State Warhawk in Crimson Skies came from..
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Sep 24, 2019 13:53
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Biodiesel isn't more environmentally friendly than regular diesel. The error is in conflating renewable with clean. Renewable is not a useful category.
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Sep 24, 2019 14:02
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Mortabis posted:Biodiesel isn't more environmentally friendly than regular diesel. It is a bit better at least in regards to carbon, since in growing the fuel it’s pulling CO2 from the air.
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Sep 24, 2019 14:46
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AubU5FeUIs
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Sep 24, 2019 14:49
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Mortabis posted:Biodiesel isn't more environmentally friendly than regular diesel. No, it's you that conflates "doesn't emit anything harmful" with "doesn't increase atmospheric CO2". Biodiesel can have a cleaner emission profile than Jet A1, but it comes with its own set of problems.
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Sep 24, 2019 15:01
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It's rather obtuse to pretend that CO2 emissions are anything but the biggest single concern in any sort of engineering project. A heavy-metal/industrial-poison free environment isn't much good if your pristine planet is baking at 30C year round.
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Sep 24, 2019 15:12
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Ola posted:No, it's you that conflates "doesn't emit anything harmful" with "doesn't increase atmospheric CO2". Biodiesel can have a cleaner emission profile than Jet A1, but it comes with its own set of problems. ...how? Biodiesel is a messy mix of really long hydrocarbon chains, jet-a is a refined fuel consisting of relatively short ones for performance. Bio diesel would have to be refined to the same specifications, surely?
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Sep 24, 2019 15:24
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hobbesmaster posted:...how? Biodiesel is a messy mix of really long hydrocarbon chains, jet-a is a refined fuel consisting of relatively short ones for performance. Bio diesel would have to be refined to the same specifications, surely? Biodiesel exists, therefore bio-Jet A1 can exist. The starting point of the discussion was how jet engines can burn cats and dogs anyway. Obviously fuel, refining spec and engines would be engineered and certified.
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Sep 24, 2019 16:09
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e.pilot posted:It is a bit better at least in regards to carbon, since in growing the fuel it’s pulling CO2 from the air. And where does that CO2 go when the fuel is burned?
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Sep 24, 2019 16:28
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Into the air, to be captured by more plants. If we had been using biomass instead of coal since the industrial revolution, global warming would never have started. The problem with our carbon emissions is that we're pulling it from deep underground and putting it into the air. if your carbon is coming from the atmosphere in the first place, there's no net change in concentration
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Sep 24, 2019 16:33
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Cocoa Crispies posted:And where does that CO2 go when the fuel is burned? Back in the air obviously, but the problem isn't with "rejecting carbon in the atmosphere", it's with "extracting carbon from under the earth and then releasing it in the atmosphere". If there was no fuel but biofuel, we wouldn't have to deal with global warming from greenhouse effect. We also would have a lot less fuel by several orders of magnitude.
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Sep 24, 2019 16:44
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Ola posted:Aviation fuel is not only exempt from the pollution costs, it's also exempt from pretty much all other taxes because of the protected status aviation has had. Another factor is that one country can't easily start taxing it, as all airlines would jump through any number of hoops to fuel anywhere else but there. This thread turned regressive fast.
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Sep 24, 2019 19:47
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Cocoa Crispies posted:And where does that CO2 go when the fuel is burned? Back into the air to be reabsorbed by plants again and restarting the circle. What are you going to tell me next, wind turbines are worse for the environment than coal because it kills some birds?
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Sep 24, 2019 20:14
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Regional commuter electric planes would be cool and achievable, we should do that
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Sep 24, 2019 20:24
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Biofuels? That just sounds like solar with extra steps
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Sep 24, 2019 20:30
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shame on an IGA posted:Biofuels? That just sounds like solar with extra steps All our energy forms are solar with extra steps, even nuclear.
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Sep 24, 2019 20:31
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Ola posted:All our energy forms are solar with extra steps, even nuclear. 
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Sep 24, 2019 20:55
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Ola posted:All our energy forms are solar with extra steps, even nuclear. Nuclear isn’t from sol though
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Sep 24, 2019 21:00
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hobbesmaster posted:Nuclear isn’t from sol though
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Sep 24, 2019 21:03
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hobbesmaster posted:Nuclear isn’t from sol though Ideally I'd prefer all my uranium to be sourced from local artisan stars.
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Sep 24, 2019 21:04
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joat mon posted:For us it is, but only secondarily to solar being from nuclear. I mean if you want to count the entire protoplanetary disk as sol.
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Sep 24, 2019 21:08
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Infinotize posted:Regional commuter electric planes would be cool and achievable, we should do that I think we will, possibly even within our lifetimes.
