Of missiles, and hydrogen...

[ORAC]

Maybe NERVA will make a come back?

[Yeoman_dai]

ORAC, in my honest opinion, I really don't think that would make an effective short ranged air to air missile...

[ImageGear]

Fischer-Tropsch/JP-8 blend.

Already Happening;

Been making the stuff in Sarf Ifrica for donkey's years - it's what happens when the plug gets pulled on your essentials.

C-17 flight uses synthetic fuel blend

Imagegear

[Double Zero]

When I want my essentials pulled I have someone more suitable in mind, Ta !

As for fishing, Top Bunker, I was only hoping you were, rather than test flying such kit...

Back to serious, before I can contact my chum again, does anyone know what form jet engine coal dust comes in ?

I'm not likely to use it, just curious.

[brokenlink]

Phantoms Running on Coal Dust

Having seen some of the cr@! come out of the back end of a Toon over the years I thought they were running on coal dust!

[HighTow]

A bit of back to the future here, but according to this article the US are looking at coal, something the Germans had a look at in the last days of WW2. Thanks to Mrs T we still have lots of the stuff!

I recall reading somewhere that the National Coal Board labs at Stoke Orchard were doing something like this in the 60's/70's with a view to powering Concorde with it.

[green granite]

An article about a coal fired Cadillac built in 1978: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/au...pagewanted=all

[Airborne Aircrew]

We all know that soon, the worlds supply of oil will run out, or at least become so expensive to get out of the earth that drilling becomes pointless. At this point, we must stop using Aviation Fuel.

No we don't "all know". Please provide the source of that little tidbit...

[Airborne Aircrew]

if all countries consumed oil on a per capita basis equal to that of the United States

But they don't do they? You probably haven't spent any time trying to determine the political leaning and/or funding of said esteemed institution either.

For a first post that could be best described as naive.

[Fareastdriver]

We all know that soon, the worlds supply of oil will run out,

I seem to remember the same statements coming out in the seventies. From what I know, after thirty years in the business, the problem will not effect us, our children or our grandchildren.

[Donkey497]

Alcohol is probably a more viable fuel currently. It's readily transported by existing infrastructure, can be brewed relatively easily by existing Infrastructue. Like current AVTUR, it clould even be designed to pretty much put out a naked flame, rather than be consumed, as happens currently for bulk liquid sprayed onto a flame.

Hydrogen - Leaks too easily, Aluminium & high strength Steel are embrittled by it, it needs low temps or high pressure to liquify it & it's not got an inherently high energy density when liquid in any case. Liquifying it is very energy intensive & would need a lot of infrastructure put in place to handle it. So not too great a solution at present.

Coal Dust. Any hydrocarbon or carbohydrate in powder form can be used to run a gas turbine, but it is normal to blow the dust into the turbine using the combustion air immediately after it is pulverised. Not something that is readily adapted to an airborne set up. Pre-pulverised fuel in dry form also has a significant danger of explosion in the presence of static electricity and a fairly big tendency to clog up when it gets damp - both hazards & facts of life at 35000 feet.

Unless of course we can get fusion power to work, at small scale and be safe, reliable and radiation free.

I think we already know the winner in the short term.....

[drustsonoferp]

I seem to remember the same statements coming out in the seventies. From what I know, after thirty years in the business, the problem will not effect us, our children or our grandchildren.

"Soon" as used here is potentially misleading, but as worldwide hydrocarbon use is still increasing and current estimates put peak production in c10 years or so, I'd say that is certainly soon enough to worry about.

We have an existing infrastructure eg for fuel for cars that cannot be changed overnight and we're reliant on our ability to use that infrastructure. If it must change to something entirely new it will have to begin changing in the rather near future.

Presuming that there will inevitably be things we cannot live without or easily change our sources for, the remaining hydrocarbons will need to be carefully assigned, and so movement away from non-renewable sources should be encouraged sooner rather than later.

I think the ultra high fuel prices of the other year probably did more for environmentalism than years of campaigning: people sharing cars more; buying smaller cars; driving more slowly to economise; tyres sold to promote efficiency; people (anecdotally at least) driving less often; sales of small but significant numbers of electric lorries for use in cities. And all this in the space of about a year to save the contents of their back pocket.

I'd love to see a big push on electric cars, but our current electricity supply will not cope with mass demand.

[Airborne Aircrew]

I'd love to see a big push on electric cars, but our current electricity supply will not cope with mass demand.

Unless you can move to a nuclear based infrastructure for the generation of electricity, (which has already been sufficiently demonized by the loony left), then, (as the loony left fail to comprehend), electric vehicles don't save carbon emissions they simply transfer the emissions, (and therefore everything the "Greens" whine about), to a big power station somewhere else. But far be it from me to point out that they can't understand that it takes the same amount of energy to move a given mass a given distance and that energy, (be it created in a distant power station or an internal combustion engine within the vehicle), required to do so is the same. But if the car seems cleaner then the idiots are happy I suppose...

[Wander00]

Post 33.

Always been my argument: the only way of being more "green" is making the conversion from fuel to electricity more efficient-I am not sure that is the case with electricity generated centrally from carbon sources and then distributed - there must be inefficiencies at the power staion and across the transmission system, probably as great if not greater than those between the engine and transmission of a road vehicle. Mass (ie public) transport is obviously more efficient, but does not solve the bits of the journey beyond the terminus, which is why we all like the car so much.

[cockney steve]

As told to me by a Chartered Engineer,who used to run power-stations........ the way forward is Nuclear, coal-fired is around 45% efficiency,max. All other fuels have their drawbacks.......Nuclear has high efficiency and high power-density. whilst it is unarguable there is a "legacy waste" problem, the UK has underground storage in the Cheshire salt-mine workings that are safe, secure and could not concievably be filled during the existence of the human race.
fossil fuels are finite, including Gas, renewables would need ridiculously large tracts of cultivation and a huge transport infrastructure to feed the generator (notice how the much-vaunted coppice-Willow fired "future" has gone quiet?)-- likewise the wood-fired idea, to be fed with waste-wood carted from Canada

Coal is high-density wood-in the same way that a Transit-van of spuds will make an Artic. lorry-load of crisps, so a (possibly) 20-fold BULK VOLUME of wood is required in place of coal.

Windpower is the biggest con perpetrated the world's current installation will ALWAYS show a net energy-loss, even before scrappage and restitution of the environs ruined by the masts, foundations and infrastructure.

Photovoltaic depends on a more enviro-friendly Cell being invented and more efficient storage-media (Li Poly cells are a large leap forward, but there's a long way to go yet.

I do not disagree with the need to prioritise our uses of dwindling finite resources,but we're nowhere near crisis-point yet.

when "Big Oil" forms a research association to develop alternatives AND pours in serious money, THEN those alive at that time, need to start worrying.-meanwhile,carry on as normal.
Big Oil will manipulate demand via price,in order to maximise their "take"-a lesson the Arabs learned in the 60's