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Sep 24, 2019 21:11
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Electric regional commuter planes already exist, for certain definitions of regional and numbers of commuters. Electric light trainers in the next couple of decades? Sure, totally technically possible, so we'll see them around assuming the world economy doesn't collapse. I've seen some videos of prototypes already. Electric CRJs flying from LA to SF? Ehhhhh *battery-electric, I should say. We could build a DC-9 with a nuclear reactor powering a pair of electric propfans tomorrow if only the dang gubmint would allow it Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 21:54
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Sagebrush posted:Electric regional commuter planes already exist, for certain definitions of regional and numbers of commuters. Other way around. Electric light trainers already exist, the Pipistrel Electro has been on the market for a while. It too counts as a regional commuter, if you own it and use it for commuting within your region. Nothing else I know of that's flying and takes more than 2 people.
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Sep 24, 2019 22:00
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That's kind of what I was getting at, yeah. A light trainer is indistinguishable from a "regional commuter" if the region is <300 mile radius and the number of commuters is <= 2. The Pipistrel electro exists, but only in single-digit numbers according to Wikipedia. e: and I dunno but I'm not really sure I'd want to be doing primary training in one. It says that the thing can fly for an hour (plus reserve) on a single charge. That's enough to go up and do six or seven laps in the pattern or a little bit of maneuver training right next to the field, but that's it. Would you want to learn all the basic airmanship in an electric plane only to have to switch to a gas one, with all of the differences that implies, for any cross-country work, or just any day that you have a couple of unbroken hours to practice? And since approximately 100% of aircraft out there are gas-powered, at this stage it seems like you'd be kinda handicapping yourself by not getting used to monitoring and operating a combustion engine? Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 22:45
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Sagebrush posted:That's kind of what I was getting at, yeah. A light trainer is indistinguishable from a "regional commuter" if the region is <300 mile radius and the number of commuters is <= 2 Ah, I see you are familiar with the essential air service program.
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Sep 24, 2019 22:48
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I flew EAS 8 people at a time for a while, it was fun.
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Sep 24, 2019 22:56
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hobbesmaster posted:I mean if you want to count the entire protoplanetary disk as sol. Sorry, I incorrectly interpreted sol as an abbreviation for solar energy, not sol as in Sol, our sun.
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Sep 24, 2019 23:01
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Someone flies a pilatus PC-12 from MSP to Thief River Falls. For work I interact with digikey a lot but they keep coming to the twin cities so I’ve not gotten a chance to try that yet. Seems like it’d be an experience. Edit: Boutique air. They somehow use the main terminal 1 along with Delta and the other non low cost carriers and tie up a real legitimate gate with a PC-12. I saw one today parked between a 717 and a CRJ-700. Even though those are small airliners it looked like a toy. hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 23:10
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hobbesmaster posted:Someone flies a pilatus PC-12 from MSP to Thief River Falls. For work I interact with digikey a lot but they keep coming to the twin cities so I’ve not gotten a chance to try that yet. Seems like it’d be an experience. They fly them out of DEN too. Along with Key Lime and Alpine Air with some of the random poo poo they fly. We get a Key Lime J328 that loves to be in the wrong place all the time being all kinds of slow.
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Sep 24, 2019 23:59
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Cat Mattress posted:Back in the air obviously, but the problem isn't with "rejecting carbon in the atmosphere", it's with "extracting carbon from under the earth and then releasing it in the atmosphere" This is the same nonsense that has Germany burning a shitload of wood because wood is a "renewable" resource. Yes, if you're planting forests that grow and turn into trees that you then cut down and burn that is technically approaching carbon neutrality (neglecting transport, etc). When you're taking forests that already existed and represent carbon sinks and turn them into pelletized wood and send them up the chimneys of the coal plants you keep around because you decided nuclear power was too dirty then you are not carbon neutral and you are loving things up worse despite burning a supposedly renewable fuel. Peat is as renewable as trees are, but excavating and burning peat bogs is drat sure not carbon-neutral. https://www.dw.com/en/burning-wood-under-fire-are-forests-going-up-our-chimneys/a-41586050 And when you make energy expensive enough, hey, people start chopping down trees and burning them themselves: https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/tree-theft-on-the-rise-in-germany-as-heating-costs-increase-a-878013.html
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Sep 25, 2019 00:12
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That is why the correct solution is to produce biodiesel using a 50-million-acre patch of genetically-engineered cyanobacteria floating in the gulf of mexico
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Sep 25, 2019 00:22
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Now this is podracing
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Sep 25, 2019 00:39
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.